Haley's Weekly Family Finance Picks (#7)

This is entry #7 in a weekly summer series by “guest blogger” and FamZoo summer intern Haley Dwight.

My top three family finance picks for this week are:

What Age for Which Chores? by Lisa Belkin from the New York Times Parenting Blog

Are you thinking it’s time to make your kids responsible for some chores around the house? Check out Lisa’s post on the subject. Be sure to browse through the comments from parents. You’ll find lots of excellent suggestions and amusing stories.

In the picture to the right, you can see what happened to my littlest brother when he didn’t make his bed last week!

Do Your Kids Think Money Grows On Trees? by Shannon & Brian Exford for ABC50

Do you find that your kids ask to buy more stuff during the summer? More “hanging out” and less school often means more temptations to make purchases. As a result, Shannon and Brian suggest that summer is the perfect time to teach your kids to be “smart consumers”. They encourage parents to:

• Use an allowance as a teaching tool.
• Set clear rules and expectations by talking through typical problems and solutions ahead of time.
• Let children learn some “painful lessons of overspending or remorseful spending”.

Check out the article to see their nice list of 8 questions to discuss with your child.

My brothers and I have a clear understanding of the terms of our allowances because our Dad had discussions with us before we started receiving money. We know there are no advances (well, very few at least) and that we cannot buy any inappropriate items (no cigs, no tats! ;-).

Money and Kids by Tony Chen from Savvy Daddy

Tony runs SavvyDaddy.com. It’s a site that gives Dads resources for “raising kids with strong character and savvy life skills”. In his recent post, Tony shares 9 tips for teaching your kids about money based on an interview with Susan Beacham of Money Savvy Generation. Click here to see Tony’s tips.

Money Savvy Generation makes a number of products for teaching money management basics — like their 4 part piggy bank. It serves as a nice, concrete introduction for youngsters to the basic concepts of spending, saving, giving, and investing.

Once your kids get savvy enough to overflow their piggy banks, you might want to transition them to FamZoo virtual accounts. FamZoo is a nice warm-up to online banking and the realities of an increasingly cash-less society.