4 Big Things Your Teen Can Save For

When it comes to big expenses, most of us parents are giving our teens too much credit and too little credit, all at the same time. How so? On the one hand, we’re giving our teens too much credit (in the form of dollars) by covering big ticket items for them — often when we can’t even afford them ourselves. On the other hand, we’re giving our teens too little credit (in terms of respect for their capabilities) by assuming they can’t handle paying for at least a portion of these major expenses on their own.

This dawned on me last week while reading Smart Money, Smart Kids. (Why am I reading the new book by Dave Ramsey and his daughter Rachel Cruze? See the first post in this series here.)

Here are 4 big expenses that your teen is perfectly capable of paying for, despite your assumptions otherwise:

Striking a Balance with Kids and Money

The truth is somewhere in between.

That phrase comes to mind a lot while parenting. (If you’ve ever sorted out the claims of two bickering children, you know what I mean.)

It also comes to mind when teaching kids about money.

Spending. Saving.

Limits. Leniency.

It isn’t just one or the other. It’s about balance, and that theme shines strongly in the Spending chapter from the new book Smart Money Smart Kids. (Why am I reading the new book by Dave Ramsey and his daughter Rachel Cruze? See the first post in this series here.) In fact, I was pleasantly surprised to see the theme of balance so prominently represented throughout the book. Why? Let’s be honest, Dave Ramsey has a reputation for being, well,... harsh. But Dave has a real soft spot when it comes to kids. As he puts it:

FamZoo Security Update

As you may be aware, major websites and internet security experts made news this week by announcing a security flaw in a commonly used piece of internet security software called OpenSSL. You can get more details here:

http://www.businessinsider.com/heartbleed-bug-explainer-2014-4

OpenSSL is used by banks, merchants, and other service providers, including FamZoo, to encrypt information as it passes back and forth between your browser and a website. This week it was announced that the "Heartbleed" flaw was inadvertently introduced into OpenSSL in May of 2012.

The providers that handle our hosting, payment, and card processing services have taken steps to address the flaw on all of their servers. We continue to track the industry response to the situation and will keep our FamZoo families posted on any additional steps that we take.

What should you do? OpenSSL is used in roughly two-thirds of the websites on the Internet. Security experts recommend that you change your passwords periodically even under normal conditions; now is probably a good time to start that good practice! Here's the FamZoo FAQ entry on changing FamZoo passwords:

http://blog.famzoo.com/p/famzoo-faqs.html#edit-member

Please let us know if you have any questions.

Connecting the Dots Between Money and Work for Your Kids

Where does money come from? That’s a silly question — just ask any little kid and you’ll get the obvious answer:

“It pops out of a machine that my mom visits.”

“It lives on a magical card in my dad’s wallet.”

“It comes from my mom’s iPhone.”

Uh oh...