Weekly Family Finance Picks (#16)

We’re constantly scouring the Internet looking for articles related to family finances and teaching kids good personal finance habits. You can visit the FamZoo delicious page to see our ever growing list of family finance bookmarks. Each week, we pick our favorite articles from the previous 7 days and post them here.

Oops! I’m a bit late getting the picks out this time. Sorry ’bout that! Here are our favorites from the preceding week:

If You Give a 7-year-old $100…

by Julie Meyers Pron on Just Precious

I loved Julie’s story about her Mother-Son bonding weekend in New York City with her 7 year old and ...“The Benjamin” — aka the $100 bill. It’s a funny, instructive account of her son’s transformation from spendthrift to saver (with a little clever assistance from Mom & Dad). A great teachable moment.

Three Money Lessons From Teenagers

by Laura F. Dogu on Forbes Personal Finance Blog

This is a follow-on to Laura’s Six Ways to Teach Your Children About Money post that we featured here a couple weeks back. The sequel post was prompted by her own kids. They came up with a few savvy recommendations that Mom missed the first time around. I’d say the Dogu kids are on the right personal finance track. Well done, Mom.

The Family Department Of Taxation & Finance

by Bella on The Truth about Motherhood

Check out Bella’s unique allowance and chore system which she dubs “The Family Department of Taxation & Finance”. Read about how she weaves together a set of components — expected tasks, behavior dings, extra job opportunities, and mom grants — to form a creative financial education system for her child.

Oh yeah, and here’s the other cool thing: Bella was able to implement her custom system in FamZoo using a clever combination of accounts and checklists. Nice!

A Peek In The Lab: iPhone App (Phase 1)

Lots of folks have asked about iPhone and Droid versions of FamZoo. Yep, we’re working on those right now!

We’re keeping things pretty simple in our first versions. You’ll be able to browse account balances as well as review, add, edit, and delete transactions (deposits and withdrawals).

Want to see our work-in-progress? Watch this video:

In the meantime, did you know you can communicate with FamZoo from your mobile phone right now using simple text messages? All you have to do is add your mobile phone number to your member settings and text one of our FamZoo Quick Commands to the phone number 41411.

Don’t know about our Quick Commands? Visit the Mobile tab and look in the right side bar for a quick reference. Try’em out right there on the same page using our mobile phone simulator. Quick tip: try creating shortcuts for your most common commands. For example, using a shortcut, I can check my son’s spending account by just texting FAMZ followed by his first initial. Really quick and easy.

Weekly Family Finance Picks (#15)

We’re constantly scouring the Internet looking for articles related to family finances and teaching kids good personal finance habits. You can visit the FamZoo delicious page to see our ever growing list of family finance bookmarks. Each week, we pick our favorite articles from the previous 7 days and post them here.

The picks for this week are:

Delayed Gratification and the Secret to Will Power

by Jessica Bosari on Wise Bread

Jessica’s article touches on the famous “marshmallow experiment” and the positive side-effects of being able to delay gratification. When it comes to saving, do we have to develop super-human will power to defeat our natural instant gratification impulses? Not necessarily. Jessica suggests it’s more about using some simple tricks to distract yourself from your spending impulses. FamZoo uses these same techniques to help parents build solid saving habits in their kids.

Philosophy vs. Reality

by Miriam Kamin on Woulda Coulda Shoulda Blog

I really enjoyed Mir’s witty, well-written post about her new allowance approach and the benefits of having an automated, online, cash-less system. She shares some entertaining commentary on the age-old question of whether to tie chores to allowance. Her approach: she delivers regular allowance independent of chores, but docks the kids for non-compliance. I’ve always rather liked that middle-ground model.

For their allowance system, they happen to use a hand-crafted solution built using Google Docs by her “handsome and wonderful—albeit geeky” husband “Otto”. That’s completely OK with me though. Hey, you gotta respect “geeky” spouses! Whether you use a packaged solution like FamZoo or roll your own using anything from spreadsheets to pencil & paper, the key thing is to have a system and to use it in a way that consistently reinforces your family’s values.

What Kids Should Know About Money At 9, 13, 18 and 23

by Dan Kadlec on Time.com

Dan provides some nice detailed advice for teaching key money lessons as your child matures through the elementary, middle-school, high school and college years. Check out the advice sections at each stage, and see how you’re doing as a money mentor.

Bonus Pick

Got a few minutes to fritter away? Check out this “Financial Game of Life” animation from BillShrink.com. Just click on “Spin”.