Helping your kids get a Financial Education

Helping your kids get a Financial Education

Do you have kids? If you do how do you prepare them for when they become adults and have to support them selves? This is a hard topic for so many parents. They struggle with things such as how much allowance do I give? Do I pay for the kids car expense? Do I pay for the kids college? Do I give them money for there first house?

Who has the crystal ball?
It would be so nice to know what to do when dealing with our kids and money. So many of my friends all try different ways to help give there kids financial responsibility. I suggest a good book to read on this subject is by Robert Kiyosaki called "Rich Kid Smart Kid, Giving your child a Financial Head Start". In the book he has some great advice and examples that I feel most people can learn from.

Thinking outside the box
I know I love my kids and want to help them as much as I can. But I do want them to be able to think out side the box and be able to survive when they are an adult if they are faced with job loss, medical condition, divorce or other major financial hazard.

I know in my years of marriage we faced having two kids and medical bills, but we did not ask for money from anyone. We paid for four years of college when we had two kids and yet did not asked for money from anyone. Thanks to the help of Student Loans. When we bought our first house we did not ask anyone for help with money. When we got a divorce and trying to have two households on the same income coming in, we did not ask anyone for money.

But yet I have heard stories of three different familes just this week of there High School kids or College Kids wanting money. They all said the kids acted like it was the parents responsiblty, it was the kids right to have the parents pay for there needs.

When at Financial Health and talking with friends, I have met many people who taught there kids money lessons by not giving any money. I have seen kids that survived with out having a car of there own to drive in High School. But yet some kids feel they will not survive without a car. What will happen when they are an adult and they lose there job, there car gets repossed, what will they do? How will they survive? I have so many situations I know of from cars to allowance to college expenses.

My hope for my kids is that they learned how to be Finacial Free. That they learn to live with in there means. They learn to live debt free. They learn to be able to adabt to any challenges life may throw at them, like job loss, business going bankrupt, foreclosure of there house, being robbed or divorce. I would hope that they never face any of those, but odds are that they will face at least one.

I have heard about and met people who have been dead broke, job less, bankrupt, house reposed and then a year later they were back finacially strong. How could that happen? They didn't give up, they were resourceful and never thought they were broke, they were just low in cash at the time. I know of a woman who had two young kids, her husband left them with no fowarding address. She had no job, no savings, etc. With in a year she owned a house of her own and serveral rental units. She was resourceful, she didn't let people tell her she was broke. She keep trying and didn't give up. She didn't ask her parents for help since they were passed away.

Kids and Shopping
When I heard a High School kid asking there parents for more money so they could go shopping go tme thinking of Rich Kid Smart Kid book. This High School kid already had $90 of their own money and still wanted the parents to give more money and then got upset when they wouldn't. When I was in school my folks didn't have money, I would not have asked them for money. I worked a job and I mowed lawns and then in the winter shoveled driveways. In the book he tells of a story where a kid wanted new golf clubs, his dad said no, but challeged him to find a way to make money and come ask him for a loan. The boy decided on getting a gum ball machine for the golf course pro shop. After he empted the money for a few weeks the boy saw the opprotunity, so he borrowed more money and got more machines, then he paid off those machines with the money coming in and once paid off he would buy more machines. By the time the boy was in high school he had a employee working for him filling the machines and emptying the money. He now could buy golf clubs on his own if he wanted or a golf cart or more. Thanks to his dad by not buying him the golf clubs at age 13 and challeging him to make his own money.

I have seen kids worried about starting life with $50,000 in student loans. That is just a price for there Finacial education. Once they start working or start there own business, if they are Finacially Independant and Finacally educated they will pay off that amount in no time. I know I paid off $26,000 in a short amount of time after a divorce and while paying child support. Anything is possible, it is a attitude.

Wo how important is your kids Finacial Education. Do you talk with them. A great family game is Monopoly to play with them. Because someday they will be in the real world playing Monopoly or working for someone. I would say try to get your kids to read "Millionaire Next Door" book and "Rich Dad Poor Dad" book and "7 Habits to Highly Effective People" book. Give them a head start while in High School. Offer them a incentive to read them and then quiz them over the book and ask what they learned.

Kids will say things like you don't love them, you don't care. But anyone who has kids, you do love them. As a parent you want them to be strong, healthy, safe and financially independent. It is hard for them to be Financially independent if mom and dad keeps giving them money. I pray for these things for my kids, I hope they have kids someday, they are happily married and stick through hard times in marriage and in life. I hope they never give up and keep swinging. I really suggest for parents to read the book called "Rich Kid Smart Kid". Let me know your stories and thoughts. Have a great day.