10 Money Management Tips for Kids
Money Management Tips for Kids
Financial experts teach us to plan a budget and live within our means. They show us how to manage finances and create a stable financial future. They also teach us how to use credit cards without incurring huge interest and overwhelming credit card debt. Let’s look at what these financial experts teach their children and what valuable lessons they put in practice within their own families.
1. Manage Your Money: Earn to spend:
Financial experts believe that kids should learn the value of a dollar. Most financial experts encourage their kids to work and earn at an early age. It may be simple jobs around the house like pulling weeds in the yard or vacuuming the carpet, or even selling to friends and family but kids need to learn to earn before they learn to spend. This will teach them to value work.
2. Money Management is all about Choices:
Financial experts take their children shopping so that they learn to spend money wisely. Often a child will ask for something impractical, just because they see it on the shelf. The key is to instill in them the idea that there are choices to live a healthy financial life. We need to help them understand that your income is limited and your wants are unlimited, so you need to have a proper plan regarding how to spend your hard earned money so that you get the best use out of it instead of buying it all.
3. Gratification can pay off:
When a kid earns money he needs to have the gratification of spending it as well. They should be able to spend a portion of whatever they earn any way he or she chooses. This teaches the benefits of money and hard work.
4. Money Management includes Savings:
Kids should be encouraged in the money management skill of saving a portion of what they earn. They should have a pot of money stored away that is all their own and should be motivated to save 10% of the earnings from their jobs. This saved be saved for a larger item that they really want like a bicycle or electronic gadget or game. See the article on the Jars method of Saving for more information.
5. Money Management and Giving Back:
Kids need to learn early the value of giving back and tithing. It is an important principle, most money managers believe that if we only hoard our money and don’t give any back to others, we become “financially consitpated” most truly rich people are also good givers. In addition, around Christmas time, children can be encouraged to give old toys to children who are less fortunate. Doing this, will help children feel blessed and help them to realize that not every kid out there is as well-off. Continue reading
5 Costs That May Increase When You Retire
Retirement Costs
When planning for retirement costs, financial planners often calculate costs decreasing during retirement but there are some costs that will increase in retirement. It is important to plan for them. There will be a number of costs to consider when you’re approaching retirement. Budgeting may be easier because many costs will decrease like commuting, work clothes, lunches, dinners out when you are too busy to cook but there are at least 5 basic costs of living, which increase when people retire. These include:
1. Home/Property Maintenance Costs
The good news is that you will have more time to maintain your house but the bad news is all those repairs you’ve been putting off will cost money for materials even if you do the work yourself. It’s very likely that the cost of maintaining your home will increase during your retirement years, especially if you bought it many years ago and have been living in it for a while. The cost of home maintenance and improvement usually rises after retirement due to the age of the house and the need to replace things like the roof and the water heater, furnace or heat pump, etc.
How to Save Energy in the Laundry
Save Energy when doing Laundry
Whether you’re planning to buy new laundry appliances or already have them, it is very important for you to know how to save energy while doing your laundry. Doing the laundry is one of the most energy intensive tasks in your home. It is right behind heating and air-conditioning and heating water (which is actually part of doing laundry). Saving energy while doing laundry will help drastically reduce large utility bills to a more manageable size.
Here are 9 Tips on how you can conserve resources and keep laundry energy usage at a minimum:
It`s ISA Season In The UK
Individual Savings Accounts
Everyone likes to save money and keep as much away from the taxman as possible, so individual savings accounts are a popular option in Britain. It’s ISA season where banks and other ISA companies dangle great deals and better interest rates in an attempt to woo us to their stock or cash ISA.
At its heart, an ISA is simply a savings account where the interest accrued is not able to be taxed. In a traditional account, the interest is taxed at about 20 percent and higher for those with bigger pockets.
There are two primary types of individual savings accounts : cash and stock and shares. Continue reading
Is a Retirement Annuity the Answer for your Retirement Savings?
Retirement Annuity
You’ve probably heard that investment plans and financial schemes like, IRAs and 401 (k), are the best ways to plan for retirement. This might be true in most cases, but not always. For instance if you have invested your maximum contribution for the year to your retirement account and you’re seeking to add a bit more more. What can you do? In this case, among others, investing in a retirement annuity might be the Estate Planning solution you are looking for.
Understanding the Concept
Annuities are usually a “tax-deferred” investment. The idea is simple, all you need to do is invest a cash lump sum or make monthly installment payments to the annuity issuer (usually an insurance company) in return they will give a payment to you (or your beneficiary) usually after your retirement. The period of funding the investment is referred to as the accumulation stage and the period of receiving the payments is refererd to as the distribution phase.
The Advantages of Investing through an Annuity
Although the initial investment is after taxes, the earnings that are accumulated in your annuity are tax-deferred until you withdraw the amount from your account. This means that Continue reading
Save on Automobile Insurance
Whenever you go shopping, you probably look for the best deal. The same can be true for automobile insurance. Research and careful decision making, can pay off in finding the best deal especially when it comes to searching for automobile auto insurance quotes.
Using an insurance agent (either independent, or with a company) is the traditional way for getting an insurance quote. You can call them, or sometimes an independent agent will visit your home. In either case you are guided through the process of buying automobile insurance. The agent may look at your credit score, review your driving record, and ask what kind of vehicle(s) you are driving. The next step is to decide on the coverages that you need for your vehicle. You will also choose the deductible. This is the portion of a claim that is not covered by the insurance provider. It is the amount you pay out of pocket before the insurance company will cover any expenses.
The deductible amount is your choice. You can choose a high or low deductible. Coverages and deductible amount are the two most important elements that decide the price of your auto insurance quote. The more coverage you choose, the higher the auto insurance premium will be. Conversely, a high deductible will lower the quoted premium.
There is another way to get Continue reading
Online Calculators Can Help Increase Your Savings
By Alex Summers
We’re all interested in saving as much money as possible. While the best online banks will help you plan properly for retirement or future college tuition expenses through their own services, several other online references will help you find better ways to save your money. A few of those are online calculators including:
Credit Card Repayment Calculator
Many of us a have a few credit cards, and if you are just starting out in your young adult life, there is a good chance that you may have racked up some credit card debt. While we all need a credit card or two to build and maintain our credit, it is very easy for our credit card charges to get out of hand if remained unchecked.
While paying off your balance each month is ideal, if you have a bit of credit card debt and are unable to pay off your balances immediately, figure out the best repayment plan possible so that you minimize the amount of interest that you will pay in the end. If you are already behind… picking a plan that will help you pay off your debt as quickly as possible will help you save a great deal of money over
Teaching Children How to Save Money – But Also How To Spend And To Give
By Alex Summers
When it comes to children and money, the traditional perspective is that kids need to be taught how to save. Parents will give their son or daughter a piggy bank, hand them a quarter once a week, and then instruct their child to save those quarters until the bank becomes full and stuffed. At that point the money can be spent however the child chooses, but this is not the emphasis of the exercise. The main point is that the youngster learns to save.
Saving money is certainly a valuable and worthwhile life lesson. But Continue reading
The Year of the Roth
By Terry Coxon, Casey Research
Until 2010 arrived, you couldn’t have a Roth IRA if your income exceeded certain limits. That restriction is gone. Now anyone with a traditional IRA can convert it to a Roth. But should you?
Background
Roth or traditional, the central advantage of an IRA is tax deferral. Earnings accumulate and compound free of current tax, so the total value grows faster.
An IRA is fed by annual contributions made out of employment income (salary, wages, and fees). With a traditional IRA, the employment income you contribute escapes current tax. Tax time for the contributions and their earnings comes when you withdraw the money. With a Roth IRA, you pay tax on the income you contribute, but the contributions and earnings eventually can be withdrawn tax-free (provided the Roth is at least five years old when you take the money out). Continue reading
