National Bank of MomThe holidays are a great opportunity to teach your kids about giving back. Whether items, money or time, giving to those less fortunate not only helps them but it feels good.
Think about what’s important to your family and how you can make an impact this holiday season.
There’s a great personal finance book by Helaine Olen and Harold Pollack — The Index Card: Why Personal Finance Doesn’t Have to Be Complicated. The idea is that “everything you need to know about managing your money could fit on an index card.”
Olen and Pollack aren’t the only ones who have created an index card full of money advice. Bill from FamZoo has one — The 5 Things I Want To Teach My Kids About Money Fit on a 4×6 Index Card. I also love these slide shows from the New York Times — one and another.
Reading all of the different ideas and loving the simplicity of the project, I decided that it was time to create my own.
I just started reading EntreLeadership by financial guru, Dave Ramsey. Early on in the book, Dave talks a bit about his childhood.
My parents were in the real estate business and were bent on tutoring their children by listening to motivational tapes in the car… They said it would be good for us to learn to dream, to think big, and to know that we could be anything we wanted to be. At twelve years old, all I wanted to be was somewhere else other than stuck in the backseat of that hot car, listening to Earl Nightingale’s deep voice. He sounded like God himself, droning on about how “you become what you think about; this is the strangest secret.”
I also realize the gift my parents gave my sister and me, because I am convinced that a lot of my personal success in so many areas of my life can be traced back to being in the backseat of that Chevy Impala. As a captive audience, I learned that you have to dream and you have to do something about making those dreams happen.
Dave Ramsey, EntreLeadership
What a great idea — playing audiobooks in the car!
Today I’m starting a new series called Letters from Mom. At 10, there are only so many money lessons I can teach and that J can practice. However, there are things he’ll need to know later, and that’s what I want to focus on today.
Dear J,
I’m hoping that by the time you’re older, you’ll be very financially healthy.
The markers of financial health and success (in my opinion) are:
But financial health alone won’t give you the happy, fulfilling life I wish for you. There are several other areas that are important.
10 years old is a great age to teach kids how to earn extra money — they’re still young enough to listen to you, but old enough to do some actual work. Here’s the story of J’s first side hustle — selling Christmas cookies to family and friends.
