Categories
Real-life money lessons

Our homemade school lunch frugal fail

During his years in elementary school, J packed his lunch almost every day. When he started middle school a few months ago, he wanted to buy; apparently the food was THE BEST EVER.

We started putting money on his lunch account but found it going really fast — and honestly it’s because we weren’t paying attention.

Categories
Start saving young

How I streamline my son’s allowance, interest and recurring payments

It’s been a few years that I’ve been working with my son on personal finance. Like with other aspects of life, things have gotten a bit complicated.

  • He gets an allowance — a percentage goes to his FamZoo card and the rest to his savings (it sounds simple, but the latter has an extra step)
  • He earns interest on his savings
  • He’s now paying ME for recurring expenses including his cell phone and Duolingo Plus

Maybe you’ve experienced this with your own finances — you put different processes in place and over time, you can’t remember how the whole process works and are afraid to touch any one thing.

Categories
Real-life money lessons

Yes, your 11 year old can learn to budget

For over a year, our family has been using FamZoo. Now that my kiddo is starting middle school, I felt it was a good time to introduce budgeting. (Okay, actually I was really excited!)

I started with a paper budget that had five categories. That lasted for all of a hot second before we ran out of space — even kids need more than five categories.

Enter YNAB. I’ve used it for years (you’ve heard me love on it before) — why not have J give it a shot? It also seemed like a good time because he could use the YNAB app on his new cell phone.

Categories
Financial role models

4 Quick ways to be a good money role model for your kids

Being a parent can be tough. You want so much better for your kids than you had and want them to be so much more informed than you were.

But how can you be a good role model (especially when it comes to money), when you’ve made mistakes and aren’t 100% perfect on the topic?

Don’t worry — you still can be. Here are four quick ways you can be a good money role model RIGHT NOW.

Categories
Money mindset

A recap of The Strangest Secret and how your kids can learn with audio

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!