Guest Post: 4 Money Management Games for Kids

Note from Wil:
This is a post from Maria Rainer, a self-described “blog junkie”. Maria seems to be writing right in my wheel-house with articles on online education, online degrees, and this latest effort of hers which is a great idea.

I like to include the writings and opinions of as many people as I can, regardless of whether or not I agree with someone’s opinion. If you want to contribute to Finance For Youth: The Blog, send me an email:
wil@finance4youth.com.

Money management—as one of the most recent posts has demonstrated, it’s a principle that is rather difficult for some children to grasp. And like already mentioned in the previous article, if money management skills are not taught at an early age, your child can suffer many consequences and hardships in their future—they can get into debt after college, be forced to barely survive pay check-to-pay check, or ruin their credit early on, preventing them from acquiring a house or car. While open communication and positive affirmation for saving are great techniques to teach your child about finances, another way is discreetly disguise money management lessons via games. The games listed below (which vary from board games, online games and iPhone apps) are designed to teach your children all about their finances, including money management, debt and even the consequences of bad credit—all in a fun and engaging way.

1. Pay Day.

 

This game may have been originally created in 1975, but the lessons that your child can secretly learn while having a blast with family and friends is still impactful today. Of course the game has had a huge facelift and is modern-looking, but it still teaches the traditional lessons as the original: children learn about employment, loans and interest, as well as the importance of paying bills and handling unexpected expenses. Price: $14.98 on Amazon.

 

2. The Debt-Free Game.

If the title didn’t blatantly explain the premise of the game as it is, the Debt-Free Game is a board game designed to teach both children and adults about all different aspects of finance, including creating emergency funds, saving for college, paying off credit card debt and car notes. It even teaches children how to differentiate the difference between “wants” and “needs.” The first person to complete their “money tree” using a set of dimes is dubbed the winner. This game is exclusively sold online. Price: $22

3. The Bad Credit Hotel.

The Bad Credit Hotel, which is a by-product of the U.S. Treasury Department, is designed to teach children about, well “bad credit.” Based in a haunted-like hotel, players must use smart-credit card practices and techniques to build up their credit and move on to the next stage. It has “clues” that tell players what they need to do while simultaneously educating players on the importance of credit. Once the player earns a total score of 850 (which is a real-life perfect credit score) he or she wins the game. Price: Free

4. Save! The Game.
Lastly the interactive iPhone app Save! The Game is also a great game to teach your child about finance-smarts. As the name suggests, this game takes children into a fantasy world in order to teach children about the importance of saving money and avoiding impulse shopping: players who can dodge the evil “iwannas” successfully and make it to the bank wins the game. Price: Free

 

 

 

 

 

Author Bio:

Maria Rainier is a freelance writer and blog junkie. She is currently a resident blogger at First in Education where she writes about education, online colleges, online degrees etc. In her spare time, she enjoys square-foot gardening, swimming, and avoiding her laptop.

When financial education stops working

Here at F4Y:TB, we tend to focus more on avoiding financial mishaps. That is by design. I believe that my energies are best spent helping young people learn the skills and gain the tools needed to avoid as many financial setbacks as possible. Because of the time I’ve spent in the financial field, I don’t have a cautionary tale about when I hit the bottom or how I clawed my way to where I am financially. My personal money story is much like the majority of people’s. If you are looking for the other kind of narrative, there are many awesome bloggers out there who fit the bill. What I provide is professional advice, accurate information, catchy music, gratuitous pictures of excessively cute animals, and hopefully a laugh here and there, all while trying to make sure you don’t make the mistakes that get so many others in trouble.

All that being said, it happens to many people every day. Maybe you made the colossal error of trying to with the credit arbitrage game and missed a payment because you forgot about it. Maybe you “won” that thing from e-bay that you don’t really need, but you kinda thought it might be cool so you bid on it just for fun but not really. Or maybe you lost a job, or got sick, or worst of all, you just got unlucky. Whatever happened, you are now financially screwed and all the “spend less than you earn” just isn’t helping right now! So what do you do?

Whatever happened, you are now financially screwed, and all the “spend less than you earn” just isn’t helping right now!

First, don’t panic! Chances are that you are already panicking, so your first goal is to stop panicking. When you panic, you are more likely to make a wrong choice that makes things worse than if you face your problems calmly, with reason rather than emotion. While we’re at it, are you really in as bad a situation as you initially thought, or did you panic and things are bad, but not yet drastic?

Second, if you find yourself in a worst case scenario position, you have to do some serious assessment to see where things went wrong. Some PF guys will say it doesn’t matter where things went wrong, you are trying to fix that they went wrong. I get the impulse, but this is a short-sighted way of looking at things, and chances are good that you will wind up back to doing wherever it is you are trying to stop. Instead, look at where things started to unravel. What happened? What changed? Was it something you did or had control over, or was this something that was going to happen, and nothing you could do would stop it? Honesty is key here. Lying to yourself won’t work. You’ll know you’re lying, and you are only delaying your ability to help yourself out of a serious problem.

Third, STOP! Whatever happened to put you in bad shape, if your actions or inaction contributed to your current situation, stop doing whatever it was that you were doing. At this point I’m not saying to do the opposite, all I’m saying is to stop what you are doing.

Next, look at your alternatives. A lot. Most people, when drowning, will reach for anything to pull them back to the surface. If you are actually in the water, that’s just fine, but if you are drowning in debt, or in some other financial issue, most people find that the rope they thought they were reaching for was actually a thick chain connected to an anchor that will pull them even further under. You are already in a f%*#ed-up situation. Waiting a day or two to finally get yourself to break a very difficult cycle won’t do much more damage. It will do significantly less than some of the impulse decisions many people make to get themselves out of a mess. Do the research in to all your options, not just the ones that seem easiest or quickest or even least painful. Sometimes, suffering through something is a viable option, and sometimes even the best option ultimately.

Finally, communicate! I get that financial problems can be embarrassing. This is something that seems so simple that you should be able to breeze through it. It isn’t. And even if it were, whenever a crisis hits, communication is the key to surviving it, even if you can deal with things on your own. Find people who know their own stuff and communicate with them. I’m not saying to ask them to bail you out; in fact I’m specifically saying you shouldn’t ask people to bail you out of financial problems. When you do, you put that person in an awkward position which will affect your relationship. Look, if someone can help you and wants to help you, they’ll make the offer all on their own, without you asking for it. Be careful who you choose to communicate with, however. You want to confide in people who are a) worthy of your confidence, b) successfully away from the type of situation you are experiencing, and c) willing to be a shoulder to lean on. If you can find one of those people, you are in great shape.

We’ve all heard that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, and that is true almost all the time. Sometimes all the prevention in the world just isn’t enough and you need to find a cure. Keep in mind that finance is not a simple thing, that success is not simple, and that fixing your situation probably won’t be simple either. There is a reason that medicine tastes like it does.

If you find yourself truly falling financially, there isn’t a whole lot that is funny or witty.  Take a second to step back and regain your perspective and realize that there is a song this awesome exists.  Enjoy

Situations matter: Be prepared for the right thing at the right time

Quick! Name three things that are handy to always keep around! Just name the first three things you can think of.

You probably came up with a bunch of things. As I tried it, keeping in mind that I wanted to limit it to three, I came up with my Leatherman^© tool, some sort of a conveyance for water (like a cup, bowl, or pot), and a writing instrument.

Then I started to pick that idea apart.

 

What good does a pen do if I’m in the

middle of the ocean?

 

How about a pot if I’m in a crashing

airplane?

 

I realized that the three things that I thought were important, quite often, weren’t. Most of you could probably review the first 30 things on your list, instead of the first 3 and come to the same conclusion.

Pretty simple once you think of it, and there’s absolutely nothing wrong, but the truth is nothing is always useful all the time.

 

If it’s true for

 “stuff”, what

 about for financial advice?

 

Well, put simply, yes.

One problem that many people have when trying to either set things right or get out of financial problems is that their circumstances might be different that those the author had in mind when he or she came up with the advice in the first place. Because they are so desperate for success or even just progress, they follow the advice regardless of how relevant it is for their situation. They do it unquestioningly, and when they inevitably get setback or fail, they begin to blame the messenger instead of the fact that they were following great advice, just at a different time.

Is there any way to make the professionals’ advice useful all the time?

Well, if you have the kind of access that allows you to be in personal contact with somebody, you can ask the question you need answered and the advice given should be useful. Of course, if you had direct access to a personal finance professional and you were still able to manage getting yourself into trouble, perhaps advice isn’t what you need.

You could also hope that the person you get your advice from is prolific enough to have covered several topics from several different directions that you can find their thoughts on almost any subject. This might be one of the best ways to make sure you are following the best advice at the best time. This works, as long as you are willing to do the research to find the best answers to your questions.

A third way would be to find several sources by multiple people to answer your questions. Imagine how cool it would be to have a group of advisors instead of just one. Of course, having a chorus of voices sometimes makes it more difficult to hear the one you need when you need a quick answer.

Regardless of how you do it, you need to do your best to make sure that you aren’t left carrying a pen the next time you find yourself adrift in the middle of the ocean.

Speaking of having a chorus backing you up…, enjoy!

WTF about Bank Transfer Day?

November 5^th 2011 has been designated by the great and popular ones as Bank Transfer Day. Facebook has a whole group dedicated to the idea that people should close their bank accounts at major banks and open accounts at smaller, regional banks and credit unions. Because of the way the calendar works out, many financial institutions will be promoting this heavily for Friday November 4^th, which is one week from today. Many are planning hootenannies with balloon animals and popcorn carts or whatever cheesy marketing stunts their marketing whizzes can come up with. Because of my unique perspective as one who knows a little something about these things, I’ve been in many conversations about the Events of Bank Transfer Day with peers, family members, and even friends.

 

First, before I share my opinion, let’s look at what BTD is. Angered by large financial institutions that are planning on adding fees to services that have been traditionally free to customers and members, many of the same people who are occupying places in protest have decided to prove a point by closing their accounts at the large institutions in favor of smaller ones.

I’m all for free speech, and I especially am supportive of the idea of reviewing your banking situation to see if you are dealing with an institution that is best serving your needs. Further, I think Bank of America specifically sucks a very large bag of…, well, let’s just say that I’m no FAN! That being said, I’m not sure of the wisdom of jumping on a bandwagon to prove a point. I think many people make rash or quick decisions and later on regret these decisions. When changing financial institutions, the potential for real regret is very low, but not absent.

So I guess what I’m saying is go for it! I’ve talked about some things to keep in mind when considering a new financial institution HERE, and also HERE. For those of you who have read FINANCE FOR YOUTH: THE BOOK, you may remember that I dedicated a whole chapter to selecting the best financial institution. In part, what I said was this:

Do a little research first, and when you visit branch offices, go in ready

to ask questions until you are satisfied with the answers. Decide what’s

important to you when it comes to a financial institution.

And,

Treat your initial visits to a bank or credit union like a job interview for

them. Weed through any that don’t have everything you want and you will be

left with a more manageable list of candidates. If you don’t like the answers

they are giving, you can leave quickly without wasting a lot of time.

And even,

Above all, don’t feel pressured to open an account just because of a

strong sales person. There is a phrase that you might have heard before

about putting all of one’s eggs in one basket; and this is true. Look at the

benefits for you opening an account, and go with the one that offers the

most for the least money (fees!).

If you haven’t yet read Finance For Youth: The Book, what are you waiting for?!?! Get to clickin’ on the link above to get your copy and one for a friend in time for the holidays! Aside from the above, I spend a whole chapter talking about things you need to know to make a good decision about the future of your financial institution.

So, take this week to interview a new financial institution, or ten. If you are getting feed for something that should be free, find an institution that can accommodate your needs, or reevaluate your hierarchy of financial needs. Kick the tires, ask questions, be a pest. If after all that, you decide that Financial Institution X is better than Financial institution 4, switch. But don’t switch because of a protest movement. Don’t switch because some hipster on TV said you should, or because you saw a video with some character wearing a Guy Fawkes’ mask from V for Vendetta ranting about the evils of banks. Do it because it makes sense and because you will ultimately benefit from doing so.

So after spending most of this post telling you not to get all amped up by the protest movements and the protesters, I could think of no better way to illustrate the silliness of making rash decisions than by having Flava Flav and Public Enemy performing “Fight the Power”.  Enjoy!

Aiming for the right target: More important than hitting the target you aim for.

A lot of stuff going on in the news lately. Some of it has been baked into the pie for years. For example, BofA, not a favorite of mine for several reasons, has decided to add a $5.00 monthly fee for checking accounts with debit card usage. I talked about the probability of this happening almost three years ago to the date, HERE. In a nutshell, Walmart and other large companies were being charged $.44 for the ability to accept card-based payment. This ability benefitted them greatly, but they didn’t like the fee that they had to pay the banks for these benefits. They lobbied a liberal Congress and appealed to the growing hatred of all things banking to make this fee go away. Elizabeth Warren, Senate candidate and populist firebrand also believed that these fees were wrong, and targeted them in her Consumer “Protection” …thing that has less to do with protection of consumers and more to do with screwing business. But this post isn’t about that—totally.

The BofA thing is enough to piss people off all by itself. Maybe enough for some youthful ne’er-do-well to say, “Screw this, I’m gonna make my voice heard and attack the people responsible!” I might be with you on that. I might take a trip with you to Illinois to pound on the office door of Mr. Durbin. I would easily back your play to go to your local Senator and give them a piece of your mind. Hell, I might go to Harvard or wherever Mz. Warren is housing her Senatorial bid from. Any and all of these would be wise choices, as would (obviously) protesting against Walmart, 7-11, and BofA. But you know where it doesn’t make sense to protest? Wall St. Any of the other number of places holding “Occupy _____” protests (every time I see the word “occupy”, I always think of a port-a-potty or other public restroom, but that’s beside the point). The young people are definitely hitting a target, but the target they are hitting isn’t the one that caused the damage.

This is a large-scale version of hitting the wrong target, but people do it in their everyday lives as well. It’s the fat guy who decides to cut out eating green food. Easy target, nobody likes green food, but it won’t help him (as a side note, I eat a decent salad every weekday, and twice on Tuesdays). It’s the young person with the femur sticking through their nose getting pissed off that there aren’t enough good jobs for young people. These are all funny enough, but sometimes it isn’t funny or even that out of the ordinary.

I know people who do the “extreme couponing” thing, and they save money on items they will either genuinely use or are planning on donating for a good cause. I got no problem with them, as long as I’m not sitting behind them in line at the grocery store. If you are doing something healthy and beneficial for you and your family, bless you for it. But some people go overboard. On the show, “Extreme Couponing” there are people who really have a sickness. Many of the people on this show will talk about how they are doing it for financial reasons. Many will talk about past events where they were deep in debt or facing foreclosure or bankruptcy. They found that they were able to significantly reduce their grocery bills. Their stories are no different than many others who aren’t on TV. So what do these people do next? Of course, they join collectives, buy tons of newspapers for the circular inserts, some even resort to dumpster diving or worse, outright theft. They are able to get a lot of groceries for a little money, but at what cost? How much time is spent saving cents instead of making sense?

Whenever you face a problem where you need to find a target to hit, look critically at it.

1. Will hitting this target solve a problem, or will it make me feel better about myself? Both are valid goals. Sometimes we need to take the “W” because we haven’t had one in a while. You need to be honest with yourself if this is the case. Eventually, if you keep aiming for the wrong targets, regardless of whether or not you hit them, your problems start becoming bigger than they were.

2. Is the target that I need to hit within reach? Sometimes problems are too big and too far away to deal with directly. Sometimes, you have to attack them in a progression from other directions.

3. Am I even able to see the target I need to hit? We all do it. Nobody is an expert on all things. We see a problem and we attack it like we are supposed to, but what if we can’t even see a problem? Every once in a while, you need to step back and decide if you are missing a problem that you shouldn’t. Maybe this means having a deep conversation with a loved one. Maybe it means going into a temporary isolation from people who tell you how great you are all the time. I mean, really! If you were as awesome as everybody says you are, you wouldn’t need to read F4Y! And you DO need to read F4Y.

4. Why am I aiming for THIS target now? Again, we all do it. We know something is wrong, but we don’t want to deal with that PARTICULAR issue right now. So we find something else that IS a problem that needs to be dealt with. Take caution here, because eventually you will run out of other problems to target.

Sometimes just hitting any target takes a lot of talent and skill.  When you hit those targets, you deserve for someone to tell you, “Nice shot, man”.  I prefer to hear it from Filter.  Enjoy!