Money class: AKA, We'll do anything for a buck...............................

A while back, I received an e-mail from our credit union announcing a contest to teach teens about money. Besides education on how to handle money, the credit union would be matching all deposits the teen made, up to two hundred dollars. Not only is this "free" money, it is free money that can be invested in the educational Roth and earn some interest over the next three years. What's not to love about that, so we were excited to learn that my youngest had been one of the teens selected to participate.

My youngest went to her budgeting session last Thursday, to come home and tell me that the lady she met with insisted she needed to get a credit card. Okay, this is REALLY funny once you know that the lady doing the buget session works for a debt consolidation company, and it is her job to cut people's credit cards up when they get in trouble with them and come to her for help paying them off. My youngest tried to tell her that she didn't need a credit card as she didn't plan to use credit, but the lady wouldn't take her seriously. Could this be because we live in a credit happy society? No matter, I am not out to change the world, just my family tree.

Anyway, I decided I would go with my youngest to the all day financial seminar just to lend her moral support if it was slanted too far towards trying to teach the notion that credit is neccessary to growing up. I am happy to report that they did a great job of pointing out the pit falls of using credit and how quickly one can get into trouble with them. As part of the day, we made budgets based on goals, and my youngest was able to caculate the fact that she is going to need to save four thousand dollars a month once she graduates from college if she is going to pay cash for a house by the time she is thirty (don't quote my math, I was busy figuring out my buget for going to Hawaii next year). This helped her to realize she needs to get a career that makes enough money to generate this kind of income.

The class also touched a lot on the notion of saving, and saving early in life. It is pretty much a given that kids her age are going to be responsible for their own retirement savings. If they start early, they will have time to let the money sit there and work for them. I think this is one of the best lessons a youngster can learn. Did you know that if one saved twenty dollars a week (the price of a large pizza) for twenty years they would have ten thousand and four hundred dollars at the end of this time. Start early, and leave it alone until turning sixty-five and one would have a tidy little sum of cold hard cash.

I have made many poor choices with money over the years, and am glad that I didn't try and hide these poor choices from my children because they have all learned that they don't want to make the same mistakes that I did. That's progress don't ya think?