The Mystery Charge – A Teachable Moment

The cell phone bill came in.  It was a little higher than usual, not by much, but enough to get me looking for the reason why.  I consider the cell phone bill a fixed expense.  Technically, it’s not since there is always the possibility that we could go over minutes at which point the charges [...]

How Does a 15-year old Save for a Car?

Ryan just bought a car. And she’s a beauty, too. 2002 baby blue Toyota Prius with only 57,000 miles. Owned by a 91-year old grannie who used it mostly to drive to church and back. No kidding. Problem is, Ryan can’t drive it; never mind he doesn’t have his license. He barely has his permit. [...]

Yippee! I’ve Got Money! A Letter to Teens

I was asked to contribute an article to a book being published on kids and financial literacy (will share more on that later). Apart from being thrilled to have been asked, I happen to love writing, so I jumped at the chance. My given topic was ‘kids and budgeting’ and is a little longer than [...]

The Cell Phone: A Powerful Learning Tool

There was a huge graphic of a cell phone on the front page of the Sacramento Bee this morning. It was all about the love affair tweens and teens have with their cell phones confirmed in a study by Pew Internet and American Life Project. If you have a tween or teen, this is not [...]

Saving: It Takes a Plan

I’ve been doing a little work with a group of foster kids ages 17-19. One of my goals has been to get them to see that their daily actions can influence their future. So at one of our last group meetings we talked about goal setting. I had them write down their goals for one-, [...]

$100 Jeans

I love watching commercials.  Especially with Ryan.  He wants to go into marketing as a career so it’s always fun to critique commercials with him. But last night, Ryan wasn’t with me while I had tuned in the Olympics so John got to hear me get annoyed at the t.v. instead.  It was a Tide commercial and a [...]

Girls = $

We were driving home from Nathan and Ryan’s basketball game yesterday when I asked Nathan what he planned on giving his girlfriend, Shea, for Valentine’s Day.  “I bought her a rose,”  he said.  “My math teacher did an equation in class the other day where he proved girls were evil,”  said Ryan. Ryan often throws [...]

Too Much of a Hassle?

I was talking to a friend of mine recently about setting up an allowance program for her six-year-old daughter.  Six is the perfect age to get an allowance going.  Kids this age understand a lot about money and it’s time to start giving them some responsibility managing some so that they can begin to get into [...]

Splurge. It’s Okay.

Nathan was headed out to Kragen’s the other day to buy some items for his car.  He loves his car and spends a lot of time…and money…on it.  I don’t know where this kid came from.  The rest of us look at cars as a tool to get us from point A to point B. I [...]

Saving Savvy at Christmas

Nathan had one of his friends over the other day.  They were chatting about Christmas shopping.  Apparently Valerie had most of her shopping done.  Nathan – none.  He’s not a big shopper. It has been my experience that girls are more apt to buy their friends Christmas gifts than boys…and enjoy the process.  I see this in [...]