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 [...]

Money Reflections

Excerpted from Beyond the Piggy Bank, a 15-Day Challenge One of the goals for this Challenge is to develop healthy attitudes about money in our children. Since YOU have the greatest impact on what your kids learn about money, it’s important to take a little time to reflect honestly on the money messages you are [...]

Teaching Money Values

We impart our values to our kids through our words and our actions. Mostly our actions. Take a moment to reflect on the things you value. Integrity, compassion, honesty, persistence, courage, patience… Now think about an action that can be associated with each one. For example, returning the unpaid can of tuna you discovered in [...]

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 [...]

Is It Worth It?

Ryan just spent $204.44. He didn’t do it lightly. That’s because he knows just how long it took him to earn that money. His one-day-a-week paper route earns him $11/week. That’s 19 weeks of folding and throwing papers. But he also gets $10/week in allowance. Enough to help him get some of the things he [...]

Tapping Into Kids’ Desires to Be Grown-Up

One of the best ways to teach kids anything is to get them actively involved. Take check writing, for instance. Although most of us have turned to online banking as a way to pay bills, there are times when the only way to get money to someone is through a check. This actually happens a [...]

You Can’t Do That Yet

I was back in Michael’s picking up glitter stickers for a money activity I’m doing this weekend. As I was deciding between the funky flower stickers and something a little more “masculine”, a little boy, about the age of 4, appeared at the end of the aisle. He was looking at a wooden train that [...]

Ah, 4-Year Olds

Four-year olds are adorable in so many ways. Especially the way they think about the world. Because they haven’t had enough “life” experiences, yet, their understanding of things is limited. Take for example, the four-year old granddaughter of a friend. Her six-year old sister’s piggy bank fell and broke. All the coins and bills scattered [...]

Snap Goes the $300 Putter

Nathan and I were driving to a doctor’s appointment yesterday, chit-chatting about this and that, when he started to chuckle.  “Oh, yeah.  I forgot to tell you about (Mike) yesterday.” Nathan has been going through golf try-outs for the high school team.  Yesterday was the last day of try-outs and I’m pretty confident that he will make [...]

Oops. Missed One.

I recently wrote about how Nathan was given the opportunity to sign up for some sort of  membership on Amazon in order to save shipping costs on an item he had ordered.  After I gave him permission I then showed him how to make sure he canceled the membership within the alloted time so that he would not [...]