Kids and family finances?
Find a Conversation
| Mon, 11-06-2006 - 9:44pm |
How much do your teens know about the family finances?
Do they know what the working adults make? What the mortgage is? REtirement funds?
DS2 is so greedy when it comes to money but ds3, who turns 15 Wednesday, is the total opposite. He wants a digital camera for his birthday and while at Target the other day I asked which one he liked. He likes red so he fingered the red one and then scanned all the cameras, quietly pointing to the cheapest one there. Thats typical for ds3
He is soooo quiet but I do remember him expressing worry about our money situation at one point in time and wonder if that's still the case
DH likes to moan and groan and acts like giving him lunch money is going to break the bank. With his LDs, this is not a kid who can catch the subtle innuendos or humor in a situation. He does, Im sure, take that sort of thing literally!
So, since DH isnt going to change, maybe I should talk to DS3 about finances? But how much does he need to know?

Pages
See? Now I canned those last few tomatos out of pure, "Can I do this?" LOL-
H can get caught up in the day to day expenses, butmy concerns are more about the biggies.
DD19 has a good head on her shoulders I really don't have too many serious concerns about how she will handle her finances as an adult. DD17 surprises me. She really banks her entire paychecks and then when she wants something she just wants the money. Haha = On the one hand, she's totally fine with leaving her money alone but then she doesn't. She does save more than dd19!!!
We can only do the best with what knowledge we have to pass on, right?
Interesting question.
DD recently did a survey for her psychology class, looking for 100 students to anonymously complete it. As instructed, she couched the questions she was looking for among several other unimportant questions so the survey-er could not tell the purpose of the survey. One of the filler questions was "What is your family income?" Many of the responders wrote down figures like $10,000 / 2 million / 1 million / $8,000, etc..
These were juniors in high school!
I don't share what my income is, but I do let them know what our typical ongoing monthly expenditures are. They don't have the experience yet to put income in perspective but they do need to know what life costs. DD thinks a thousand bucks is a million bucks. Maybe I need to re-think this.
I just remember when we were growing up that my parents, in particular my mom since she held the pursestrings, wouldn't dare divulge what the family income was for fear that we (her big mouth kids) would share it on the playground. LOL~
I think back now and remember that thier monthly mortgage payment was $358. When I told her what ours was she almost fainted!
Our school has a mandatory course that all juniors/seniors have to take called "Personal Finance" and they have to create a budget and learn how to do banking. The instructor even touches on money markets, bonds, CD's, etc. It was a class that my dd19 actually was excited about! She loved it. DD17 isn't quite as enthused...she does it and she's learning from it, but she's still so clueless about the value of her dollar. It's an ongoing lesson.
Not much, actually and I often feel we aren't doing out kids any favors by not discussing it more or more often.
This past summer, when gasoline prices were so high and our gas bill ENORMOUS, we did discuss the impact it had on our finances and what we needed to do to adjust ... DH has the longer commute but my vehicle gets better gas mileage, so we switched who drove what, take-out and meals out were cut down dramatically, that sort of thing. THAT, they understood.
Sometimes, when the kids and I are out and about and we'll got through $60 or $70 dollars just doing STUFF, I ask them how much they think the day cost. They are quite surprised when they learn the real $$$ amount.
DD is very frugal with her money; she saves nearly all of it. DS can't hold onto a dime. They both get a token allowance, mostly so they can learn to budget and how quickly money can disappear. So far, DD gets it but I'm still working on DS.
GREAT topic!
We talk about finances; mortgages, insurance, utilities, etc but we do not discuss our specific income with the kids. Its none of their damn business LOL!! I say we could do a better job though. They know we don't carry debt on credit cards and why. They know we invest money and why. They know how frugal I am and why. They think we're
Pages