Help me come up with discussion topics for my son

[sengsational]

You might get some ideas from here: Investment Education, Investing 101, Investment Basics, Investment Classroom, Learn to Invest | Morningstar

[Meadbh]

Quote:

Originally Posted by N02L84ER Something that my students found to be eye-opening was a budget exercise. First we made a list of items where they were currently spending their money, like movies, snacks, auto fuel, clothes, gifts, dating, etc. Next, they were given a list of typical household expenses (gas/heat, electric, home phone, internet, mortgage/rent, credit card, etc.) and told to ask their parents what the parents paid on average per month for the expenses. Then they were told to pick a couple of jobs/careers they were interested in pursuing and to look up the starting salaries and average salaries for the jobs/careers and determine how much extra money they would have each month for saving.

That would be a great exercise.

[LOL!]

Although he has a joint account, he needs an account he can use that is not off limits.

[FI by 2024]

Here are the lessons I have developed or plan to in the future:

Budgets 101
Debt reduction - different methods
The miracle of Compound interest
Credit cards: friend or foe?
Car buying
Figuring out the true cost of everything
Investing basics
Easy ways to save
Reducing expenses
Increasing income - simple side hustles
Making your money work for you
Prioritizing expenses
Insuring your life
Early retirement: How To
Top ten personal finance tips


Sent from my iPhone using Early Retirement Forum

[FUEGO]

I've started my nine year old down this path of financial exploration. Under the pretext of "here's a challenging math problem for you", I told her to develop a budget for her 4 years of college and then come up with a funding plan between now (age 9) and college graduation that will allow her to pay for her whole college.

Her guesses for college costs were way off (she assumed college tuition was $1,000 per year right after she asked "what's tuition? People pay to go to school?!?!"), but it started good discussions on budgeting and long term financial planning. She's kind of a math whiz, so this type of word problem with a lot of undefined values is a good challenge for her, too.

I've decided to let them in on our FI and early retirement and how our finances work. So we have the occasional random discussion on finances and investments already. I also picked up a few financy books from the Juvenile non-fiction section of the library and reverse psychology them into reading these books.

[rodi]

These are all GREAT ideas. Thanks!

[papadad111]

If money talks come easily, then the birds and the bees should be a breeze too.

And I think Dave Ramsey and his daughter Rachel Cruz have a new book out about money for kids. Might be worth buying and using that as a syllabus of sorts.

Finally, Somewhere along the line, teach him about the perils of women and espeically gold diggers... I actually read part of this article to my two teen age boys at dinner the other night... well...edited some of the more graphic parts but they got the idea...

Gold Digger academy: Russia’s Gold Digger Academy - The Daily Beast

[Dash man]

The time value of money.

The cost of money. Why it's better to receive interest than to pay it.

Bills. How to pay them. What they are for. I had my son sit with me when I paid the bills to show him where the money goes.

Taxes. Show him receipts and bills so he can see how taxes are added to everything. Have him sit with you while you do your income taxes. Show him a pay stub so he sees how taxes come out of your paycheck.

Concept of creating wealth by providing a product or service and someone paying more for it than it cost you.

[Idnar7]

Rather than giving my daughters a weekly allowance I gave them a "purchase credit". I put up a whiteboard in their room to show their account balance. They could buy something by saving enough credits or they could go into debt (credit). Also added to this for birthdays/Christmas etc. Older daughter showed an interest in saving (she still does as an adult) and younger daughter was usually in debt (she is a saver now). Since it was always visible, it became competitive too. Nothing like saving enough credits to buy something they really wanted.

[sengsational]

Quote:

Originally Posted by Idnar7 Rather than giving my daughters a weekly allowance I gave them a "purchase credit". I put up a whiteboard in their room to show their account balance. They could buy something by saving enough credits or they could go into debt (credit). Also added to this for birthdays/Christmas etc. Older daughter showed an interest in saving (she still does as an adult) and younger daughter was usually in debt (she is a saver now). Since it was always visible, it became competitive too. Nothing like saving enough credits to buy something they really wanted.

When I was a kid, my dad issued a small "composition book" (book with lined, blank pages) and recorded our allowance. If we wanted cash, we took him the book and he subtracted the cash he gave us from his wallet from the total. So it was "Bank of Dad". I think that was good training. But the best part was that if you had a "big purchase", like bike or something, he'd match your amount. So I'd only need to save $25 for a $50 bike. But absoluted NO CREDIT, NO ADVANCES! If you didn't have the money, you didn't get to buy anything.

I would have liked to do that with our kids, but my wife simply bought them anything they wanted

[Taxman59]

Loans to friends and family. I think that kids want to "help" their friends and make "loans" to them way too often, and have no idea that the loans are never going to be paid off. I wish that I had seen that when I was his age!!

[rodi]

Idnar7 and Sengsational - we already have the composition book. As they have money come in from various sources they can keep it or put it "in the conti". In the sicilian dialect it's pronounced "gundi" - so you hear references to the gundi book. I have a section for each of them. As they earn money for chores, I add. As they spend (usually online credits for video games - so tied to my paypal account, but sometimes cash withdrawals) I deduct.

I allow negative balances under certain circumstances - if they can show a plan to get back to positive in the short term AND if they don't abuse the privilege. They both have chores that are paid for... (and some they have to do just because they're part of the family and we all contribute.).

Younger son usually keeps close to a zero balance. Older son is better at delayed gratification.

[rodi]

I just had the first "lesson". Subject savings. Started with the Ben Franklin "Penny saved is a penny earned". Asked them what it meant... (they didn't have a clue and made pretty funny guesses)... then talked about the "Your money or your life" tradeoffs of work/earning vs freedom... and how it all starts with saving more, spending less. Then I used an example of an old IRA I'd rolled from a job I left in 1993. It was $9k then... had them guess what the value was now - knowing I hadn't added any money to it, and had basically had it sitting in less than optimal funds until about 3 years ago. They guessed it was worth $20k... They were shocked it's over $50k.

My older son (the one that requested this) asked me to set up regular transfers from his cash flow section of the conti book, to a new account that is less available. So he's going to transfer $10/month to savings I'll pay interest on. I'll pay 1%/month (high enough so he'll appreciate compounding.) Younger son was less interested in this message... but did ask for more money earning opportunities.

I gave my standard reply - Weeding always pays well in our house. (A chore none of us like, but needs doing all the time.)