A Few of the Finer Things - July 2018

Financial Literacy - Teach Your Children

The iconic 70’s anthem by Crosby, Stills and Nash is the topic of this month’s Finer Things. We have heard from many of you that one of the things that we can provide more of is investor education, especially for kids.

One of the tools that I used when my children were young was a “3-jar bank”-if my kids received a gift or weekly allowance or any money at all, they had three different buckets in which they needed to divide their money. The first jar was “Long-term Savings”; we put 20% of what was received in this jar. It was explained that these funds were for things they might want or need to buy in the future. The second jar was “Charity”; we put 10% of what was received in this jar. The third jar was “Spending” and got the remaining 70%; this was money they could use at any time at their discretion. This process created financial values that I felt were important to learn at a young age-mainly that they should always save for the future and they should give to causes they care about and/or those less fortunate. I think the 3-jar bank was a great tool and helped instill healthy financial habits in my kids at a very young age.

Raymond James has some great resources for financial education as well-one of my favorites is called LIFE GOALS (https://www.raymondjames.com/lifegoals/). This is an interactive website that you can navigate through with your children and discuss finding their passion, setting goals and making a plan. There is also a section called “Crush the myths” where they show examples of celebrities making both good and bad financial choices. There is also an excellent Q&A section that has a vast amount of valuable information. I highly recommend spending some time on the LIFE GOALS site.

Below is another great article on the subject from Raymond James WorthWhile magazine titled, “Kid-friendly finance”-a lot of useful information here as well.

WW-kid-finances

– Gary Weiss, July 2018