No matter where we stand financially as adults, we want to see our kids succeed. Nobody wants their kids to have to try to dig out of the pit of debt. And don’t you want your children to be able to not only live a debt-free life, but to be successful with money to such an extent that they have the freedom to pursue their biggest dreams?
As parents we want the best for our kids. And we have the big responsibility of teaching them how to handle their money the right way. Whether you have handled your money well in the past or not, it is time to start teaching your kids how to manage their money well.
Here are the 5 best, most important things you can teach your kids about money:
- What money is (and what it is not). Is money love, security, or happiness? It is tempting to think so, but the truth is that money is not any of those things. At iMoneyCoach we think of money in terms of your limited time and energy here on this earth. You trade that time and energy for money that you can use to buy things. Start teaching your kids now that it takes time and effort to make money and that time is limited. This can seem like a big stretch to kids. Do you remember when you were younger and life seemed like it would last forever? Start by sharing the idea that after the work is done to earn the money, there is more time left for play.
- How to budget. Knowing how to budget and being able to decide how much to spend and on what to spend it is the key to financial success. Small businesses to large corporations use budgets to be successful, and we should do the same. And we should teach our kids early to budget as well. Start small and simple. If Johnny gets $20 allowance and earns $20 mowing lawns, then he has $40 in his budget. He may have 4 categories to divide it up into, and that’s fine. He’ll put $5 in each for Saving Longterm, Giving, Toys, and his New Bike Fund. Learning early how to budget will help your child understand prioritizing and give him power over his finances.
- Save, save, save. Teach your child early the value of saving. Unfortunately our culture is inundated with messages that we need to spend NOW or we’ll miss out, that we have to have what we want immediately. Generations before us knew the value of saving though. Teach your child that if he wants that new toy, he needs to save up enough money to pay for it first. Learning this lesson early will help your children avoid debt in the future.
- Be generous. Being generous has many benefits, including helping you manage your money better. When you know how to share, you become less stingy with your money and develop a better attitude towards it. Teach your child early the value of giving. Whether as a family you all contribute towards a fund, or if your child sets aside a certain amount, teach her to watch out for people in need or causes to support. Setting aside money in a “Giving” category when first entering it into the budget sets the tone for the rest of the finances.
- Stay out of debt. Let’s face it, getting out of debt is no fun. It takes time and extra work to get out of debt that more often than not can be avoided. Give your children the tools they need to start out on the right track so they can save and be financially successful without having to ever fight the debt battle. If you have struggled with debt, share with your child how hard that is and how to avoid it. If you have overcome debt, teach your child how great it feels to be without debt. And if you need a little help in that area yourself, be sure you get out of debt as soon as possible so you can continue teaching your child how to live the best possible financial life.
As always, we’d love to hear personal examples and stories of how you have helped your children learn to be financially successful. Please leave us a comment and share!
Tags: kids and money
It’s that time of the year again, where the weather is getting nicer and we tend to start thinking about spring cleaning. This year I particularly noticed the need to clean as I pulled out my box of summer shoes from under the bed and find dust bunnies have, well, done what bunnies tend to do. And as I straightened up some boxes in the back of the hall closet, I wondered aloud how there could be so much dust and dirt in my house. We are not dirty people and try to keep things very clean. We make time to sweep (hardwood floors) and dust and wipe things down every week, sometimes twice a week. But still the dirt piles up.
And I keep thinking I need to get rid of some of the boxes and the junk that piles up so I don’t have such a mess every year. I’m not saying I just collect junk, but if I’m honest with myself, I don’t need a lot of the stuff that is sitting around in places like the back of the floor of the hall closet in a box that I haven’t opened for a year.
I was recently talking with a friend about an article she read about spring cleaning. I apologize for not having a reference to the article. It sounded great. But the topic was actually about cleaning up and getting rid of things to clear both personal and mental space. The idea is that as you throw things out (or sell them – see my article that includes ways to get money for that stuff instead of just trashing it), you don’t need to focus on or really feel a huge sense of loss. It recommended looking at the process as a way to make room for yourself. Enjoy the freedom that comes with clearing some space. You can enjoy this freedom both physically and mentally. While this makes sense on the surface, I had to really let it sink in a while.
And I came to the conclusion that, yes, it would be both a physical and mental freedom. Thinking specifically about that box in the hall closet, I wouldn’t have to shove it way in the back of the closet to fit the baby stroller in front of it, and I wouldn’t have to move it all the way out to clean around it if it wasn’t there. That’s the physical part. Mentally, I wouldn’t have to think about having to move the box all the time and stress about it being in my way and remember to clean behind it when I do my spring cleaning. How many other things are there in my house that would provide the same freedom if they simply weren’t there.
So I am setting to work on clearing up my house. Now before you chastise me and say that sometimes there are things you should maybe just keep (i.e. is my box of Colorado Rockies memorabilia from their first few years as a team going to be worth thousands someday??), realize that I am suggesting you focus on those things that are going to give you freedom and peace of mind. If that box in the storage unit with the potentially valuable memorabilia in it doesn’t bother you, then you can leave it. But what about the tub of candles you haven’t even used in the 6 years since you bought your house? Maybe keep one or two in a closet for power outages, but either burn the rest or get rid of them. And don’t drown in a sense of loss. Instead, enjoy the freedom! Enjoy the space and the one-more-thing off your list of things to clean, or clean around.
Remember that when you find balance in your life, including your personal (physical and emotional well-being) life, only then can you be truly successful with your finances and get to enjoy your life as a whole. Be sure to learn more about life balance and how iMoneyCoach can help you reach financial freedom with our online courses.
Did you know that if you make it a priority to save money, you will actually start to see your savings grow? A lot of people say they’d really like to save money, but they never start doing it. What keeps them from starting now? What is holding you back from making a monthly (or even weekly or daily) commitment to yourself to put money into your savings account?
Here at iMoneyCoach we like to share 2 surefire ways to make your money grow:
1. Put Money into Your Accounts Regularly
This seems like a no-brainer, but many people simply don’t do it and wonder why they can’t get a good cushion. You need to make adjustments to your budget, figure out what’s important to keep and what you can eliminate, so you have money to put into savings. Be sure to get out of debt first so you are not wasting money on interest and fees. Once you are debt-free you can use the money you were putting towards payments on your debt to put into your savings and investment accounts. Then you will see your money start to grow.
2. Give Your Money Time to Grow by Starting Now
If you start now, your money has more time to grow thanks to the magic of compound interest. My husband teaches an economics class and was sharing with his students how compound interest causes money to grow faster. At the end of class several students came up and asked him, “Is this real?” They could hardly believe that if they put $1,000 in the bank now and do nothing with it for the next 20 years it will grow a LOT. The longer you wait to put money in your savings and investment accounts, the harder you will have to work to put in the same amount you would earn by putting more in earlier.
Why save? If you are going to make changes to your budget to put money away, it is definitely more motivating and likely to last if you have a reason. Sit down and think about how you want your life to look in 5, 10, 20 years. Do you want to be able to take your kids on vacation? Do you want to be able to live in a certain type of home? Do you hope to someday retire? Knowing what your financial goals are will help you as you decide where to put that money. If you are putting it in a category only called “savings” that is fine, but if you can picture in your mind what that money is earmarked for, it will be much easier for you to give up whatever you are eliminating in your budget now so you can save.
If you need help making room in your budget for savings, be sure to let me know. iMoneyCoach is here to help people learn to budget successfully so they can enjoy life and reach their financial dreams. We’ve got some great online finance classes to help you do just that, or we can do coaching in the office or even via phone or Skype! We WANT to help you!
Tags: budget, interest, save money, savings
While many of us would probably agree that having less stress in our lives would be more than nice, the truth is that we can make life a lot better in many ways by doing simple things to reduce stress.
Studies on stress have shown that it can cause major health problems, and that is pretty common knowledge. But did you know that it can also severely damage your finances? When you have stress in any area of your life it can affect your money situation. Here are a few examples:
- Stress in Relationships: You are constantly fighting with your spouse and end up spending a fortune on therapists, vacations, dinners out, etc.
- Stress at Work: You are feeling pressure at work and don’t feel like being there, which causes your performance to decline and you get passed over for a promotion.
- Stress in your Spiritual Life: You are feeling conflicted in what you believe about the purpose of life and why you believe what you do, and because of this you quit your job and launch headlong into a volunteer position helping others (while helping others is by no means a bad thing, you have lost all your income and are unable to support yourself).
- Stress in your Personal Life: You feel self-conscious about how you look and buy a gym membership, new workout clothes, weights, workout videos and equipment and use them at first but after a while don’t use them anymore.
- Stress in your Finances: You are getting bills every day with past due balances and ever-increasing interest rates. You wonder where you will get the money to pay these bills and end up opening new credit cards to shuffle the balances around, ultimately digging yourself into a deeper hole.
Each of these situations involve a different area of your life where stress can occur and hurt your financial situation. At iMoneyCoach our goal is to not only help people find financial freedom, but we also want to get people to a place where they can truly and enthusiastically say “I LOVE my life!” And the way we do that is by helping people find ways to eliminate stress in order to find balance across all the areas of their life.
At iMoneyCoach we actually think of stress in terms of something that is not done or is undone. When you have this incomplete thing on your plate, you feel stress. Relating to the examples above, the incomplete thing in the relationship may be communication, or in the personal life it may be physical fitness. Whatever the situation, that nagging feeling from the undone thing causes stress.
Here are a couple of ways you can stress less and find greater happiness as you walk the road to financial freedom:
1. Set Goals – I know, many people cringe at the idea of setting goals. But if you set small, manageable goals in each area of your life you will find you are able to accomplish the things you want to do and gain balance in your life that reduces your stress. You can learn more about this idea in our Goal-Setting article.
2. Prioritize - Make a list of those things you need to do or areas where you are feeling stress. Then determine which of those areas are most important to fix and whether there are some that you can eliminate (i.e. do you really need to go to Starbucks every day to unwind or is that causing stress because you have to work more to pay for all those stops?).
3. Set aside time to accomplish things for each of your life areas – Adjust your schedule so that you make a point to work on your goals for each of your life areas. Treat that time with respect and don’t neglect it. You will find that making sure you work a little each day to reach your goals and find balance will help you feel much better.
4. Budget, budget, budget - I can’t put enough emphasis on the importance of budgeting, obviously to your finances, but also to the rest of your life. If you know exactly how much money is coming in and going out, you will feel much less stressed. It will give you a sense of control over your finances and help you make changes in your life that will give you peace.
5. Give - Whether you give of your time, your money, your talents and skills, or your heart, giving can help you feel much less stressed. When you focus on the needs and hurts of others, you will often find that your stresses don’t seem so bad after all.
We hope these tips help you to stress less and enjoy your day. If you feel the pressures of your finances rising and want another great idea to decrease your stress, be sure to get the iMoneyCoach Financial Life Training System, a series of 10 online finance courses that will help you reach financial freedom. It will teach you things from how to create and adjust a budget to how to determine your spending personality and change your spending habits accordingly, how to find life balance, how to set and achieve your goals, how to dream big and create your financial vision, and how to leave a legacy for your loved ones.
Tags: stress
We recently completed a big office update here at iMoneyCoach. To cut costs, we repurposed several items into new decorations that look fabulous. This re-purposing included some artwork that was a little bit, well, outdated. But the frames were very nice and just needed a little change. I enjoy DIY projects that save money and allow for a personalized product.
So I took a little trip over to the fabric store (while they were having a sale and with my coupons in hand) and found some incredible fabric that matched the pretty green we just painted one of our conference rooms. Now, this particular fabric wasn’t on sale, but I was able to use my 50% off coupon that had a condition of not being able to use it on a sale item.
Here are the steps to take to turn your old picture into a new work of art:
1. Find an old picture with a nice frame that you want to repurpose. This could be one already in your home or office, or you can check out the local thrift store, garage sales, or craigslist. Measure your frame and write down the dimensions. You’ll want to make sure the fabric you get is big enough to allow you to wrap it behind the picture with about 2 inches to spare on all sides.
2. Head to the local fabric store. Keep in mind what colors you’d like and what patterns match your style. If you don’t like flowers, don’t get a floral pattern. But do try to be open to a new style if you are working on updating your space so you don’t get stuck with the same look you had before.
3. Take apart your picture. This may mean pulling out staples or lifting up metal tabs to get the back off. Be very careful lifting out the glass. Now would be a good time to clean it before you put the whole thing back together.
4. Use the board that was already in the frame and wrap your fabric around it. Depending on the material of your board and its thickness, you may be able to staple your fabric all around the back. This is the easiest way to do it. Unfortunately, this doesn’t always work because the boards in pictures tend to be different sizes, and you may find that a staple will go right through to the front. If that is the case, you can try using heavy duty tape or glue to secure your fabric. Be sure that you start with one side, then do an adjacent side. Then you can pull your fabric tight so it looks nice, but not so tight that it causes tearing, rippling, or makes the pattern look odd.
5. If you have matteboard, put that back in with the glass, then put the fabric covered board back in. Secure the back to the frame. And voila! A beautiful work of art that doesn’t cost an arm and a leg. It is also a good conversation starter – especially if you are in the business of helping people make budgets and be able to stick to them.
If you make a do-it-yourself fabric picture like this, please let us know about your experience and your savings! We would love to see a picture of the finished product. And if you are ever close by, be sure to stop in the iMoneyCoach office and check out our recent updates. We’re always happy to see you.
Tags: decorate, DIY, frame, save money
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