Beating Broke

Personal Finance from the Broke Perspective

5 Fun Ways to Educate Your Child about Money This Summer

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Ah, summer.  Your kids get to take a break from the school grind, and as a parent, you get to take a break from the homework grind.  While your child will likely have fun hanging out with friends, playing sports, going to the movies, and reading, now is the time for you to sneak in a little summer education.

Teaching our kids about money is one of the most important things we can do as parents.  What our children learn about money and see us do with money will likely affect them for years to come.  This summer, take the time to educate your children about money while making it fun.

TD Bank’s Summer Reading Program

Educate your child about moneyTD Bank has a summer reading program where your kids will earn $10 if they read 10 books.  TD Banks are mainly on the East coast, so not all kids can benefit from the reading program.  However, all kids can take advantage of TD Bank’s summer reading list for kids from Kindergarten to 7th grade.

The list is broken down by grade level, and each book suggested has a financial lesson.  For instance, one of the books for 7th grade is Money Hungry, a story about a young girl who is driven by greed.

TD Bank also has a section for parents that includes a story that you can read to children along with worksheets you can do with them.  In addition, there is a virtual stock game that your kids can play to practice investing in the stock market.

Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace, Jr.

Dave Ramsey takes his advice and rolls it into a package for children.  Financial Peace, Jr. includes audio CDs as well as a workbook.  There are also cash envelopes, stickers, and other fun activities for kids.  This kit is for kids ages 3 to 12.  When two of my kids were 4 and 8, they loved listening to the CDs and doing the activities.

Nick Jr. Money Games and Activities

If you have little ones who are just starting to learn about money, why not try Nick Jr.’s Money Games and Activities.  These activities primarily help young kids differentiate coins and learn the value of each one.

Star Banks Adventure

T. Rowe Price has created this game as part of their Money Confident Kids program. This game will likely be appealing to kids thanks to the video game-like presentation. Parents will love that the program teaches kids about inflation, saving, spending wisely, and asset allocation, among other topics.  This game is available as an app and as an online game.

Board Games

On a long, hot summer day, nothing beats staying inside playing a board game.  Many classic board games offer your children entertainment AND financial education.  Some of my favorite for this purpose are Monopoly, Life, and Payday.

Use these activities a few times a week, and your child will not only have a fun summer, but one that is filled with financial lessons.

What are your favorite activities and games to teach your kids about money?

Do You Compare Your Finances to Others?

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I belong to several Facebook groups, and recently, a woman in one group asked the seemingly innocent question, “What do you pay for cell phones and car insurance?”  She added, “We pay $180 a month for our cell phones and $345 a month for our car insurance.”

Say what?

When you read that number, you automatically think one of two things–“Wow, she’s paying a fortune for cell phones and car insurance!” (that was my initial thought), or, you think, “Sounds about right.”

Comparing FinancesA few of you may even think she’s getting a good deal.

My husband and I each carry a cheap cell phone from Tracfone that is for emergencies or occasionally checking in with one another.  We don’t spend any more than $10 to $20 a month on them.  Our car insurance is about $55 per month.  (We only have one vehicle.)

After reading how much this woman spent, I was feeling pretty good about myself.  But why?  I really don’t know her situation.  Her cell phone plan might include cell phones for the whole family.  Her car insurance is likely for multiple cars.  Maybe she has teenage drivers, or maybe she or her spouse has gotten a ticket recently.

Besides, I have no idea how much money she makes.  These bills might not be that extravagant in relationship to her income.

There’s really no point comparing my situation to hers.  To do so would invite complacency toward my own budget at best, and a loosening of the purse strings at worst because, hey, other people are spending a lot more than me.

The Only Time You Should Compare Your Spending to Others

Generally, I try not to compare my spending or budget to others.  Circumstances vary widely, and knowing another person’s exact financial situation is difficult.  Too often, especially online, we get a snapshot of someone’s finances and think we see the whole picture when we don’t.

We make assumptions of our own financial situations based on others.

Ultimately, we need to strive to do the best we can do with our own budgets.  To beat ourselves by spending less and/or saving more than we did the month before or the year before.

The only time it makes sense to look at someone else’s finances and spending is when they are doing considerably better than you, and you want to learn from and emulate them.  For instance, I knew my husband and I were spending too much for groceries.  One blogger I read has grown a large garden and planted fruit trees so that she can feed her family of 9 for less than $300 per month.  (Yes, you read that right.)

I know I won’t  ever have a grocery budget of $300 per month, but reading her techniques and strategies has encouraged me to cut my grocery budget and try to spend less.  It’s even inspired me to try out once a month shopping to reduce costs.

Ultimately, we shouldn’t compare our finances to others, but if we’re going to, we should only compare to those we wish to emulate.

Do you look at other people’s spending to make you feel better about your own or to motivate you to improve your finances?

Money in Space!

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I had originally planned on taking today off from posting for Columbus Day.  But, then, I thought, what the heck.  It’s a day that we celebrate explorers.  Columbus in particular, but exploration in general, as well.

1909 VBD Lincoln PennyThere aren’t many explorers on a global scale anymore.  After all, it’s not like you can jump in a boat and go find new continents, right?  Even back in Columbus’ day, money went along.  Whether it was as a good luck piece, or just in case they came up on a 7-11 in the new world, they had money with.  Today’s explorers have to go a little bit farther afield in order to discover something new, but even so, there’s still a little money that goes along.  And I’m not just talking about the Billions that are spent to do the exploring. There’s actual money in space!

Take for example, the newest exploration endeavor, the Mars Curiosity Rover.  Back in August, the folks at the NASA JPL labs in California managed to drop the Curiosity, a small car sized rover, onto the surface of Mars.  If you stayed up late enough (or got up early enough, I suppose) that night, you were treated to live video of the command center at JPL.  It was pretty awe-inspiring. Since then, they’ve been running all kinds of tests, and sending back some pretty incredible images of the surface of Mars.

Part of the rover is it’s ability to send such awesome pictures.  And part of that ability is the ability to calibrate it’s cameras.  The calibration panel that it uses has some interesting bits for calibration of color and detail, but also something added for basic scale.  That item?  A 1909 Lincoln VBD Penny.  Much like the one in the image, here.  Why a penny?

The MAHLI calibration target includes a penny at the center of this image, plus color chips, a metric standardized bar graphic, and (just below the penny) a stair-step pattern for depth calibration.

The coin is from 1909. That was the first year Lincoln pennies were minted and the centennial of Abraham Lincoln’s birth. The penny is a nod to field geologists’ informal practice of placing a coin as a size reference in close-up photographs of rocks, and it gives the public a familiar object for perceiving size on Mars easily.

Pretty cool, huh?  Money is everywhere!  Even in space!

img credit: 1909℗ Lincoln Penny. 019 by Elmo H. Love, on Flickr