Skills to Pay the Bills

Today there was an article in the paper talking about adding some financial teaching to the school curriculum.   It is apparent that people aren't doing very well with money management overall and new generations may even be worse because of the poor examples many of their parents are setting.  I think this is a great idea.  Now obviously it's not a schools job to teach kids everything in life, but if we are going to include religion, sex education, cooking and shop, then why not finances.  After all every single person will have to make decisions about money.

I have some friends that do really well in this department with their kids.  Giving them allowance based on chores so the kids learn to equate effort = earnings.  They make their kids put some of their allowance to savings and some to charity.  I think these are great lessons that will only help them later in life.

Unfortunately these lessons are lost on many people.  We know of people that were making fun of the Jeans other people were wearing because they were name brand and not the $150 jean these middle class people were wearing.  Or the guy I know that was needing to trade up to the iPad 3 because obviously the iPad 2 was unacceptable.  This is what is really being taught to most kids.  This is what they see every day.  Mom and dad throwing money out the window and getting everything they desire.  Sure, mom and dad work and can afford it...but can they really?



Do they have any money in their savings account?  How much do they owe on their credit cards?  Will they ever be able to retire?  Are they just one house payment away from loosing the house?  Many of these families make a crap load of money, but they are no better off than those that make a lot less.  It doesn't matter how much you have coming in, it can all just as easily go out the door if you don't learn the basics of budgeting and saving.


So anything that can be done to help kids from a young age learn some skills with money will help them have a much brighter future.  If that means adding a money class in school then I am all for it!