Teaching them about budgeting and credit.

Getting into the car today to make a quick run to the store today with my daughter was an eye opening experience. We sat down and put our seat belts on and as I am pulling out of the drive she starts to rifle though some junk mail I had tossed into the floor and then loudly exclaims to me “Mom, you got another credit card?!” I looked at what she was holding up to me and told her no, that it was a credit card offer and it was in the floor because I'm throwing it out and that I would be crazy to get another credit card. The discussion was dropped and it wasn't until later that I realized that I didn't explain anything to her and I basically taught her credit cards are bad when they aren't if used properly.

I wish my parents had taught me about credit. My parents paid cash for everything, clothes, groceries, going out to the movies.. everything. I was never taught how important credit was and in fact I never thought about it being important until I because a 3rd party debt collector and learned how important it is to have not only good credit but good responsible credit. It also was a very rude awakening being turned down for the house I fell in love with over poor credit.

In Elementary school you are taught the important of writing a check and learning cursive handwriting because it's what you are going to need as an adult. The cursive writing for your adult signature and how to write checks so that you can spend your money without carrying cash in your pocket book. You aren't taught in debt about credit cards, interest, loans, unemployment, collections, pay day loans, judgments,.. the things that you are going to need to know. Getting a good education for a good job isn't the only important thing there is. Getting a good job and keeping good responsible credit is!

Starting in May my kids and I are going to start a project. We are going to keep a log book of everything we spend right down to the ring pop's or Happy Hour half priced drinks at Sonic on Friday's. In June we will review it to see how much money we spend on necessary and non-necessary items. This I hope will teach them about budgeting and hopefully how to not be as spend thrift and I am when they are older. We will build a budget from this and review our logs again in July and so on.

I'm going to call my credit union and ask them if they have any type of class's or know of any seminars for children about credit and the important of good responsible credit. I've decided that I am going to post an update each month starting in May on our progress. Hopefully this will be a learning and teaching experience for everyone here at home and on the forums.

Ideas and suggestions are ALWAYS welcome.