How can I help my teens learn good money habits?
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How to Teach Your Kids About Money
Why is it important to teach my kids about money?
How early should I begin teaching my kids about money?
Should I rely on schools to educate my children about money?
What are good ways to teach younger children about money?
Should I give my kids an allowance?
What is the right amount of allowance to give my children?
Should allowances be tied to chores?
What are "financial jobs?"
How can I help my teens learn good money habits?
At what age should my children open a savings account?
What are some everyday ways to teach my children about money?
At what age should my children get a debit card?
At what age should my children get a credit card?
Should I use money to reward or punish my children?
At what age should my children get a job?
Should my children donate to charities?
How much should my children contribute to savings for college?
How can I teach my children to invest money?
How can I set a good financial example as a parent?
What do I say to my children if we manage money badly as parents?
What do I do when my children ask for expensive things?
Should we discuss finances as a family?
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Janet Bodnar is deputy editor of Kiplinger's Personal Finance magazine, for which she has written articles on a wide range of topics, including investing, money management and the economy.
Bodnar is a nationally recognized expert in the field of children's and family finances. Her latest book is Money Smart Women: Everything You Need to Know to Achieve a Lifetime of Financial Security (Kaplan). She speaks frequently on the subject of women and money.
Bodnar's "Money-Smart Kids" column appears regularly in Kiplinger's magazine and at <a>www.kiplinger.com/columns/kids</a>. It was chosen by Moneysmartz.com as one of the top financial columns online. Bodnar is also the kids and money coach on the AOL Coaches site.
Her book Raising Money Smart Kids (Kaplan Publishing) was a finalist in the personal finance category of the Books for a Better Life awards, honoring the best self-improvement books of 2005. It was also a selection of the Washington Post's Color of Money book club.
Bodnar has appeared on Oprah, Today, Good Morning America, The Early Show on CBS, Fox, CNN and PBS. She has done hundreds of radio and TV interviews and appears regularly on WUSA, the CBS-TV affiliate in Washington, D.C., and WTOP, the major all-news radio station in Washington. She is a popular speaker and has been quoted in publications ranging from The Wall Street Journal and Institutional Investor to Parents and Glamour.
Bodnar has been recognized by American University for excellence in personal finance reporting, and by the National Council on Family Relations for her televised reports on children and money. The audio version of her book (read by the author) received three "best of" awards, from Publishers Weekly (business category), Library Journal (nonfiction) and the Audio Publishers Association (educational category).
Prior to joining Kiplinger's, Bodnar worked for The Providence Journal and The Washington Post. She received her master's degree in journalism from Columbia University, where she was also a Knight-Bagehot Fellow in Business and Economics Journalism.
Married, she is the mother of three children.
How can I help my teens learn good money habits?
Family financial expert Janet Bodnar discusses how to teach your kids about money, including how to help your teens develop good money habits.
Transcripts
Speaker: How can I help my teens learn good money habits?
Janet Bodnar: Well, certainly for the early teenage years an allowance still works because probably kids don't have a job of their own at this age, but again if you started young you are expanding their responsibilities and if you haven't started before now, it's a good time to start because you can say hey, you are teenagers now; I am going to give you a little privilege of having allowance, money of your own to manage and along with that certain responsibilities are going to come. So I think that starting with allowance or continuing along with young teens is a very good idea. Certainly, extending it to a clothing allowance or now a days, a gasoline allowance when they start to drive, so you are going to finance perhaps one tank of gas a week, but other that is going to be on own their dime. They are going to have to figure out how to come up with the income to pay for the gas. Those kinds of things are very important for teens. What's also important for teens is to stay on a cash basis. I really believe that the best way to become a money manager when you are older and certainly to manage credit is to learn how to manage cash when you are younger. So again it can be an allowance when the kids are younger, but they get to be teenagers, it can be the job that they get, the part time job or the summer job, but again if on a cash basis. They should have their own bank account, their own checking account, so that they can deposit a pay cheque if they have a job and they have perhaps an ATM card as well, so they can withdraw money on their own. But again it's their money that they are taking on more and more responsibility with their own money, certainly as they get a job and then you may want to pull back on the allowance as they are earning more money on their own; but againb it's very important for kids to have cash at that age and a bank account that they can learn to manage.
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