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How to Teach Your Kids About Money

At what age should my children get a credit card?

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Janet Bodnar
Kiplinger's Personal Finance Magazine
www.kiplinger.com  

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.

At what age should my children get a credit card?

In this video, Deputy Editor of Kiplinger's Personal Finance and author Janet Bodnar answers questions on the many issues surrounding what kids should know about money.

This series: 35,484 views

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Transcripts

Host: At what age should my children get a credit card?

Janet Bodnar: I am really hard on the subject of kids and credit cards. I really think that kids should wait until they are at least juniors or seniors in college before they get a credit card and again, I really think that they need to learn how to manage cash before they can become really good managers of credit. So, if they learn how to do this in High School they get their first ATM card perhaps, they get a debit card.

Certainly, when they go away to college they are going to have a check in account with a debit card attached and I have had three kids go away to college and I am here to tell you that is all they need, that's plenty, they can certainly manage their money with a check in account and with a debit card and you and they for the first couple of years of college can get confidence that they do know how to manage their money. They are not going to run out of money half way through the semester. They are not going to overdraw their check in account. Then once you have that confidence that they can manage cash money then they can move on to a credit card. Again, my two older children both applied for credit card when they were seniors in college and now they are out of college, they have very good credit ratings, they pay their credits bills in full and on time every month, they are paying back their students loans. Credit card issuers love them. Everyday in the mail they get more offers for credit cards.

So, the point is if they learn how to manage cash early and then for apply for a credit card perhaps, before they leave college when they are juniors or seniors they will be able to have credit but they will also know how to manage it.

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