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How to Teach Your Kids About Money

What do I say to my children if we manage money badly as parents?

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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.

What do I say to my children if we manage money badly as parents?

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: 35,387 views

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Host: What do I say to my children if we manage money badly as parents?

Janet Bodnar: I get to questioned a lot well, what if I am a bad money manager. How can I teach my kids good money habits if I am a bad money manager? Well, I always say, "Well, look at it as a wake-up call from your kids. If you are doing things wrong and you think you would rather be doing things better, you would rather be a better money manger then correct those things, so that when the kids ask you the tough questions, you can honestly say, "Well, yes. Actually, yes son. We do save money. We are saving money for our retirement.

" If you are not saving any money, go to your employer and sign up for the retirement plan or set up an automatic deposit account with your paycheque so that a $50 or a $100 of every paycheque goes into your savings account. So, when the kids ask you these tough questions or when you say to them, "We would like you to save 10% of your income or your allowance," and the kids say to you, "Well, do you save 10% of your income?

" You can say, "I sure do," or when you are talking to them about using credit cards responsibly, you can honestly say to them, "We used to be in a lot of credit card debt. I have to admit that we ran up our bills, we owed several thousand dollars in credit card debt, but we decided we wanted to be debt free. So, we really worked at this and we cut back on eating out, we cut back on going to the movies, so that we could pay off our debt.

"Kids will be really impressed, they will be impressed number one that mom and dad actually made a mistake and they will be even more impressed that mom and dad actually figured a way out of it. So, use this as an opportunity to discuss these financial issues with your kids and to set a good example and plus you are going to have more money in the bank and less debt.

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