Saturday, October 4, 2008

A small request...

Well I've been swamped with school and work but I wanted to send out a quick update and a request for help.

First of all school is going fine, I made it through my first round of midterms with only minor cuts and brusies. I'm actively looking for an internship in either Chicago or London for the summer and hopefully beyond. Unfortunately the current financial market mess has led to my concern over how may opportunities are going to be ultimately available.

As many of you may or may not know, I have faced a great internal struggle of who to vote for this election. I feel so deeply obligated to be true to my personal beliefs that neither major canidate fully represented. I for a long time have considered third party canidates yet others are saying "It's throwing your vote away" or "What if who you would have voted for a"major canidate" if only given the option but you didn't and they ended up losing?

Well I voted yesterday, and I feel good about my choice. I won't be disclosing who I voted for until after the election because it was such a personal proccess that I think brought me there.
So I hope others take the time to look at how they really feel america should be, and take the time to vote. In the end one vote may not matter much, but it mattered to me.

Here is my Request for anybody interested in helping me complete a personal project:
Could you please either comment here or send me an e-mail with your thoughts on "What does a child need to know about money?" the age is between 6-8 years old. It can relate to any aspect, budgeting, savings, interest, counting etc... I just need to get ideas of what the general public believes is most important.

My personal project is to publish a children's story book that I also Illistrate. I intend to use the project as fuel to get an internship/job for the summer/fall. Thanks in advance for sharing your thoughts.

5 comments:

Evaly said...

Well, since I have an almost 6 year old, I'll tell you what we are trying to teach her. Our focus is on saving & deciding what to spend money on. McKell gets $5 a month (because she is 5) and she immediately pays 10% for tithing and puts 10% in the bank. Then she can choose what she wants to do with the rest. We talked about saving up to buy something big (and more valuable) as opposed to getting $1 junk. We also talked about getting "free" money for putting her money in the bank-she totally got excited by that idea! Now when she begs for things, we tell her she can use her money and usually she says "no, I don't want to waste it." I think it makes her think about it more when she has to part with her OWN money. So far this year she has spent $11 on a toy and some gum :) I love the book The Parenting Breakthrough" by Merrilee Browne Boyack. It outlines a great plan (which we are using) for teaching kids to work, save money, and be independent. Good luck with the internship stuff- I'm sure you will be blessed with the right opportunity. Sorry- I guess I kinda wrote a novel!

Christy said...

Wow Ev! You have a kid thats almost six! McKell is so big! She'll be babysitting soon!

Lorinda said...

I think that in the 6-8 year old range they should be learning about paying tithing first, then saving but also they need to learn about working for money. If a child has to work for some of what they receive money wise, they seem to generally be more wise in how they spend it later.

Viviana said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Viviana said...

Christy, I think this is a great subject to explore. Here are my comments, I hope they are not too long for you and that they make some kind of sense.
Earning their money is the first part ot the process of learning about money. (Well, being able to count and knowing the face value of the different denominations is step 1) Communicate to your children about your personal values concerning money:
How to save it, how to make it grow and most importantly, how to spend it wisely. The make it grow part is a little harder at that age, but will eventually get the idea as they start to save. I used to reward Brook's savings by having some kind of "matching" system when she was that age. Also, make sure they learn the differences between needs, wants, and wishes. This is part of the process of how they will spend the money in the future. Something that Evaly mentions is saving for something big; I call that setting a "goal" for their money. In the process of spending money if we don't teach the children about setting a goal for it, it will be difficult for them to make a decision when confronted with "whishes and wants" vs. "needs". A goal helps a child become responsible for their spending. One of the hardest things to learn for a child that age is good record keeping. Have in place a method for them so that they can keep receipts from "purchases" etc.. It is a great surprise to them to see how much they have made in the year, how much it has been spent ( and what it is that they bought) and how much they were able to save. It has been suggested that a good way to do this is keeping 12 envelopes, one per month. The envelope should have some kind of record keeping of "income", etc. - This every month idea also gives the opportunity for having a once a month time to evaluate how much money they have, they have spent, etc. A great opportunity for parents to sit down and talk about it without being overwhelming to them.
Finally, (I have a lot to say as you see) make your young child aware of the dangers of borrowing by allowing them to spend it all at times and offering a lending with an adequate "interest". I so often have heard children say: "I can always borrow from my parents" - this assuring feeling comes from us enabling our children to do so without consequences and as a result we raise irresponsible individuals regarding money.