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| Image Credit: Book Sneeze |
Steve and Annette Economides of America’s Cheapest Family have written a new book to help parents
teach their children about the value of money and "financial independence."
In The Money Smart family system
they teach you the money system that they have been using in their family.
Teaching children about money, in today’s society, can be extremely
hard. All children see are ads for the
next new, big, thing. When they are in
school all they are seeing are other children with the newest tech object or
greatest toy. Children are not being taught that it takes
money to get something and to get that money it takes work. Most parents are just handing their children
whatever they want because they can.
Well, the Economides feel like children should earn what
they get by being giving wages (just like adults) and have to work for their
wages. So, they set up a points system
instead of a time card. Their children
are expected to work towards earning 4 point each day under the categories of:
Morning Point, School Point, Chore Point, and Round-up point. At the end of the week their children’s
points were added up and they were paid a certain amount for each one. Obviously, the older the child, the more the
point was worth.
After being paid their children were then expected to divide
their wages into different folders which taught them to save money, donate
money and have some to spend. All basic
concepts that we as adults know but, if we don’t teach our children then they
will have no idea.
As the children get older they are taught more monetary responsibility
by getting part time jobs. At that time
they are responsible for their own clothes, car insurance, any extra “luxury”
items they want, and more. There are some
things that they felt that parents should be responsible for buy at this age
but, only necessities. Items such as
haircuts, medical expenses, and school portraits should be paid for by the
parents. Items such as cosmetics, class rings, and cosmetic surgery are the
child’s responsibility.
Overall this was a good book and got me thinking about a few
things that I might want to implement when it comes to teaching my children
about money but, most of it is common sense.
There are tons of diagrams and forms throughout the book which helps to
illustrate their points. They have a
great system and I feel that it will benefit parents to take a look at their
system. The only problems I had with the
book is since they wrote it as a team the narration is a little confusing
sometimes. I would be reading and think
that it was Steve talking but, instead it was actually Annette. I would have loved to have a little more
clarification as to who was talking.
The other problem or con I had was that they kept referring the
reader back to their website and directing you there so that you could buy
something from them. I felt like they
were trying to sell you something the whole time I was reading. It felt kind of like an infomercial.
I recommend this book as a basic starter book for teaching
children about money. Like I said
before, it’s full of common sense information.
The book can help you work towards teaching your children to be
financially independent.
I received this book free from the publisher through the BookSneeze®.com <http://BookSneeze®.com> book review bloggers program. I was not required to write a positive review. The opinions I have expressed are my own. I am disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255
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