The Gilmer Mirror - WINGames News

WINGames News

Vol 3, Issue 2

February, 2013

In This Issue

Teach Your Teens To Be Money Smart

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Dear Editor,

Hope you are great today! Did you know that 66% of parents have not taught their teens how to balance a checkbook or how credit card interest works? These stats were a bit eye-opening to me as well.

We are educators, but also parents and leaders. It is a bit concerning when students graduate high school, but are unable to balance a checkbook. There seems to be a gap somewhere and maybe we can take a look at ways to address this issue.

The following quiz can be given to your teens or to your students to see where they fall. Afterwards, develop create methods to address the gaps you find.

Teach Your Teen to Be Money Smart

We are summarizing the article written by Denise Witner. Here is the link to the full article:

http://parentingteens.about.com/od/ m

oneymanagement/tp/teensmoney.htm

Question 1 of 5: Does your teens/students currently have a money goal?

Yes.

No.

Not sure.

Question 2 of 5: Does your teens/students have a savings or checking account?

Yes.

No.

Not sure.

Question 3 of 5: Does your teens/students make an effort to plan where their money is going to be spent?

Yes.

No.

I don't know.

Question 4 of 5: Does your teens/students balance their check book monthly? Do they know how?

Yes.

No.

Sometimes.

I don't know.

Question 5 of 5: If your teens/students needed money for a purchase, would they know how to get it?

Yes.

No.

I don't know.

At WIN we want to see students that like learning, and live responsibly becoming lights to the world around them. Part of that is being money mature. We believe these skills should be cultivated in middle school and mature in the high school and college years.

Maybe we can take a little time and ask our students these questions and see what they say. Find ways to generate discussion followed by action steps to get them motivated to learn more. Ms. Witner suggested the following tip to address the first question. Checkout our MoneyCamp workshop to address questions two through five at http://winmds.com

Help Your Teen/Students Set Money Goals.

A money goal is a wonderful motivator for a teen to create a savings for the future or for a specific item(works for adults too). When we look forward to getting something we want, make a plan to get it and then work toward obtaining that goal, we learn commendable personal values like perseverance, a strong work ethic and decisiveness.

Start your teen off with small money goals. These will help keep your teen's eyes on the big picture. Help them to find ways to save. For instance, while spending $10 in a game lounge may be fun, spending $8 and saving $2 will bring them that much closer to their goal and be just as fun. It is also fun to daydream about why you are saving your money - it's part of enjoying the journey. To really cement a money goal with your teen you can try a trick I have used:

Find a picture or a physical representation of the goal.

Place the picture of the goal somewhere your teen sees it

regularly.

Put a note with the amount already saved on the picture.

Allow your teen to change the note as they save more.

Thanks Ms. Witner!

We are hosting MoneyCamp!

We've been invited to present our MoneyCamp Workshop at the National Orientation Directors Conference (NODA) in Los Angeles, California this weekend.

We're presenting it again at the Association for the Promotion of Campus Activities (APCA) March 20 -24 in Atlanta, Georgia!

MoneyCamp is a workshop designed for young adults to help lay a proper foundation in money management. It covers the basics of banking, checkbook balancing, establishing and maintaining a financial budget. It also provides a pathway for success for college-bound teens.

For information about visit: www.winmds.com