Kids, Cash, Plastic and You A Guidebook For Families on Mastering Money MasterCard International Needs vs. Wants: A Quick Lesson for Your Kids How Money Works Teaching Your Kids Financial Responsibility Making a Financial Family Tree Budgets: The Secret to Your Financial Success Welcome Every day, consumers are learning new ways to get more value for their money. From different ways to pay-such as credit, debit or smart cards-to home banking and shopping over the Internet, people are realizing that they have more control over their money and more ways to use it. Parents and caregivers are uniquely positioned to teach kids the life skills, values and understanding they need to become smart consumers. The goal of Kids, Cash, Plastic and You is to help parents and caregivers understand the whys and ways of personal finance and to provide them with tips, resources and activities designed to make it easier to talk to kids about money. We extend our thanks to those involved in developing and producing Kids, Cash, Plastic and You. We are especially indebted to Elane Scott, pioneer of the Parent Coach concept. Elane assisted in crafting many of the tips and exercises contained herein. Her knowledge of unique and inspiring parent-coaching techniques, as well as her enthusiasm for this project, were invaluable. MasterCard International and the U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs hope Kids, Cash, Plastic and You will motivate today's consumers-parents and caregivers-for tomorrow's marketplace. Charlotte Newton Leslie Byrne Vice President of Consumer Affairs Special Assistant to the MasterCard International President and Director U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs Family Finances Resources and Challenges You handle money practically every day of your life. Whether it is day-to-day finances or long-term savings goals, managing money can be difficult. Understanding personal finance and how money works for you can make a tremendous difference to you and your family. It can heighten your financial well-being, increase your sense of control and give you a more positive outlook on life in general. Learning good habits early in life can make managing money easier over the long run. This guidebook provides a basic framework for understanding the world of finance as it relates to your family. It offers ideas for organizing your family's financial resources and is intended to help parents, grandparents and adult care-givers teach kids values such as responsibility, frugality, honesty, respect and moderation. It's a first step in mastering your financial future and your family's. SUCCESS PRINCIPLE #1: Acknowledge and affirm your strengths. Children need help understanding the role money has in their lives. Invest time, energy and resources to help family members develop their natural talents, abilities and circle of support when it comes to money and finances. Setting a Good Example Financial responsibility begins at home. Whether you realize it or not, you teach children about money constantly, either directly through your spending and saving priorities, or indirectly in casual conversation. Every time kids go to a store, a restaurant or a ball game, they learn about money and about what adults think is important and valuable. More than anything else, your own spending and saving patterns and the money attitudes they suggest form the basis of your family's financial values. How can you make sure you're passing on the values you want your kids to have? The first step is to think about what your priorities are and what message you are sending about finances. Start by asking yourself these questions: What kind of financial role model am I? What kind of financial example am I setting for my family? What are my family's financial goals? Do I have trouble paying bills on time or handling credit? Do I involve the kids in family financial decisions? Do I expect them to be financially responsible? The more honestly you can answer these questions, the more effective your efforts will be. Kids should start learning about money at an early age. If you include your kids in the process of family financial decision-making (even in a limited way), they'll be on their way to a financial education. Point out to your kids that some restaurants give better value for the money spent. SUCCESS PRINCIPLE #2: Acknowledge your past-the first step in setting a good example is conducting a financial check-up. The challenges facing today's parents are not the same as those their parents faced when they grew up. Financial choices that parents make are influenced by choices their parents or other adults made regarding money-positive or negative. Past influences offer no guarantee for future success, neither are they an excuse for failure. Set your kid up for success by teaching them fiscal responsibility and by leading through example. Money, Today and Tomorrow One good way to get kids interested in spending and saving is to teach them something about the history of money. This will help them understand money not only as a medium of exchange, but also as a commodity that can be saved for future use. Help Kids Understand Money and Its Value Ask your kids what kinds of things they value and would use as money, such as trading cards, books, action figures or video games. Provide them with examples of items that other cultures used for currency. This will help them understand financial value, exchange, and what money stands for. In the past, people used things of practical value such as sea shells, cattle, bullets, beads (wampum), clusters of tobacco leaves, and small bits of metal to exchange things. As recently as the 1940s, during Germany's postwar economic collapse, chocolate bars and packs of cigarettes were used as money. Money circulates continuously through our social and financial system. The employer pays wages to employees; they use the wages to pay the grocer and the auto mechanic, who use the money to pay their own suppliers and employees. Some of the money that changes hands will end up in savings banks or stocks and bonds where it is used by businesses to buy more goods and services and to employ more people. Prehistory * Agricultural products Money was what you grew or hunted. Everything from grains to game was traded, but it was hard to make change. 700 B.C. * Gold coins Coins represented a great leap forward in portability and convenience. This Metapontum gold piece is from 350 B.C. 1661 * Modern paper money During a coin shortage, Sweden became the first European country to issue printed paper money. 1700 * Checks and bank drafts Checks let people move money readily, access it without carrying it, and make exact payments. Currency was no longer a prerequisite for payment. 1973 * Credit cards Credit cards made purchasing even more convenient, as banks began communicating transaction information through computers. 1988 * ATMs ATMs proliferated worldwide, providing consumers with convenient, secure access to money and account information. 1991 * Debit cards Debit cards extended card functionality to the deposit account, making it much more convenient for consumers to shop and pay bills. 1996 * Chip cards Chip cards, sometimes called "smart cards," offer the latest technology to support a variety of new uses beyond traditional payment methods. Working, Earning, Teaching and Learning How your family earns, spends, and saves money reveals a lot about your lives and what you value. Talk to your kids about what you do for a living, and explain how working provides shelter, food, clothing and other necessities for your family. Take them to the workplace to get them to understand exactly what you do on the job. This will show them the intimate connection between work and money. Working In the past, the relationship among work, money and well-being was much easier for kids to see. The family grew food for meals and made many tools and toys by hand. Today's kids need more help in understanding the role of money in their daily lives. The most important lesson is that before money can be spent, it first must be earned. To begin your family's money education, explain coins and bills. Kids can understand coins and bills when they are learning to count, at about the age of three. Family outings can provide opportunities to show them how money works. For example, kids can learn by watching you exchange bills and coins for food in a restaurant or supermarket. Once they understand that money is used to buy things, it may be time to find out what your kids think about money. Ask them what they hear about money and our economy in school and on TV. Ask them how they feel about what they hear. This can help you learn how your family is absorbing information about money and consumerism. Consider some practical ways to teach your kids about money. For example, you might take them to the supermarket and use discount coupons, particularly ones they've clipped themselves in advance. This involves kids in decision-making and shows them how to get good value for money - the basis of sound financial management. Remember, there are opportunities to teach kids about money and values every day. SUCCESS PRINCIPLE #3: Clarify your vision and your values. Money plays an important role in our lives and has come to symbolize a measure of success. How your family spends money is a direct reflection of your family's values and standards. Invest time in defining what success looks like for your family-use both your mind and your heart. This definition will provide an important backdrop for setting goals, making decisions, and establishing priorities. Also, you will ensure that your family budget reflects your family vision. Helping Kids Understand Needs and Wants Long before they understand the concepts of saving, investing, or borrowing, kids sense the power of spending money. They see grown-ups show off their latest purchases, hear them talk about a relative's new car, or watch while they give thanks for presents. One lesson about money and finance involves differentiating between wants and needs. This distinction is essential for developing good money management skills. Without this foundation, kids may have trouble controlling their spending as adults, never appreciating the difference between a luxury and a necessity. You can develop a WANT IT-NEED IT list for your family that shows the difference between desires and necessities. The list can help them understand the difference between wanting comic books and candy bars and needing clothes. You can make this into a game by having your kids list several things they own and decide which of them are necessities. They can then do the same thing with things they would like to own. FINANCIAL FAMILY TREE Today's families make more use of money than people did in the past. Two hundred years ago, many families grew much of their own food and made many of the things they needed. As time went on, people produced less and less of the things they used, and this made money a more important factor in running a family. You can help your kids understand this concept at the same time you develop in them an understanding of how the role of money gradually changed. Tell them what you know about how earlier generations of your family earned a living. Then help them fill in the family tree below, using photos or drawings to identify family members. Allowances and Handling Money Kids start to understand more about the value of money around the age of six, once they have mastered a few basic math skills. They can then start handling money on a limited basis. Most families start to give kids allowances at this age. Allowances should be age-appropriate and should increase over time. If they are earned by performing household chores, allowances can be powerful tools for teaching children about the connection between work and money. But even when they are not related to chores, allowances give kids a sense of pride and responsibility in handling their own money. As kids get older, you can give them larger allowances and more responsibility over how they spend their money. For example, by age eight, youngsters often want to do extra chores for additional spending money. Help them by requiring that they spend part of their allowances on certain items, such as toys or clothes. This practice can reinforce their independence and sense of responsibility, at the same time that it allows them to learn the basics of spending and saving for themselves. Let your kids "interview" you about you and your childhood allowance so they can learn what was important to you as a kid it terms of wants and needs. How old were you when you got your first allowance? How much was it? What was the first thing you can remember buying with your own money? Did you have a special place to save your money? Did you ever put your allowance in a bank account? Did you ever buy clothes with your own money? SUCCESS PRINCIPLE #4: Visualize and affirm your success. Discuss and create a clear image of family success and continually reaffirm every small accomplishment that leads your family closer to its goals. Remember, while your visions may change and grow, good values remain the same. Once a goal is set, don't give up. Have each family member write down a statement about the family goal on an index card. Put the cards in a place where they can be seen daily. State all goals in the positive. Focus on what you want, not on what you don't want. Budgets The Heart of a Financial Plan Budgets-written lists of income and expenses-let both adults and kids establish priorities and control spending, and these habits will ultimately result in saving money. Most budgets include two categories of expenses-non-discretionary and discretionary. Non-discretionary expenses are necessities: rent or mortgage, insurance, telephone, heating and credit card bills. Discretionary expenses include vacations, leisure activities, new clothes and car or home maintenance. A budget lies at the heart of any family's financial plan. It takes a long time and a good deal of effort to establish a budget that really works, but the result is worth it. Most financial planners suggest taking an "easy does it" approach to making a family budget and financial plan, including savings. A good way to start is by keeping a simple list every month of money that comes in and goes out of the home. You can work together as a family to develop your financial plan. Budgeting is a lot like teaching kids any skill. Keep things simple at first and build gradually, instead of trying to do it all at once. Once your family understands how it spends its money, you can begin to factor in savings. Many families find it especially helpful to make savings a top priority and put aside some money before spending it on any items. Many families identify savings for particular goals - college, a down payment on a house or automobile, a vacation, or retirement. Seeing you pay bills and keep track of what you spend and save helps your kids understand the distinction between needs and wants (see p. 7), and makes them think about what is most important to them. To encourage your family to save, hang a picture of the item they are saving for on a bulletin board or the refrigerator. This will keep everyone focused on the goal. As kids mature, you can give them increased control over their spending and saving decisions. This may mean letting them make bad decisions without "bailing them out" when they overspend. SUCCESS PRINCIPLE #5: Positive Parent Talk-Fiscal fitness is not an accident. Talking about things can make them seem possible, depending on what you say and how you address the issue. Speak from the heart-if your kids make a decision you would like them to repeat, praise them for it. This is effective for teaching fiscal fitness. For example: "Because you took such good care of your backpack this year, I think you will be able to use it again next year. That means, with the money we saved, I can get you an extra pair of jeans (or a baseball mitt, ballet shoes, new microscope)." Be precise and clear with your comments. If you want to comment on something you are not happy about, stay away from remarks that create fear such as, "You are a bad boy/girl." Statements like this make it difficult for children to tell if you are talking about their behavior or their character. Fear motivates only in the short-term; desire motivates in the long-term. SUCCESS PRINCIPLE #6: Give and respond to feedback. Actively seek, respond to and offer feedback to family members. Change and new ideas seem strange at first. Keep an open mind. Acknowledge family members who help you along the way. Don't have too many advisors. Encourage children to listen and give their input. Increasing Savings and Investments How can you increase family financial resources? Savings and investments are the key to a well-kept budget. Your family has a variety of investment choices. Bank and credit union savings accounts are one alternative. Mutual funds that buy stocks and bonds are another. Other choices include whole life insurance policies and annuities that can be set up as part of savings plans in which monthly deductions are made from paychecks or checking accounts. Allowing kids to see how savings can increase is a good lesson in thrift and investment. Kids can start out with piggy banks and work up to bank savings accounts. These savings plans can be used to help finance their long-term needs, such as college tuition. Chart the progress of savings to show how your family's money grows over time. SUCCESS PRINCIPLE #7: Plan your future. Your family future can be divided into financial and non-financial areas. Your interests, skills, future capabilities and your character create your non-financial assets, which have a direct impact on how you spend, save, plan for the future, and budget. Commit to a realistic budget that coincides with your family vision. Talk to your kid about the future-whether it's planning and saving for college, saving for a new home, for budgeting for a family vacation. Setting goals helps you make your vision a reality. Have children keep a journal or log of their savings and spending decisions and record their thoughts about managing money. Keep a jar in the kitchen and put small change in it every day. As the jar fills, children learn the first steps toward savings. Reward actions that lead to the accomplishment of family goals. Understanding Interest Understanding interest is another important part of your family's financial education. When your child has learned to multiply, it's time for you to explain the basics of interest. Interest - the cost of borrowing or lending money - is expressed as a percentage of the amount involved. This amount is known as the principal. For example, if you borrow $1,000 (principal) at 10 percent (interest rate) for one year, you must pay back $1,100 - the $1,000 borrowed and $100 in interest. If you borrow money for two years, you will probably have to pay a higher rate of interest. This is because more can go wrong over a longer period of time, and that means a greater risk for the lender. If the interest rate were 13 percent for a two-year loan, the borrower would have to pay the lender $130 each year, in addition to the $1,000 principal. When you open a bank account, you are, in effect, lending money to the bank. The bank pays you (the depositor) interest and lends the money to someone else at a higher rate. This is how the bank makes a profit. Interest charges often vary for consumer credit, credit cards, store credits and mortgages. If interest rates go up, borrowers have to pay more. If they go down, less. The same holds true for savings accounts: if interest rates rise, the savers earn more on their money; if they fall, savers earn less. Pay close attention to interest rates on credit obligations you and your family have. Sometimes when there is a high interest rate charged for a credit purchase, a "good deal" turns out to be a bad deal when you add up all the interest payments. Compound Interest Based on a weekly $5 contribution at a 7% annual interest rate, compounded monthly over 50 years. Increasing Savings and Investment Credit and Debt Counseling Services Credit can sometimes become a problem for families. If this happens to you, there are many organizations that can help you manage credit wisely. They specialize in credit counseling for individuals and families and offer debt consolidation services. Credit and debt counseling organizations keep your financial information confidential. Creditors generally see contacting a credit counseling service as a positive step. Because creditors support budget and debt counseling through voluntary contributions, these services are available at little or no cost to consumers. National Credit Counseling Services (NCCS) is a nonprofit community service organization offering free, confidential and professional debt management and educational programs to consumers nationwide. NCCS is dedicated to helping financially distressed individuals and families effectively manage their personal finances. The NCCS can be reached by calling 888/844.NCCS. The National Foundation for Consumer Credit (NFCC) is the national umbrella organization for 1,300 non-profit credit counseling offices throughout the United States, Puerto Rico and Canada. NFCC offers free or low-cost professional and confidential in-person counseling and educational services to consumers. Local Consumer Credit Counseling Services (CCCS) offices are non-profit organizations affiliated with the NFCC. Call 800/388.2227 to find the CCCS office nearest you. If you have time and financial knowledge, stocks and bonds may be a better choice than savings accounts or mutual funds. Each personal investment choice, however, carries different risks. Personal investing involves a lot of work and time. Here, too, kids can get involved. They can purchase shares of a company that means something to them (a toy company, for example). They can receive the company's annual reports and follow its stock price in the newspaper every day. You might provide funds that match their stock purchases. Seeing how investments work offers meaningful lessons about finance. Even if your family isn't able to invest directly in stocks, you can still learn about the stock market by following specific companies in the newspaper. How Money Works and Who Can Help It Work For You Financial management involves understanding and using the services that a number of institutions offer. Just as money has expanded to include credit and debit cards, financial services have changed a great deal over the past 30 years. Banking In the past, people only had to know where to find the corner bank and how to open a passbook savings and checking account. Today, the local Automated Teller Machine (ATM) is often part of a large, sometimes nationwide, financial services organization. Nonetheless, the basic services these organizations offer to help you manage your finances are fundamentally unchanged and familiar, and you should teach your children about these services. The role of banks and credit unions is particularly important. These organizations provide the basic services that most families need. Checks Most people write checks to pay their bills. This means they have a checking account with a bank or credit union. They deposit money in the account or have their employer do it for them, and then they write checks for money they owe. Some checking accounts have lines of credit, often called overdraft protection. (This allows you to write checks for more than you actually have on deposit. It's a form of borrowing, and it involves interest that must be paid to the bank.) Some checking accounts even pay interest or allow people to write checks at no charge, ususally if a certain minimum balance is maintained. Savings Accounts and CDs Banks offer savings accounts or certificates of deposit (CDs), which are similar to savings accounts. With a savings account, you can put in as much money as you want and make deposits or withdrawals at any time. Interest rates paid by banks often vary. CD's, on the other hand, represent a set amount deposited, and they pay a specified rate of interest over a specific time. While you can cash a CD earlier than the initial agreement, there is a penalty for doing so. The Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation guarantees savings accounts and CDs in member banks up to $100,000. SUCCESS PRINCIPLE #8: ACT. Be a role model. Give children credit for being smart by avoiding jargon, slang, or buzz words when talking to them about the financial services that you use. Using the correct names for financial services helps the children learn and hear terms in their proper environment. Show your children the steps to take when making a transaction. Get them involved in the financial process. Let your children help you keep receipts in a special place or monitor family savings. Charge Cards and Credit Cards Charge and credit cards allow people to make purchases now and pay for them later. However, there are important differences between charge cards and credit cards. Charge cards must be paid off in full at the end of every month. Credit card balances can be paid off in installments over many months, or even years. Charge cards and credit cards offer flexibility and convenience. It is important, however, to make timely payments. If you fail to do so, you run the risk of receiving a bad credit rating or of experiencing other more serious difficulties. Debit Cards To pay for purchases, people are increasingly using debit cards to transfer money from a checking account to the account of a store or service provider. You can use these cards at locations where credit card logos are displayed. Since debit cards do not involve borrowing or lending, there is no credit involved, and no interest charges are made. Many people use debit cards in place of cash or checks. SUCCESS PRINCIPLE #9: Persevere-Change often happens reluctantly. Don't give up on fiscal fitness. Ask yourself what skills your kids have learned lately or are trying to learn. Learning is a continuous process. Tell them that they know more now and have invested time becoming fiscally fit. By investing time to know more about your personal finances, your bank of knowledge is worth more! Brokerage Accounts People buy stocks and bonds through stock brokers. Many brokers also offer financial planning advice and sell a number of financial products. These products include mutual funds - professionally managed portfolios (assortments) of stocks and bonds - CD's, and insurance policies. Stock brokers also help people manage their money through cash management accounts. Store Credit Purchases Many stores allow customers to buy on credit and settle accounts periodically, usually every month. Stores and retailers charge for extended credit terms. Credit Bureaus and Consumer Credit Files Companies called credit bureaus keep track of consumers' outstanding debts. Stores, banks and other financial institutions have access to these files. You can also access your own credit files. (See below.) A poor credit rating can keep you from getting more credit in the future. This can make it difficult to buy an automobile or a home, or even to obtain a credit card. Your Credit Bureau Files Bureaus that maintain credit files must, by law, make them available to the individuals on file. You can obtain a copy of your credit file from Experian (formerly TRW), 800/520.1221, Equifax Information Service Center, 800/685.1111, or TransUnion Corporation, 800/851.2674. Values and Money Lifetime Family Financial Security Gaining an appreciation for, and then control over, your financial resources empowers you as an individual and as a family member. In its simplest sense, family financial planning involves keeping a list of income and expenses that helps establish and build savings. A solid financial plan requires that you and your family understand the results of your actions. You must all appreciate the role that finance plays in a family's system of values and the fact that a family's values help determine its financial well-being. Good planning and attention to spending and saving can help your family prosper and provide the opportunity to strengthen values and concentrate on other, non-financial areas of life. Once you have a good idea of your family's financial goals and can express those to your kids, you can start to use money in ways that will further your own values. Instilling values and a strong sense of self-worth in your kids involves more than just encouraging and promoting money awareness and financial responsibility. It also requires development of sound values that can reinforce feelings of individual self-esteem. Such feelings can facilitate spending and savings habits that will allow the people in your family to lead meaningful lives. If this booklet has helped you appreciate and get in touch with those values and convey them to your kids, it has served its purpose. Values Quiz Your kids will hear a lot about money at an early age. To make sure there isn't any confusion, you can make a game of discussing the following statements with them. Ask whether they've heard these statements before and what they think the statements mean: * He's money mad. * He's only out for money. * Money isn't everything. * She's lucky; she doesn't have to work * Money doesn't grow on trees. * Money makes money. * I can never understand anything about money. * I've been rich and I've been poor. Rich is better. Money is a constant in your family's life, yet money itself is in a constant state of change. Beads, shells, livestock, gold, eggs, drums: All have been considered money at different times in different cultures. In the past, folding money seemed unchanging. Now it's becoming almost as outdated a form of money as livestock. Cash and checks make up most of the money you use. But there are faster and more convenient ways to pay. Credit, debit and electronic cash products are displacing cash and checks. You will be able to choose how, when and where to use these new forms of money. It will make paying for goods and services easier for you. As it evolves, money will become more versatile, and you and your family will start to think of cash, credit, and debit in new ways. So, because money is changing, you need to give your kids a good understanding of how to handle money now...and in the future. SUCCESS PRINCIPLE #10: Reap the rewards. Use the journey to fiscal fitness as an opportunity to be closer to your family. Celebrate every success. Often we put off celebrations because other activities come up. Share an ice cream, give an extra hug, or write notes to your kids and put them in their lunch. Small efforts typically get better results than big ones when you want to manage day-to-day behavior. Start out with these principles when your children are young. Your lives will never be the same. Bibliography and List of References Sources Berg, Adrianne G., and Bochner, Arthur B., The Totally Awesome Money Book for Kids, Newmarket Press, 1993. Canfield, Jack Goals, A Guide to Personal Success, Foundation for Self-Esteem, 1991. Estes, Patricia Schiff and Barocas, Irving, Kids, Money and Values, Betterway Books, 1994. Godfrey, Neale S., A Penny Saved, Simon and Schuster, 1995. Hwoschinsky, Paul, True Wealth, Ten Speed Press, 1990. For Further Reading Clabby, John F. and Elias, Maurice J., Teach Your Child Decision Making, Doubleday, 1987. Feiden, Karyn, Parents' Guide to Raising Responsible Kids: Preschool Through the Teen Years. Prentice Hall, 1991. Fodor, R.V. , Nickels, Dimes, and Dollars: How Currency Works. William Morrow, 1980. Kyte, Kathy S., The Kids' Complete Guide to Money, Alfred A. Knopf, 1984. Porter, Sylvia, Planning Your Finances, Prentice Hall, 1990. Soros, George, The Alchemy of Finance, Reading the Mind of the Market, Touchstone Books, 1987. Weinstein, Grace W., Children and Money: A Parent's Guide, Signet, 1985. Wilkinson, Elizabeth, Making Cents: Every Kid's Guide to Money, Little Brown, 1989. As it evolves, money will become more versatile... Produced by MasterCard International in cooperation with the U.S. Office of Consumer Affairs and the Consumer Information Cente