How Can I Learn to be Money Wise?

I am a big reader, love reading and have become more money wise with our family budget over the years due to some very clever people sharing their knowledge.

We get money wise by increasing our knowledge and I never want to be at a place where I think I know enough.

We live in a changing world and it is no longer wise to deal with your family budget using hand me down information. There are also opportunities to make your money work for you like never before.

So I believe we need to educate ourselves in getting a better control over our money. And we need to begin educating our children in some of these methods.

A study done by VISA in the USA identified:

- 85% of people agree that young adults lack the basic skills to manage their finances

- 2% of young adults are ‘well prepared’ to manage their personal finances

- The average debt a 25 year old has is over $8,000

- This debt snowballs to about $415, 849 by the time their 40 - 72% of kids move back home because they are failing financially

(Information taken from KaChing website)

These are pretty unhealthy figures. If we as parents can create money wise children before they leave home then they definitely stand a better chance of making great financial decisions and continuing to move forward financially.

Many of us parents aren’t setting the best example though if we look at how much debt we are in. What scares me is when I look at how much money has gone through my fingers at the end of the financial year and how little I have to show for it.

What can we do to change this cycle?

There is a company called Ka-Ching who have developed an interactive and practical Business Parenting course. They take an approach that gets parents involved in helping their children understand how to look after their money, how to start their own business, how to invest wisely and learn vital financial success skills.

My kids are still a little young but I’m looking forward to doing it with them because I know I will learn a lot through the process too!

Other parents have commented on how much fun they have had with the program though. It has helped them decide on how to work their pocket money system at home in a way that teaches their kids skills that will help them in the real world.

This program that will help wisen your kids towards money seems to be directed towards 6 – 14 year olds. According to other parents’ comments, they have found the course easy to use and not much preparation needed on their part which is great when we are already pretty busy!

EDUCATE OURSELVES IN FINANCIAL MATTERS!

An Australian Bank, ANZ has also tried to help us re-educate ourselves by offering online and local workshops called Moneyminded. Their information comes free of any form of advertising of bias towards their bank or banking products. All their tools and information programs are free so there is no excuse for not making effective decisions with our family budgets.

Online Topics include:

- Planning and Saving

- Everyday finances

- Loans and credit

- Super Future

- Investment basics

I hope these couple of ideas get you on the right track with your family budget. We need to be money wise and it is up to us to make sure we learn the right financial information.

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