Why Teach Money Management?

I recently was asked, "If you had to give one piece of financial advice to college students, what would it be." First of all, college is way to late to start teaching about personal finance. By this point in life, children, may have already developed poor spending habits.

Money management is something we must teach at home. Teaching children about spending management at an early age is important. Your child's school won't likely offer courses in managing money. Sending them out in the world on their own, with no clue how to manage money, is just crazy!

Many adults today are struggling with money management and personal finances. Our parents may not have realized how important it was to teach us good spending habits, even if they had good spending habits themselves. Hopefully, it rubbed off on some of us.

From the looks of increasing consumer debt, it seems more likely that many of us just didn't pay attention. This is why "teaching" our children about managing spending is so important.

Teaching complete personal finance management is essential to your child's future. Planning for current and future spending is necessary to become financially secure and independent. Give your child the tools he/she needs to be successful!

Teach them to plan for life and life's needs and wants. Teach them good money management skills. They will thank you when they are older. They'll watch friends and neighbors struggle with money issues while they are free of financial stress and debt.

Don't worry if you haven't been managing your own money well. Some parents don't teach financial lessons to their children because they feel like financial failures themselves. However, you can turn your personal finance picture around and, in the process, teach a valuable lesson to your children.

The best teacher is experience. Help them learn through your real life experiences. Show them what not to do, while you get your finances back on track. Seeing the consequences of poor money management may prove to be more effective than actually teaching the personal finance management skills alone.

If you are struggling because of poor spending habits, show them the struggles, and make it clear that you feel it's important to prevent the same from happening to them.

Teach them to manage money to have a better future. That's one of the goals of parenting, to improve our children's situation in life from generation to generation. Who knows, teaching your children proper money management may prove to present the first millionaire generation in your family tree. Wouldn't that be great. At the very least you'll be giving them the tools to be financially secure and independent.

So, what would I say to a college student? Just say no! Stay away from credit card "pushers." Manage and use credit wisely and live below your income. This gives you the money you need to plan for future spending.

Plan what you will spend in the future, instead of spending what you may earn in the future. Learn to properly and completely manage spending and take control of your money.

Teen Money Central
Teenagers learn about finances and money management. Learn all you can about money; Including tips to earn money, save money, investing, budgeting, and starting a small business as a young entrepreneur.