Comments on: Becoming Better Financial Role Models

By: Mr Plasectomy

Mr Plasectomy — Fri, 24 Apr 2009 09:59:27 +0000

Great way to start off the learning of financial skills. Kids are like sponges and they can soak up everything they see whether you know it or not.

By: emmi

emmi — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 14:18:38 +0000

Diane, Tricia’s Credit Card is at 0% interest. So keeping the money in savings means earning interest on it, however small. If it were at 26% that would be a whole different ball game. I think Tricia is doing the right thing, and tilting one last round at the debt windmill without forcing ole Poncho Sanchez (the savings account) out in front of her to take the hit is quite noble.

(Okay, given that weird analogy, I clearly needed more sleep last night.)

By: Kristy @ Master Your Card

Kristy @ Master Your Card — Thu, 23 Apr 2009 04:15:44 +0000

That’s awesome that he’s learning good financial habits at a young age! He’ll do great as he gets older and he’ll be a lot better off.

That last one had be laughing! I made the mistake of buying something off an infomercial once and it was horrible. The $19.95 item plus $4.95 for shipping and handling turned into an almost $100 expense. It was ridiculous! They charge you for everything…nothing it free. Good for your son to know that!

Congrats to you and your husband for teaching him those things, as well.

By: jesscyn

jesscyn — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 21:05:50 +0000

That’s just full of awesome

From the mouths of babes.

By: Hun

Hun — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 17:56:13 +0000

That’s awesome Tricia!

By: Brian

Brian — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:53:36 +0000

At work we received a gift basket from a vendor. I turned around and said they could have just knocked that value off the cost of the contract instead. Everyone looked at me like I was talking a foreign language.

It’s the same thing as the second one not being free! They obviously got the money for the gift basket from somewhere and what do you know, we gave them money last month.

Sorry, I’m just venting.

By: DH

DH — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:43:50 +0000

Wow, you’ve got a pretty cool kid. Really smart he is.

And I agree, sometimes the biggest benefits are the one’s that can’t be counted and weighed.

By: Tricia

Tricia — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:35:27 +0000

Dianne – we could take the money from our savings (it’s crossed my mind a lot). Part of why we haven’t done that was to see what we could do during this final stretch without having to pull from savings. It ended up being a personal challenge for us just to see how we could do.

However, transfers have been initiated to withdraw money from our savings

By: Dianne

Dianne — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 16:12:09 +0000

I don’t understand why you aren’t debt free. Take $1500 from savings and be done with it. You’ll have $2000 for an emergency. That will grow back up quickly to $3500 because you’ll be DEBT FREE.

By: Rags

Rags — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 15:06:32 +0000

That’s great to hear. Kids these days aren’t getting enough of a financial education, but it seems like yours definitely is. He’s learned things that take some of us 10, 20, or 30 years to learn. For some people it takes them their entire life to learn what your son knows, and others not at all. This seems to be a nice little bonus you got here as a result of reducing your debt; be sure to never stop teaching him these things.

- Rags

By: Christina

Christina — Wed, 22 Apr 2009 14:38:56 +0000

Thats wonderful that your son has learned some financial wisdom on your journey. I feel that most of our money knowledge does come from our parents and how they delt with money while we were growing up. I know my parents always spent money, and now i have that same problem. But together now we are all trying to lower our debts.