Teaching Older Children About Money

Last week I talked about how to teach your teen about money. Today’s focus will be on teaching older children (~9-12) about money.

I’ve talked several times before about how poorly my parents prepared me to be financially on my own. If my parents had been intentional with money, I would likely have avoided several mistakes I’ve made to date. My parents were not intentional in managing their finances, let alone teaching me about finances. from an early age, I watched my parents do pretty much everything you’re not supposed to do with money, so I spent most of my childhood watching my parents essentially fail at personal finance.

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Goal Check-In: Day 250

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Today marks the 250th day of the year! That means it’s the 250th day of my 2016 goals, including my savings challenge. I posted an update at the 50-day100-day, 150-day, and 200-day marks to help me stay accountable. I’ve made it a goal to post an update every 50 days to help hold myself accountable.
My savings have had a pretty significant change due to my decision to forego my original goal of saving $7557.95 then putting it towards my debt at the end of the year. This goal changed to paying a total of $7557.95 extra on my debts throughout the year.
Here is my 250-day savings update:
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How We Handle Split Finances (Millennial Marriage #2)

My husband and I have split finances. We’ve been doing this since we started dating (despite having a joint bank account for 5 years). He watched his parents get divorced and have finances issues as a result of untangling their joint lives. I have strong ideals of being an independent woman who can make it on her own (cue Miss Independent).
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My Top 5 Frugal Rules

Living the frugal life is not always fun and games. Most of the time, the frugal life is irritating in one way or another. But frugal people overlook the irritants in the now for the benefits in the future.
Think of it like a diet. Most of the time, you don’t start a diet thinking, realistically, that you will achieve your goal weight/shape/size overnight. Instead, you put in the work to bring about the future you want.
Personal finance works the same way. You have to put in the work to have a better future. Read more

Goal Check-In: Day 200

This post contains referral links. Please see my disclosure page for full details.

Today marks the 200th day of the year! That means it’s the 200th day of my 2016 goals, including my savings challenge. I posted an update at the 50-day100-day, and 150-day marks to help me stay accountable. I’ve made it a goal to post an update every 50 days to help hold myself accountable.
My savings have had a pretty significant change due to my decision to forego my original goal of saving $7557.95 then putting it towards my debt at the end of the year. This goal changed to paying a total of $7557.95 extra on my debts throughout the year.
Here is my 200-day savings update:
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Managing Financial Anxiety

Financial anxiety is a term used to described the overwhelming sense of panic related to money problems. Almost everyone experiences some form of financial anxiety from time to time. It takes on many different forms: an unexpected emergency, a forgotten bill auto-drafting, losing your wallet, or a reduction in hours at work.
Money makes us all crazy. So how do you deal with financial anxiety? Read more

My Top 5 Money Mistakes (And How To Avoid Them)

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Part of being human is making and learning from mistakes. Today I’m sharing a more personal post, looking at my 5 worst money mistakes. I’ve touched on how little I learned about money from my parents and I’m going to share the hard truths I’ve had to learn for myself.
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Goal Check-In: Day 150

Today marks the 150th day of the year! That means it’s the 150th day of my 2016 goals, including my savings challenge. I posted an update at the 50 day & 100 day marks to help me stay accountable. I’ve made it a goal to post an update every 50 days to help hold myself accountable.
Unfortunately, the past 50 days have been a significant drop in my savings. This is partially due to a decrease in my Food cash category ($250 biweekly to $150 biweekly).
Here is my 150 day savings update:
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The Complete Guide to Creating A Debt Repayment Plan

Today, we’re going to be wrapping up the Debt Repayment Plan Series! We’ll be putting it all together to create our successful debt repayment plans!


If you have been following along with the Debt Repayment Series, you’ll notice a lot of today’s final post is a review of previous posts. If you would like more detailed information on a specific topic, simply click on the heading to be taken to the original post.
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Creating Strong Financial Goals (DRS #7)

I started to include this a previous post, Making Better Financial Choices, but it made it way too dense. Today we’re going to be looking at how to develop strong financial goals.

Types of Goals

There are typically 3 groups of goals: Short-term, Mid-term, and Long-term. I break them like this:
Short-term goals can be completed in less than 2 years.
Mid-term goals will take somewhere between 2 & 4 years to complete.
Long-term goals will take 4 or more years to complete.
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