Feeding the Pig

Those who know me well know that I often stress over my parenting skills for my young daughter, Hope. What discipline is right? How do I teach her good work ethic? How do I get her to want to volunteer and give back? How do I teach her about money, when to save, when to splurge? Many of these I know it comes down to modeling the behavior all the time and she will learn through watching but sometimes I wonder: how do I do this?
Looking back I remember the things my parents taught me about finances and money and the topics we never talked about. I learned to save because they wouldn’t buy me a car and that was the only way I was ever going to get one. And that approach worked. I worked weekends and saved so I could buy my first car at sixteen. However my parents never talked about savings, retirement, or donating; I don’t know how much my parents made and they never discussed monthly expenses. Lessons can be learned about how to budget when you know to look at weekly income and outgoing expenses, but in my house these were taboo subjects. They didn’t discuss credit cards, interest or the pitfalls that so many young people make when they first get credit cards. I battled recovering from that lesson well into my twenties.
Now I work with young adults and teach workshops on budgeting. I try to instill into them the skills they will need to know to be financially savvy and it has struck me over the past year how much many of these teenagers don’t know about finances: the simple things and the complex. We broke the subject of finances down to five areas and discuss each individually and in depth: budgeting, writing checks, online banking, credit and taxes. It has been enlightening and fun to teach these skills and has eased some of my anxiety about my own abilities to teach Hope as she gets older. For many these are skills that they are taking back home and using because many of their parents are under or unemployed. Learning to stretch money has been learned through necessity. I hope that for at least some we have been able to help.
I have made a promise to myself that Hope will know how much our household brings in and what bills are paid out monthly. As she grows older and she begins to ask for more and more, I hope that having her help look at our budget and make adjustments for the “extras” will show her that to get she has to give in other areas. For now she is only old enough to just start learning about money. She gets our spare change and loves to “feed the Pig”. She gets to keep the piggy bank in her room which she loves. Yesterday morning when we were “feeding the pig” it reminded me of a web page that we use for one of our workshops. It is fun but provides lots of useful advice about finances. In the current economy as we all struggle to make our own personal adjustments I think any extra information can help. If you have a moment, check it out. I hope it helps you feed your pig.
http://www.feedthepig.org/