5 Most Important Money Lessons for Kids

1. Life isn’t about stuff. The most important lesson a child needs to learn to lead a healthy money life is that stuff isn’t the most important thing. A great way to teach this to your children is to lead by example, and have conversations with your kids about what their perceptions of rich and poor are. It’s sometimes shocking what comes out. Another way to instill this important principle is by giving gifts for birthdays & other special events that aren’t things but memories to make. A family play day at a park, or hosting a sleep over for friends.

2. Money is earned! Kids have a completely abstract concept of money. They need or want something and money appears to acquire whatever that something might be. Instead of just purchasing something for your child make them earn it. Everyday they make their bed, take out the trash, or put their toys away they earn money toward their new toy.

3. You can’t always get what you want. Instant gratification is not just a problem for children. Many adults have to deal with it too. This is why so many people end up with mountains of credit card debt. Instead of buying them a new video game when they see it in the store make them wait a week and see if they still really want it. Most of the time they have already forgotten about it.

4. Save for big ticket items. Too many adults rely on credit to buy a new big screen TV. If they want a new bike have them save for it. Get your child a savings account. ING has a free one online. See if they will start saving on their own, and as an extra incentive match what they save. Every month sit down and look at how much they have saved, how close they are to their goal and how much interest they have earned.

5. Have a rainy day fund. My mother always said, “keep a quarter in your pocket so you can call home.” This is obsolete now, but the idea is still important. This is a hard lesson to teach children since we want to make sure our children are taken care of. But next time the unexpected happens, the air conditioner breaks or the car needs repaired sit your children down and talk to them about how you financially deal with the unexpected.

By: Gracie Mohr

Investing is an inside game

I read this March 20, 2010 post on The Research Puzzle blog with interest. It explains very well why investing is an inside game.

Investing for you is about your goals, your cash flow, your dreams and your financial status. Read and enjoy

http://researchpuzzle.com/

The Most Important Thing

For 2009, at the top of every CEO’s financial goals, should be one thing, survive.

Staying cash flow positive and preserving capital is the name of the 2009 game. There are brighter days ahead, and your company will benefit when they arrive. …. if you are still in the game and on the playing field.

Challenging economies make for difficult decisions. This week Mackey Advisors CPA chose to lay off a new hire to insure our survival and long term health. Last summer, we hired for growth based on our strategic plan. Today and in the near term, the economic environment is not supporting our plan. We could have stayed the course, and burned through precious capital, putting us in a weakened state for the recovery. Instead we chose to trim back to profitability. This decision offers the company the ability to maintain its strong balance sheet and allows us to continue to invest in technology and other resources to improve effectiveness and efficiency.

And while all the numbers support the decision, there is also the emotional carnage from a layoff. People are personal and it is hard to make a termination decision. This means listening and being present to the concerns and fears of the team with open and transparent communication.

The first goal of the business is to take care of the business. Some of the other moves we made (and are still making) this year to preserve cash while at the same time aligning the company for the opportunity that will come from the economic recovery are:

• cut the fat -we have carefully looked at our overhead and trimmed fat, careful not to slice into any muscle
• reduced CEO compensation
• increased our service to clients (our goal is that none of our clients go out of business!) without raising our fees by leveraging our time with web technology
• frozen pay short term
• added to our knowledge by learning more about web marketing
• monitor receivables like a hawk

The mantra for this year, yes we can. Will you join us?


May prosperity be yours,
Mackey McNeill, CPA/PFS IAR
President and CEO
Mackey Advisors
www.CultivatingProsperity.com
859-331-7755
Mackey@CultivatingProsperity.com