Let’s face it: your new bundle of joy doesn’t come cheap. You’ll want to plan ahead for your additional expenses, whether that be researching the best personal loans or tweaking your budget. After all, one recent study estimates that a middle-income ($59,000-$107,400/year), two-child family will spend about $13,000 per child each year.
[Read more…]
How to Teach a Child to Count Money
Counting money is one of the most foundational skills children must learn. Counting and making change are critical skills that many entry-level jobs require. When you apply the following lessons on how to teach a child to count money, you challenge his or her mind to grow in other ways, too.
To give you a thorough array of options on teaching counting skills, I sought out advice from experienced educators and parents. Here are my findings.
How to Teach a Child to Count Money
Create a Play Store
Parents who have taught their children the basics of money said one of the best ways to do so was to set up a play store. Together with their child, they created a fake shop with household items or toys listed for sale. Use a sticky note to indicate the price of each item, then give your child change, and open the shop for business.
Depending on your child’s age, you can vary the degree of difficulty. For example, for a 3-year-old, you could say, “This costs one quarter,” and teach her to identify that coin. For older children, you can pay with a dollar bill and walk them through making change. Don’t forget to also teach them how to count change back to the “customer.”
Teach Them to Count by Fives and Tens
“Kids need to have a good understanding of place value and number sense before they count money,” says a third-grade teacher with I spoke via Facebook. “Start with one coin, and teach them how to count it and how many it takes to make a dollar.”
She goes on to describe a great money game involving two dice. Give the child as many pennies as the number he or she rolled. Have the child then exchange it for the highest value possible.
For example, if the child rolls a ten he or she can trade in pennies for a dime.
In addition to teach your child how to count money, when you teach them to count by fives and tens, you’re teaching them the beginning stages of multiplication.
Let Them See Real Transactions
Many people have had great success with giving their children real world experience.
Here are several examples:
Earn Money Through Chores
Help them understand that “work = pay,” and help them count their earnings. If there’s something they want to buy, help them estimate the cost.
Lead by Example
Allow your child to watch you pay for something in cash. This will help him see how money works and how it requires lots of it to pay for his needs and wants.
Study the History of Real Money Together
Hand your child the coins you received in change that day and quiz her on some coin facts. Not only can learning to count money teach your children better math skills, but you can also create an impromptu history lesson. For example, did you know that the nickel used to be called a “half dime” up until 1883? Half dimes were made of silver which became scarce during the Civil War. After that, they were made of copper and nickel, and they finally were made and referred to entirely of nickel in the 1880s. Click here for more U.S. coin facts.
Final Thoughts
The overall theme of how to teach a child to count money is YOUR involvement. Set aside time to sit at the table and talk about how many nickels are in a quarter or how many pennies are in a dollar. Talk about how much money you earned at your first job or something you saved up for, like a bicycle. That will help your child apply what he or she has learned.
How did you learn to count money? In school? At home?
Read More
10 Steps to a Successful Stay-at-Home Mom Budget
How to Afford Your Dream of Becoming a Stay-at-Home Mom
14 Online Jobs for Stay-at-Home Moms (That Are Worth Your Time)
13 Ways for Stay-at-Home Moms to Save Money
Loans for Stay-at-Home Moms – What Are YOUR Options?
The SAHM Budget Test: How to Afford to Be a Stay-at-Home Mom
What Age Should Kids Learn About Money?
What age should kids learn about money? That’s a difficult question because kids learning about money isn’t the same as, say, potty training. Kids continue to learn about money throughout their childhoods. However, having said that, your kids can begin to learn about money in the early preschool years and continue on from there.
How Preschool Kids Learn about Money
At this age, kids are watching you closely so set a good example. For instance, when you go to a grocery store, don’t reward your kids with a treat every time. If you do, they start to expect that you will just buy things for them.
Instead, create buy, spend, and save jars. If you want to pay them an allowance for chores, now is the time to start. You can set up a chore chart, and pay them for their chores. When you pay them, you can help them separate their money into the three jars. Let them use their spend money for little things they want to buy.
This is also a good time to get them money-related toys like play cash registers so they can get used to the concept of the different values of our coins and bills, spending money to buy something, not having enough money, and making change. Play store and grocery shopping with them frequently.
How Elementary Kids Learn about Money
Once your children learn the rudimentaries about money, it’s time to teach them more complex lessons. The grocery store is a great place to teach these lessons. You can teach about buying generics, price comparing different sizes of the same product, and the value of using coupons.
Kids this age will be earning more than they did as preschoolers, so you can also help them save for a large goal like an expensive Lego set they want to buy. You should also teach them that once the money is spent, it’s gone. Then, they need to work hard to earn more to save and spend all over again.
How Middle School Kids Learn about Money
At this age, kids are going to want to spend, spend, spend. This is the time to teach them, if you haven’t already, that you won’t buy everything they want. Just because your daughter wants new jeans when she already has enough doesn’t mean you’ll buy them. She can save her money and buy them if she really wants them.
You should also teach them about the power of compound interest. This helps them realize that if they delay spending today, compounding interest can help them have more money later.
How High School Kids Learn about Money
Now is the time when all your hard work teaching your kids about money comes to fruition. Rather than buying or giving your child a car, have them save for at least half of the price of a car.
Also, teach your kids about credit cards, how to use them responsibly, and how to avoid accruing debt.
Be very clear how much you can afford to pay for their upcoming college. Then, they can choose a college that is affordable, or choose one that costs more than you can afford. However, help them understand how accruing student loan debt can make it harder to achieve their goals in adulthood.
Final Thoughts
Throughout your child’s life, you should be teaching them money lessons. As they age, these financial lessons should become more specific. If you’ve done your job well, by the time they leave home, they’ll be able to make smart money decisions. However, if your child makes foolish money decisions, know that you’ve laid the ground work so they know how to improve their financial situation should they need to.
Read More
Teach Your Child About Money–Free Savings Chart for Kids
Parenting Win–Teaching Money Skills to Your Kids
Games That Teach Kids about Money
8 Reasons Why Children Are Priceless
There seems to be a lot of discussion, constantly, about how expensive children are. While yes, you do have to be financially responsible about having a child, they do not need to be anywhere near as expensive as some ‘studies’ would have you believe. This is a topic I’ve already written about, so today we’re going to chat about the reasons why children are priceless.
I’m not trying to make it seem like having children is all sunshine and roses, because it’s not. It’s far, far from it actually, but having a child will change your life in ways you couldn’t imagine until it happens.
Reasons Why Children Are Priceless
They Inspire Deep Love
You may think you knew what love was before you had a child; trust me I did. I love my husband, my family and my friends but the love you have for your child is something you will have never experienced. The love you have for this tiny little human is indescribable. It changes and shapes every other relationship in your life.
The love you have for your child grows. Though I instinctively wanted to love and protect my child as soon as he was born, the love I have for him and my other two children, is so much different, and intense, than it was on the days they were born.
This idea is best epitomized by Elizabeth Stone’s statement, “Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body.”
They Spread Happiness
I am truly happy when I am with my children and they are in good moods. You simply cannot be in a bad mood when your happy toddler smiles up at you or when your tweens tell you silly jokes. Their emotions are raw, and you can’t help but feel it with them.
They Teach You Patience
You may be an impatient person, but once you have a child, that has to change. If you show impatience and anger with your children, they will likely shut down or cry. Instead, you must gently encourage them so that they can succeed. (This can be extremely trying when you have to wait by the door for your toddler to slowly put on his shoes by himself because he’s refused your help or when he unbuckles his car seat for the fifth time in one car trip.)
Children will, by their very nature, teach you to be patient.
They Give You a Second Chance at Childhood Joy
By the time you’re in your twenties and thirties, you likely have lost much of your childhood joy. You may no longer take joy in driving around the neighborhood looking at Christmas lights or the first snowfall of the season. Once you have a child, all of that changes.
As you watch your young children grow excited for Christmas, you do, too. When your child gleefully opens the presents under the Christmas tree, you will likely feel a spark of excitement again. When you bundle your child up to go out in the first snowfall, you will suddenly delight in building a snowman and making snow angels. Children give you a second chance at childhood joy.
They Are Brutally Honest
Kids are honest. Kids force you to be honest. Honest about yourself and about your life. When your child is born you are suddenly hyper aware of every detail in your life. From your financial life to the mess on your bedside table. Children inadvertently have a way of forcing us to be honest about our lives.
It was having a child that forced us to finally get serious about getting out of debt rather than living with it in limbo.
They Are Humbling
Becoming a parent is one of, if not the most, humbling experience in the world. No amount of research, parenting book reading or doctors appointments can ever prepare you for your child and the experiences you will go through as a parent. I think being humbled is an important trait for people and if you’ve yet to experience it, having a kid will do it for sure.
They Make You Less Self-Centered
Before you have children, you may not realize you’re self-centered, but you are. You likely have your own routine, your own rituals, that give you joy. Yet, when you have a child, all of that discipline and focus on yourself and what makes you feel good is upended. You get much less sleep in the baby stage, and your life and schedule suddenly revolve around the baby’s.
When your kids get older, your life still centers around your children and their education and their activities. Sure, as kids get older and become more independent, you will be able to do more things for, and spend more time on, yourself. However, you don’t get your life back as truly your own until your kids move out. By then, you won’t want to go back to the self-centered years before you had kids.
They Give You Perspective
Having a child puts your life in a whole new perspective. Suddenly everything else in life is so much less important. You wonder what you did with your time before, and you wonder how you possibly lived your life without this person in it.
For the rest of your life, your children will shape and change your world, and that’s a beautiful thing.
Final Thoughts
Having a child is the hardest, yet most rewarding thing you can ever possibly do in your life. Yes, they are expensive, but don’t believe that kids are as expensive to raise as the experts would have you believe. Besides, what they give back in their love and the way they make you grow as a person are some of the reasons why children are priceless.
Read More
7 Types of Behavioral Disorders in Children Every Parent Should Know
Dogs and Children: 6 Tips for Teaching Them to Be Gentle with Each Other
What Are the Perils Allied with Contracts for Differences?
In economics, CFDs provisions are made in a futures agreement where fluctuations in the repayment are done using cash instalments instead of conveying actual merchandise or securities, marked as leveraged products.
This implies that with a small preliminary investment, there is a likelihood for returns consistent with that of the underlying asset or market. Instinctively, this is an apparent investment opportunity for any broker.
CFDs can be somewhat dicey due to little industry directives, plausible absence of liquidity, and they want to uphold a realistic profit margin due to leveraged losses. Regrettably, margin exchanges can increase returns but losses as well.
The apparent rewards of CFD trading often mask the allied perils. For further information on the same, click on the link here https://www.equiti.com/platforms/metatrader-4/ .This discussion will look at CFD risks, including counterparty risk, market risk, and plenty more besides
Types of CFD Risk
Client Money Risk
In countries where CFDs are legitimate, there are client cash security laws to protect the stockholder from conceivably damaging CFD suppliers’ acts. By resolution, money moved to the CFD supplier should be disengaged from the investor’s money to prevent investors from hedging their assets.
Nonetheless, the law may not veto the customer’s cash from being joined into at least one account. When an agreement is settled upon, the sponsor withdraws a primary margin and has the option to request further margins from the shared account.
In the event that different clients in the joint account neglect to meet margin calls, the supplier has the privilege to draft from the shared account with the probability of distress returns.
Liquidity Risks
Economic circumstances influence several monetary dealings and may intensify the risk of losses. When trades being made in the market for an asset are inadequate, your general agreement can become illiquid. Now, a CFD supplier can require extra margin instalments or close contracts at mediocre prices.
A CFD charge can drop before your exchange can be performed at a formerly settled upon cost, otherwise called gapping. This implies that a current contract holder would be needed to take less than ideal benefits or cover any losses endured by the CFD supplier.
Market Risk
The contract for changes is derivative assets that a trader uses to venture on the movement of direct funding, like stocks. If someone believes that the underlying asset will increase, the stakeholder will choose a protracted position.
On the other hand, speculators will pick a short position in the event that they accept the value of the resource will diminish. One hopes that the value of the resource will move in the direction most promising for you.
In certainty, even the most educated speculators can be proven wrong at this. Unforeseen data changes in market settings and government rules can bring about brisk changes. Because of the nature of CFDs, minor differences may significantly affect returns.
A negative outcome on the underlying asset’s value can make the sponsor claim a second margin reimbursement. If margin calls cannot be met, the supplier may halt your position, or you may be forced to trade at a loss.
Counterparty Risk
A counterparty is the organization that gives the resource in a monetary exchange. When purchasing or selling a CFD, the solitary resource being exchanged is the CFD supplier’s agreement. The associated risk is that the counterparty neglects to achieve its monetary commitments.
In the event that the supplier can’t meet these obligations, at that point, the value of the underlying asset ceases to be relevant. It’s crucial to recognize that the CFD industry isn’t vastly controlled, and the dealer’s integrity depends on reputation, longevity, and monetary position rather than liquidity or government standing.
Final Thought
All in all, when you are thinking about going into any of these investment vehicles, it is very crucial to assess the perils associated with the leveraged assets. This is because the ensuing losses can be much more than initially forecasted.
Free Chore Chart Template for Kids
My kids started helping with chores when they were about 18 months to 2 years of age. My oldest got his own little broom that would recite, “sweeping, sweeping” as he swept. He loved that broom, and he loved helping out. Most toddlers are eager to do what the people around them are doing. If you have a toddler and want to start working with them on chores or you want a more organized chore routine for your older kids, consider using one of these free chore chart templates for kids.
Why Assign Kids Chores?
Some parents don’t want their kids to do chores. They argue that kids should just be kids. However, there are many valid reasons why you should assign your children chores:
They Learn Valuable Life Skills
When I went to college, I couldn’t believe how many kids didn’t even know how to do their own laundry. My son started doing his own laundry at 12, and my daughter started at 11. The larger variety of chores you have your kids do, the better they will be able to successfully live on their own.
They Learn to Contribute
There are many things that need to be done to run a household successfully. If you don’t expect your kids to contribute, they can grow accustomed to the idea of others doing things for them, which can lead to a sense of entitlement. The family is the first place kids learn what it means to be part of a group and to help run that group. This, too, will be a valuable lesson for their adult lives.
Should You Pay Kids for Chores?
This can be another devisive issue. Some families don’t pay their kids money for chores because they want them to realize that they are part of a family and family members help one another.
Others, like my family, pay their kids for chores because they want kids to firmly make the connection between work and income. You work, and you earn money. You don’t work, and you’re broke.
Still others don’t pay cash but instead let their kids earn privileges like watching a show, or playing a video game, or staying up late based on the chores they do.
The choice is up to you and what your family decides will work best.
Free Chore Chart Template for Kids
There is no need for you to create your own chore chart template for kids when there are so many out there! Here are a few of our favorites:
Healthy, Happy, Impactful has a chore chart template that gives blank lines to list up to eight chores beside squares for days of the week. Just check off each day that the chore is completed. There is also a box at the bottom for notes.
Plan for Awesome has a chore chart template for toddlers. This one is unique in that rather than words, there are pictures so your littlest helpers can understand. You can also use the pictures and words for the preschool and early elementary set.
Make any one of these chore charts last longer by laminating them or placing them in a plastic sleeve so you can use them week after week.
Final Thoughts
There’s no time like the present to start having your kids help with chores. These free chore templates can help motivate them and help them find pride in their accomplishments.
Read More
Teach Your Child About Money: Free Savings Chart for Kids
How to Choose the Right Homeschooling Curriculum for Your Star Student
Did you know that the highest rate of homeschool growth occurred between 2003 and 2007? However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the numbers are rising again. With parents unsure how to go about this, a lot are wondering about the curriculums.
Read on to learn about how to choose the right homeschooling curriculum for your child.
Consider Specific Subjects
To find the right homeschooling curriculum, you need to know which subjects you want to teach. A family needs to understand that some programs only offer some things while others will have it all. Some programs won’t offer traditional subjects and focus on student-guided learning.
Depending on the levels of development your child is going through, you could patch things together. This means piecing a few platforms together to get the right subjects.
Think About Your Involvement Level
If you want your child to adapt life skills while they are learning from home, it is important to consider how much you will be involved in the process. Sometimes a student must get through things on their own. However, this should heavily depend on the learning preferences of your child.
There are programs out there that will do all of the teaching work for you while you supervise. You can be as involved as you want with programs that require you to teach your child. Some fall in between the two.
Before determining how much you are involved, consider your own education level. It is also important that you know how to teach your child without making things more difficult for them. It is also important to consider how much time you actually have in the day to homeschool your child.
Once you consider all of these factors, you can find a program that represents that.
Create a Schedule
Before finding a homeschooling curriculum, you should create an ideal schedule you and your child should follow. Most of the time, homeschooling leads to a shorter schedule than a traditional school would. This means having a lot of extra time in the day.
This is great for completing homework and other things that can boost activity levels. When you have a schedule in mind, you can consider a curriculum that works with said schedule.
Determine Your Child’s Learning Type
Based on personality types, you can figure out the learning type of your child. This could be sitting down at a desk like a traditional classroom does or having your child complete everyday tasks.
The traditional route might work better for you so that you can complete chores around the home while your child does their work. However, this might not be the right thing for your child. Some programs provide experiences through “field trips” and hands-on learning.
Find the Right Homeschooling Curriculum
Knowing your child is the best way to find a homeschooling curriculum that works for them. There are a lot of things to consider before you start the homeschooling journey. By communicating with your kids and considering this guide, you can find the perfect homeschooling curriculum.
Keep reading our website for more articles that can benefit your family life.
Great Gifts: 6 Unusual Birthday Presents for Kids
Are you trying to get a gift for the kid that has everything? Thinking of a unique gift that you can be sure a child doesn’t already have can be difficult, but we’re here to help.
Keep reading for some unusual birthday presents for kids that can help you as you’re shopping for the little one in your life. Grab a few of these awesome gifts to make the birthday girl or boy smile this year.
Should You Sell or Donate Old Cell Phones?
How do you know whether to sell or donate old cell phones?
2020 may have been a chaotic and challenging year, but it did give us some of the best smartphones on the market! Are you planning on buying one of these brand-new phones? Before anything else, you might want to take care of getting rid of your old phone first.
Do I Need Flood Insurance and What Does It Cover?
Floods are a leading cause of death and destruction. Globally, this natural disaster is responsible for more than $40 billion in damage each year. In the U.S., the total annual losses are close to $8 billion.
Some American cities are at greater risk of flooding than others. Jersey City and Union City (NJ), Miramar Beach (FL), Raleigh (CA), and The Woodlands (TX) are just a few to mention. Floods can occur at any time of the year in these areas, causing millions in damages.