Managing
money has never been my strong suit. I
have learned over the years that it is a necessity and have made great strides
in being more successful at it…… nothing motivates you like having four
children to feed. Even though I am much
better I still have room for improvement and had absolutely no idea how to
pass good budget habits down to my boys.
I was very excited to get a chance to review the FamilyMint Money
Management Program. It’s designed to
teach kids how to manage their money.
With the excitement came hesitation, since I’m not 100% comfortable with
money management myself I wasn’t too sure how teaching it to an 11 year old was
going to go.
This program
takes you through step by step, with very precise instructions. It is extremely user friendly which I
loved. Their online site FamilyMint
gives you a way to provide something similar to online banking for your
children. I’ll be honest we didn’t
really utilize that part of the program.
It just didn’t fit well for us. I
felt like logging in so that we could track deposits and withdrawals was just an extra
step that we didn’t need. I think it
would just depend on your family, if the online aspect is important to you then
this program has a great one so be sure and check it out. For us the main part of our learning
experience came from the workbook. When
it comes to learning a new concept my son does much better with something black
and white in front of him.
This program
is geared towards children ages 10 and up.
It was a nice fit for my 11 year old, I did simplify a couple of the
concepts for my Kindergartner also and it worked out well. The money jar was something we did with three
of our boys ages 11, 5, 4 it helped each one of them keep up with their money (
instead of it getting lost in nightstand drawers and pockets). I also think it would be a great program
for freshmen and sophomores in high school.
The program is designed to take two months but by adding a few more
activities and some additional finance and budgeting books I think it would be
a great class for the older bunch. The
one downfall I found was the amount of time it focused on checks. We do not use checks at all in our family
anymore. While I do think it’s something
each child should have a base knowledge of, I felt it would have been more
beneficial to cover debit card usage.
The book in
a glance…….
Chapter 1-
Tracking Your Money
Chapter 2-
Goal Setting
Chapter 3-
Budgeting
Chapter 4-
Interest- Growing $
It also
includes; introduction, instructions, learning summary, worksheets, answer key,
parent checklist, and a certificate of accomplishment.
Pricing
Certification Program workbook and a premium online account for life
Additional workbooks can be ordered at 50% off
Great review! I liked the check version but it definetly could have focused on the debit card usage more too. A great follow up would be the Dave Ramsey Financial Peace University.
ReplyDelete