I can do it and so can you.

I have been so organized this week. Planning my menus. Knowing how much money I am spending on groceries. How much money I have spent eating out. Making a grocery list and sticking to it. Balancing my checking account every few days. Growing up my parents had very little money. I never heard them speak about a budget. Hard to budget when there isn't enough in the first place. I never learned the importance of money management. I remember going off to college on student loans and a few dollars in my checking acct that had just been opened a week before I headed off to school. I had not one idea about a checking acct. Plus, it was impossible to live off 10 dollars a week for gas and food....so guess what....I could not do it. I stumbled through college inregards to money understanding, trying to scrape and not starve. My checking acct became a source of frustration. When I graduated from college I started my well paying job at Baptist Hospital in Nashville. I was thrilled. I was actually going to be making good money and it was mine!!! I still lived at home with my parents. I did not have anyone to rent an apartment with and was going to be married within the next year. I still did not learn how to use money in a beneficial way. No one discussed with me about learning what you need to live on and how to save the rest of it or invest it. I did not want to repeat this ignorance with our children, so it is different for our two teenagers. When my son started his junior year in high school we went to the Credit Union and opened him up a checking acct, savings acct and got him his own debit card. I authorized the bank to make a monthly deposit into his checking acct on the first of the month. I talked with my son and asked his opinion on how much would be reasonable and I put my thoughts in on it and we came to a mutual decision. That was two years ago and it has been the smartest thing I have ever done regarding money. He has learned to live within his means, his money. He learned to make choices, save, buy something he really wanted or set a goal. And guess what? He is great with his money. I am doing the same with our daughter. You see it isn't money that is the problem. The problem is using money for reasons that simply are not going to work in the long run. When we empower ourselves and our kids by having open, honest discussions regarding money and what it takes to live on it gives one confidence to make good choices. Money isn't the means to give happiness it is the means to make mature, sound decisions so that your priorities don't lose their correct perspective. Like...eating out or paying your electric bill. Like, buying expensive clothing and having no money until the next month. Thus overdrawn checking acct, no savings, impulsive buying, depression and guilt. You know when we teach our children about money....it is much more important to say what it isn't. Money is not the fix to our voids in life. It is a tool to make a better way to live. Be open. Be honest. Be basic. Be realistic. Give facts. Then give them trust and their own money first. Don't wait until they get a job. This may send a signal that money is different when you make it. Nope. It all spends the same.