Live Debt Free – Help Your Children
Wed, Jun 24, 2009
If you’re just joining, I’m writing a 5 article series entitled, Live Debt Free. This is the fourth article out of four in which I discuss the four reasons why our family is pursing the debt free goal (including our house). I plan to end the series with a fifth article that will include some practical tools to help in becoming debt free.
Did you start getting more serious about money and personal finance when life also started to get more serious? For me, that started when I first got married. All of the sudden it wasn’t just about my goals anymore. There was someone else in the picture. Building an emergency savings, investing for retirement and paying off those school loans all became topics of conversation. Going out and spending money without little regard for next month quickly changed.
A few years after marriage, the seriousness of family money talk typically changes even more. That’s usually when husband and wife start thinking about having children. Do we have enough money to have a child? Do we need a house for a family? Should we have our emergency savings fully funded before having children? How stable are our jobs? All of those questions either get discussed or are typically in our thoughts. The truth, for those who have children, there is never a perfect time to plan their arrival.
With children in the picture, your life focus shifts selflessly to them. You want the best for your kids and hope and pray they don’t make the same mistakes you did with money. Therefore, if you’re like my wife and I, you’re motivated to set your finances in order, live debt free and help them prepare for their future. Consider the below steps to help your children live debt free.
1. Position yourself
You can’t jump ahead and focus on the future without taking care of your situation first. Follow a good plan with intensity such as Dave Ramsey’s Baby Steps. Eliminating debt as a top priority creates room in the budget for college savings and for expenses as children mature. Not having a plan to cover expense with cash will limit your ability to follow the next two steps.
2. Set an example
I believe the best thing you can do for your children is to set an example. Children follow our lead and teaching them early how to give, save, avoid debt and spend wisely will help them learn how to mange money. Proverbs 22:6 (NIV) says “train up a child in the way he should and when he is old he will not depart from it.”
Too often in our society children start managing money when they graduate school and begin their first job. By this time, they experience the weight of debt from college credit card spending and school loans. Become their money coach and guide early in their lives.
3. Position Your Children
Once you are positioned and you’ve accepted your role as coach and guide, it’s time to position them. Help your children succeed with money by saving as well as guiding them away from credit and debt. As debt is paid off and avoided, you can begin to save for their future expenses. Who doesn’t want to pay cash for their children to attend school, or help them purchase their first home?
Positioning our children to live debt free can change your family tree forever. Set a personal goal to help them enter the work force debt free.
The next article in the series will discuss tools to help you Live Debt Free.
- Live Debt Free – Biblical Advice
- Live Live Debt Free – Fulfill Your Life Purpose
- Live Debt Free – Avoid the Stress of Debt
- Live Debt Free – Help Your Children
- Tools to Live Debt Free
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Tags: Baby Steps, Children, Debt Free Living, Live Debt Free
Couldn’t agree more, these are great suggestions. As a single parent that was *less* than good with money throughout my youth, teaching children about money is CRUCIAL, in my mind. I’m not going to blame parents, schools, etc, but quite simply, I clearly “didn’t get it”, and I am still paying for those mistakes a decade later! And quite frankly, I hate the position I got myself in, everytime I pay off my past debts… I could have used my time/money sooooo much better.
A program was suggested to me by a friend, that teaches kids to be responsible with money, and puts them in control of their money. It’s a fun, interactive booklet + personal website that makes tracking their money fun – more importantly, the tugs on the pantleg going through the grocery checkout and the tantrums have all but disappeared! I guess that’s a little self centered of me… but any parent knows those situations all to well. For the record, I too used to do this to my parents, I was apparently horrible to bring into a store… oops!