Have you ever wondered why financial education doesn’t come into play until life smacks you in the face with it? Why is it not being taught in schools as part of the required curriculum assay, the Food Pyramid?
Which would rather have knowledge of while growing up, The Food Pyramid, or How to make a budget or The Basics of Investing and the effects of Compound Interest? I would much rather have the knowledge of managing money.
If you think about it honestly, how often do you utilize the Food Pyramid? I’m going to say, nearly, NEVER! And yet it was required and beat into our brains during multiple different years throughout our schooling. This is because it’s not something that is used every day. The reason being, that the Food Pyramid is only in place because large agriculture, milk, dairy, and beef companies paid off and integrated in the U.S Government. Now, I’m not bashing them. Times were different. But now the general population is more aware that vegetables should be consumed more than meat and dairy products. I’m not changing the subject, I’ll get to my point just hang with me.
If money management and wealth building were integrated into the study curriculum, being that we utilize money daily, it would be grasped more effectively. It can be utilized. But for some reason, this information is not taught in the public school system. Again, which would you rather learn in school? Which would you find more useful today, or even worse, which would you have found more useful when you were just starting out on your own?
Some money principals and financial management are taught in the private school systems. Usually the US Christian Private Schools. This is greatly due to Dave Ramsey and his biblical financial principals. You can find more information about his debt free way of life at daveramsey.com He has a book(s) that you can utilize and even a program called Financial Peace University. Now I don’t necessarily agree with everything he says, but as I have said before, his founding principals are solid. But even Dave Ramsey doesn’t go very far into wealth building, he merely markets Mutual Funds for your investing future. This isn’t sufficient enough for me and this is difficult to explain to children, especially with all the different mutual funds out there with varying degrees of fees and “reliability” of continued future performance.
I have found some fun videos that you can utilize for teaching investing and money skills to children.
I say this about children being taught money principals, however, their parent rarely knows solid money principles. And in this I would say, yes, go and seek out Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University, I just wouldn’t go with his investment choices. But Dave has sort of a caveat there when it comes to investing. It’s not that the 12% return will or won’t happen that will determine if you’re successful. Its the fact that if you don’t invest, you have a 100% chance, of retiring broke- This, he happens to be solid on. Don’t think too much about that side, looking for guarantees of return, I promise, you won’t find them.
Get your money straight. Teach it to behave, don’t go with the flow. Manage your money! And that starts with a budget. Heres my budget example. It is a spreadsheet you can utilize.Budget Example
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