Matthew Chalmers

The Financial Foundation

Why We Need To Teach Our Kids About Money

There's a lot for kids to learn about money. Mastering concepts like earning, spending, saving and investing don't come easy, even for many adults. While the subject matter is an important life lesson for our children, financial literacy is often overlooked in schools. That leaves the parents in charge of teaching their kids about money. While Northwestern Mutual research has shown that parents see the value in communicating with their children about money, many avoid important issues such as using credit cards responsibly, describing loans and debt, and focusing on investing. Perhaps they sidestep these topics since the research also found that 1) 41% of adults admit that they never learned to manage money properly themselves, and 2) 44% of parents admit that they are not good financial role models for their children¹. The study also compared adults who save more than 20% of their gross salary with adults who save nothing at all. The savers were twice as likely to have talked with their parents about money issues as the non-savers. Regardless of where you stand, parents have the power to foster positive discussions today that will help develop healthy money management behaviors in their children tomorrow. To learn more about teaching kids about money, check out www.themint.orgfor some helpful tips, or I encourage you to visit the article library found on my website at http://www.nmfn.com/matthewchalmers/learnctr--articles--article_library, or feel free to contact me at (979) 846-0668 or matthew.chalmers@nmfn.com with any additional questions. # # #
Matthew E. Chalmers is a Financial Representative with Northwestern Mutual Financial Network the marketing name for the sales and distribution arm of The Northwestern Mutual Life Insurance Company (NM), Milwaukee, Wisconsin, its affiliates and subsidiaries. Financial Representative is an insurance agent of NM based in College Station, Texas. ¹ Money Maladies Studies, 2000-2006, Northwestern Mutual