Week 16 : How To Help Your Kids With Money

 

I was amazed this week to read that people are already having to dip into their savings and reduce their children’s pocket money to meet the rising food, fuel and utility bill prices.

 

It reminded me of how important it is to prepare your children properly for an independent future, especially financially, and this of course is one of the reasons that my daughter & I created Kids Money Packs.

 

The problem with being a parent is that decisions involving your children tend to rely almost entirely on emotions. For example who can resist that beaming grin, the glint in the eye, the “Oh pleeeeeease can I have one?” moment and of course the pleasure of being able to be a provider of joy to your children is naturally a very rewarding feeling.

 

With all those good intentions, charged with all those parental emotions comes a huge stumbling block when it comes to the dynamic trio of Parents, Kids and money.

 

First of all some sort of pride seems to get in the way of decision making, such as always being the provider of what your children want. Always being seen to be able to afford whatever is the latest “must have” gadget or gizmo comes largely from peer pressure and has very little to do with affordability.

 

Second comes consistency, or should I say lack of it. This weeks news item lays this one firmly out in the open for all to see and understand. The fact that parents have decided that in order to make ends meet at the moment, they are reducing the pocket money they give to their children sends out a very confusing message to the children and teenagers at the receiving end. It is confusing because it is completely inconsistent and because there is in reality no structure to the way parents interact with their children around the subject of money, this inconsistency spills through into other areas too.

 

Kids Money Packs are designed to SAVE parents money, they are designed to provide a consistent way in which Kids can learn ALL the advantages of early wealth building money management techniques at an age when they are young enough to be able to provide a sound basis on which to build as they reach the age of 18 and above.

 

As this is a TRANSFER spend product, it does away with any pride getting in the way of parental decisions, because your children will learn to make their own, and it is 100% consistent it’s delivery of a proven way to return to the principles of attaching effort on the children’s part, being rewarded by parental involvement.

 

The principles are likely to stay with them for life, and by making their own decisions they will become more confident, goal orientated and are highly unlikely to become yet another debt statistic in the future.

 

For the purpose of the Pay Off Your Mortgage Challenge, we have placed a very conservative saving of £15 per week by using Kids Money Packs. In reality it could run into thousands and thousands of pounds over several years. * we have added the savings to the totals as part of the year challenge

 

designated website at : www.kidsmoneypack.co.uk

 

Any savings that you make should be added to your Freedom Payment each month and used to Pay Off Your Mortgage in 3 Years or Less. Anything else & it simply will not work.

 

Week 15 : Spruce Up Your Direct Debits

It is immensely enjoyable re-visiting this challenge for all sorts of reasons. First and foremost I’m more than happy to share the knowledge, which is available from many different sources as is health & fitness, how to start a business, quit smoking, lose weight, shape up, set goals etc etc. 

What is fascinating is that EVEN WITH the amount of knowledge and information available on an enormous range of topics, the fundamental problems still exist in their millions. The simple fact is, even though people KNOW that this sort of approach works, very few will EVER take up the Challenge themselves. 

 

WHY? Who knows, but what I do know is that if you simply take the time and effort to really understand how this formula works, then you will be able to move forward in life to places you simply never knew existed before. If you truly understand the power of this Control Freak formula you would understand how powerful UPSIDE DOWN PROPERTY DEVELOPING can be and you would begin to realise that your current situation is nothing other than the results of your past and has nothing to do with your future.

 

This week is all about checking your Direct Debits, Standing Orders and subscriptions to things you have probably forgotten about. I mean do you really need that subscription to “Fly Swat Weekly” — just because you have every copy since it began and maybe if you finish collecting each copy you will have a priceless collection to go to auction some day and sell for at least £100 or so! Check out alternatives to gym’s golf clubs, football tickets, pottery classes and slimming clubs ( that £5 per week to sit in a dodgy village hall would pay for a gym membership complete with swimming pool & fitness schedule.)

 

Check every single debit from your bank accounts each month, add them up and then ask yourself one simple question:-

 

Is it a WANT?

or Is it a NEED?

 

For reasons of sanity, I have imported all Blogs ( Pay Off, Women Invest Too & Goal Setting, Motivation & Action) into one at the I Believe Blog:-

Pay Off Your Mortgage & Goal Setting Blog

 

The Blog includes a pilot 10 minute Podcast on goal setting. The reason I mention this within this post is that the first time I stumbled across Goal setting was at the start of my own Pay Off Challenge. It is also the reason in my opinion why the vast majority of people, despite being shown a way to Pay Off their mortgage will simply never even try. It all comes down to one thing …. setting a goal and knowing that it is part of the bigger picture of where you want to be in life.

 

For the Pay Off Your Mortgage Challenge this week, I would expect most people to be able to reduce their Direct Debits and Subscriptions that they do not actually need by at least £ 60 per month.

 

Week 14 : Watch Your Cash Expenditure Wisely

 This week is straight out of the Control Freak Manual, it’s the jingle jangle of your pockets, it’s the hole in the wall, it’s the old fashioned way of paying for “stuff” good old CASH. 

Now we tend to be creatures of habit, so if you have always preferred cash, because you know where you are every week, for example; if you have not got enough money, you can’t spend it sort of thinking. Or perhaps you like to feel you are in control of your money and perhaps “pay” yourself an allowance for the week to live off and save the rest for a rainy day.

 

There is one major problem with cash … it is VERY difficult to TRACK, and therefore tends to becomes a great big “miscellaneous” in your home budget or home accounting.

To be fully in control of your spending, you need to keep a track on your CASH withdrawals …. not just you, but EVERY member of the family.

 

Buy a pack of small notebooks, and make a record of CASH spending each day for ONE MONTH … then swap notebooks with another family member, so you can be accountable to someone for every single penny. Explain WHY you NEEDED to make that purchase!

 

An example would look like this:-

 

Month of July  : Family member Mr Spendy Spenderson

 

3rd July : Cash withdrawal £ 60.00

£ 30 football night at the local pub

£ 10 lotto ticket

£ 20 play station game on special offer

 

9th July : Cash withdrawal £ 50

£ 15 extra fuel & sandwich on long journey to work

£ 35 new electric hedge trimmer — half price offer

 

This is where the preparation pays off, the purpose of all these weeks put together so far is to grow the gap between your Income and your Expenditure, just as you would in business, the amazing thing about the formula is that just a 10% difference, if put into the Control Freak Recipe would clear a mortgage, loans and credit cards OFF in 8 years or less WITHOUT DOING A SINGLE OTHER THING!  Amazing isn’t it? That is why the website is named “Pay Off Your Mortgage in 8 Years or Less” plus the fact that it easy to remember of course!

 

So let’s base this week on the average reduction on spending cash recklessly or sub consciously over the month, we usually find that the saving to be achieved is around 50% less than your current spend. So for the purposes of the Pay Off Your Mortgage Challenge I am using £ 50 per month saved and added to the Mortgage Freedom Payment.

 

Any savings that you make should be added to your Freedom Payment each month and used to Pay Off Your Mortgage in 3 Years or Less. Anything else & it simply will not work.