What do you want to know about money?

Money, Money, Money, Must be funny, In a rich man’s world…

I grew up listening to Abba and given their recent popularity again, I often have these words in my head.

Many of us would say that we would like to live in a rich man’s world, but would we be equipped to do so? Would we know how to cope with the responsibility of the money or would we be like many lottery winners who within quite a short time find themselves falling back out of that world with a bump?

Financial education is vitally important to us all, whether we have very little money or a great deal.

But how do we obtain that information? Most of us probably get a great deal of what we know about money and our attitudes towards it from our parents, but given the way that the world has changed so rapidly is this always the best form of education?

I have been reading a report from September 2004 by the Financial Services Authority entitled Young people (18-24) and their financial information needs. Now I know that this might not sound the most riveting of reports to read, but I have found some really eye-opening snippets of information like although the majority of people did not like the idea of debt, many did not consider 0% credit cards and balance transfers or student loans to be debt, especially if they were able to keep up with the payments!

Thankfully when I asked my own son this question, he was able to see that this was still debt, whether you were paying interest on it or not.

In their general attitudes to money, all respondents felt that money was an essential part of life, and as a necessity to be able to do the things they wanted to do. Most saw money in terms of spending power and the empowerment it gave them, with the ability to display material wealth.

As many of you know I work with young people age 16+ and have spoken to many of them about their attitudes towards money. In addition to having a somewhat negative attitude towards what information about money is available, most of them are not interested in it, except in how they can get more money now.

I also have two teenagers of my own and I want to be able to help them to grow into financially educated young people who are able to make and manage their own money responsibly.

Over the past few months, this has become my passion, to be able to get this information out to young people in a way which is meaningful, relevant and will keep their attention so that they can learn now, instead of the hard way later in their lives.

I have spent a great deal of my available time reading lots of information from classic literature about wealth to up to date sites with information for children and young people.

From my research so far I can see that there are some excellent resources available for the younger children to begin teaching them young about money and I will add them to a new resources page as soon as I have the time. I have also found some useful information aimed at students going to university, but I feel that there is something lacking in between and for those who are perhaps working as an apprentice, earning a lower wage than their friends who are working in the local burger place.

My aim is to bring together a collection of resources to reach these young people, which can be used interactively both on the internet, individually or with others or can be used in an educational environment. In this way I can combine my skills and experience as a teacher and a mother with my ever growing experience in the Internet world.

In the near future I will begin work on transforming my blog into the valuable resource I would like it to become. Please bear with me whilst this happens.

In the meantime so that I can make it as relevant as possible, I would like your help and that of any young people you know.

I already have several ideas from earlier posts both on this blog and elsewhere, but I would really like your comments about:

What is the most important thing you (or a young person) would like to know about money?

What sort of resources would you like to see? Would you like links to other resources all in one place?

Are there any areas that you are struggling to understand or to get information about?

What is your attitude towards money? Is this typical of that of your friends? Do you feel peer pressure to conform where money is concerned?

How do you think this information could best be presented – on the internet, in the home, in the classroom?

Would you like to see the information available through interactive workshops with others, or access the infomation alone?

Would you like the information to all be freely accessible, or do you think some could be presented through a members’ area?

Would you be prepared to pay to access that information?

If so, how much? For a one-off set of information? For a monthly site?

Would you like a physical product? Videos, games, worksheets etc or would you be happy to download it all?

And any other information that you think would be useful?

Although I am aiming at the age group of probably 14 to 20, this is not restrictive. Please ask any young people you know what they think about this and either ask them to leave the information themselves or leave a comment for me yourself.

I really do want to provide a growing resource that will adapt to various situations and circumstances and provide at least some young people with the information that they so desperately need to grow into financially aware adults.

I look forward to all of your comments and thanks for your help with this.

Important – What do we tell the children?

Or more importantly what should we be teaching our young people?

You may have seen the comments on Gary Simpson’s blog about both the educational system and also whether we are teaching our young people the things that they need to know to survive and flourish as they grow.

This was partly prompted by a comment that my daughter Lizzie left on Gazz-Man’s blog about the motivational moments video he had produced (go and take a look if you haven’t seen it yet!).

Lizzie has been following my journey with Alex Jeffreys with interest and has started her own blog. Initially it was a free one where she had to have adverts, but now I have bought her own domain name and sorted out hosting for her. Do have a look at http://lizziedickinson.com (there is also a link to her blog under ‘Blog Links’ on the sidebar) and leave her a message.

The upshot of this comment and Gazz-Man’s replies including:

and:

is that I have been thinking about this issue of helping our young people.

Both Garry Parkes and Denis Caron have children in the same age bracket who want to follow their parents and have their own blogs.

In general the responses have been to encourage them to do so, but with the proviso of some overseeing by us as responsible adults. In this way we can teach them the things they really need to learn.

So what I would like to ask you all is:

Do you think it is a good idea to allow our children to follow us in what we are doing and to have their own blog?

What do you think we should be teaching them, both on and off line that is not taught at school?

Do you think it would be a good idea to have a junior community supported or encouraged by the adults in initally the F500, but could be further extended? Are there enough young people interested?

I had been thinking about a niche of my own and am still definitely thinking down another line. I had started drafting another post about that, but I felt that this was even more important at the moment.

As many of you know I teach at a Further Education College with students of 16+. Many of them come in with poor literacy and numeracy skills as well as often non existent study skills. It is my job to help these young people to learn these skills which will help them in their daily life as adults.

The more I have thought about this over the weekend, the more I have been wondering if this is the route I should take at the moment, to be someone who could oversee the development of our young people whilst they learn alongside us.

Perhaps they could have their own version of Garry Parkes’ excellent Profit Pulling Newsletter with articles written both by them and by adults to help them on this road including information on how to balance a cheque book etc.

What do you think? I would really love to have your opinions about whether you think this is something we should be doing and if it is possible to do.

I haven’t really thought it through fully yet, so your ideas would be really useful to me.

I felt the need to post this whilst the issue was still fairly recent. However I do apologise that I will not be able to answer you for a couple of days as I shall be going to the Midlands early tomorrow and will be without internet access (unless I can sneak off somewhere!).

We moved my elderly aunt into a sheltered flat near to us last August and I shall be spending the next couple of days with my sisters sorting out the house ready for sale. It has been a big job already and we are hoping to complete it soon.

However I really hope that when I return there will be lots of comments and my email box will be overflowing with your replies and thoughts.

Our children are our future. Many of us, including me, have taken this course so that we can be at home more with our children, whilst earning enough to allow us to live more easily. We really cannot afford to ignore them and their whole education as they grow.

Thank you for your help.