Post Sponsored By: MyJobChart, where kids, work, and rewards click. Check out this free online tool today and help your kids get motivated to save, share, and spend responsibly.I remember errand day being the 15th of every month when I was a child.
On that day my mother would hand me a postcard sized bill and an envelope of exact change and drop me off at the City office to run in and pay the water bill. We’d then head to the electric company where the same transaction would happen. After 3-5 of those chores, we’d stop off for ice cream or a snow cone (another cash transaction) before heading home.
Every other week we would go to the bank to deposit my dad’s payroll check. We’d wait in line until Ms. Betsy called us to the counter. A few rubber stamps later, I left sucking a lollypop from the teller station.
This was my introduction to personal family finance.
Things are a little different now. For example I can’t remember the last time I got a mortgage, insurance, or credit card bill in the mail. I’ve gone paperless on everything. Our paychecks are directly deposited into our bank account without even needing a signature on the back.
Some bills withdraw directly from our account each month. Others I pay online. But physically writing out a check or taking cash to a teller is a thing of the past.
As adults, we’ve embraced the ease of the new payment options, but we’ve left our kids in the teller line with their little piggy banks in hand. We’ve accepted the era of paperless transactions for ourselves, but our kids are still anxiously waiting in line at the convenience store with a baggie of pennies they have done all those chores to earn.
While it is great that we are teaching them the value of hard work, we are not equipping them with the knowledge necessary to manage the technology side of modern personal finance. Ideally we would convert that piggy bank to a paperless transaction and teach them the power of doing chores to earn money, how to save money, when to spend money, and how to give to others in a more tech-savvy way.
In an age where many 4 year olds can type their name before they can write it, shouldn’t their education of dollars and sense be just as computer friendly?
Using www.myjobchart.com makes the transition from piggy bank to online financial training a breeze. Kids can see those pennies adding up as points and they can experience first-hand how accumulating all of those points leads to rewards. The graphic-based interface makes it easy for even the youngest user to understand. It is the ideal foundation for a lifetime of technology-based personal finance management.
