Top 10 Most Important Things Parents Can Do to Raise Teens with Great Money Skills

1. Have your teen set a financial freedom goal that sounds something like, “I will have $X by age X that will allow me to be completely financially free so I can have _________, be ______________,  do _____________, and help _____________  without financial worries or constraints.”
2. Teach your teen the habit of tracking his/her money.  Use Mint.com or an Excel spreadsheet or a handwritten journal.  Set a schedule for updating all assets and liabilities and follow it.
3. Support your teen to experience and explore opportunities to learn about money online, in books, and in programs.  Check out WealthQuest for Teens’ online video/workbook program that is narrated by and for teens.
4. Teach your teen to manage his or her money so that spending, saving, investing, donating, and earning are coordinated to happen at the same time.
5. Teach your teen positive, healthy ideas about money that are not rooted in fear or myth.  For example, “money allows people to express who they are; it doesn’t make them a particular way or change them.”
6. Talk to your teen about your finances.  Make money an interesting conversation topic.
7. Make sure your teen is accountable for his or her money.  Your teen should have financial responsibilities and experience natural consequences for poor money management.
8. Make sure your teen has at least one active bank account that has a meaningful role in his or her life.
9. Have your teen routinely give 10% of all the money he or she receives to a cause he or she cares about.  Check out http://www.dosomething.org for opportunities and ideas.
10.  Encourage your teen to earn money in creative and productive ways.

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