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As cliché as it is, make sure you educate your kids on the value of money and that their maintenance loan for university should not be seen as throw away cash.
This advice comes from a close friend of mine, whose son is in the middle of freshers week. A dangerous time for any student bank account!
Both him and I have always been good with money, moving between high interest accounts and finding ways to make the money go further. Now, not all of that is relevant or worth while telling your kids (because they won't listen to everything).
But here is a quick (and not totally comprehensive) list of things worth teaching them:
1. Basic budgeting - Nothing too taxing because they'll get bored but enough to give an understanding:
- Add up their income (loans, job, money from the bank of dad etc)
- Then subtract by monthly outgoings (tuition fees, rent, bills, phone bill and food)
- Then, whatever is left they can spend on what they like
2. Get them in the mindset for looking for the best deals (on anything).
- This is a tricky one to be honest. What my mate is doing is dropping his son emails every so often for deals or coupon sites (which are a dime a dozen these days), in the hope that he'll start looking for the deals rather than just settling on the price of the first thing he sees.
3. Find a way to get them earning money.
- Not an easy one at all. But my friend did meet in the middle and rather than force his son to get a job, simply said that unless you find a way to bring in money every month, the bank of dad ceases to exist. This middle ground has ended up being matched betting (not gambling, we'd never ever recommend gambling to anyone, let alone kids!). I've been doing matched betting for a long time, even posted about it on this forum a couple of times, but it seems to be the perfect solution. My friends son earns money and said son, does not have to leave his bedroom to do it. I highly recommend it to anyone who has a son or daughter about to attend university.
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If anyone else has any bits they'd like to add, feel free to share! I'll pass it on!
Thanks 🙂
You never know how much of this stuff will stick with 18-19 year olds but if a little bit gets between the ears, i'd call that a success!
That point about bank of dad ceasing is a good idea. I remember Peter Jones (he of Dragons Den) saying that he would double his kids income if they worked (triple if they went into one of the lower paid professions, eg police, nursing etc) but wouldn't just give them money. Obviously, it's a different scale to the rest of us, but it's a good principle - you can top up their wages, but they must get the wages in the first place.
Very good point!
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