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Smart About Money

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I found an early-morning missive from an old friend – Bubby Spamden, perennial sophomore.

Hey Mr. C.,

Well we’re in the second week of school already, and believe it or not after all the years I’ve spent as a sophomore at Wendell Wilkie High School, I am finally taking a class I’ve never taken before – Personal Finance.

I guess the bigwigs on the School Board decided last summer that we are all as dumb as toads about money, and they decided to make room in the schedule for us to get trained about goal setting, budgeting, savings, credit, insurance … all that financial stuff that even our parents don’t know anything about.

Well, mine, at least.

But they couldn’t think of a way to work it into the crowded school day that’s already full of stuff we have to study so we can pass our tests so our school doesn’t get labeled with the scarlet “L” for LOSER School, which is a title most schools are going to wind up being anyway, I guess, on account of No Child Left Behind.

So they decided that everybody would get 15 minutes of Personal Finance training at the beginning of the day in homeroom. Every day. And the homeroom teachers have to teach it.

My homeroom teacher, Mr. Boozenporn, says the “15 Minutes A Day” approach is actually a really good pattern to use for savings – take a little bit each time but do it every single day, and before long you’ll be filthy rich. Actually, what he really said was a smart savings plan would take a very, very long time and at the end you would NOT be filthy rich, but you might wind up being NOT TOO POOR, which would come as a surprise for a lot of us because (speaking for me, personally), poor is definitely what I expect.

Anyway, everyone agrees that Mr. Boozenporn is a great choice to teach this class because a lot of it has to do with not giving in to impulsive behavior, and kids say that when he’s away from school, Mr. B. is kind of an expert on impulsive behavior. He’s got some vices involving a handful of places clustered on this one block downtown that we kids can’t get into, but he is seen going in and out those doors a LOT. Which surprises me because the cover charge for a couple of them is really steep, and he’s just, you know, a teacher. And no, I did not sit across the street and watch all the comings and goings. But somebody else might have.

So Mr. B’s first personal finance lecture was about keeping track of your checkbook – making sure you stay up to date on your entries and remembering to write down the check number and then reconciling, like, every week, and making sure all the checks are accounted for in the bank statement and stuff like that. It was all pretty understandable except I did come away from it with just one nagging question :

What’s a checkbook?

Your pal,
Bubby

I told Bubby that a checkbook is like having an iTunes account at the bank, except instead of only being able to buy songs and apps and stuff, it can be used for almost anything. As long as it’s a thing sold by people who accept checks. How you find them, I’m not sure.

What one personal finance rule should Mr. Boozenporn teach the children?

83 thoughts on “Smart About Money”

  1. Rise and Shine Baboons!

    It is supposed to be our last day of summery weather, so get out there and enjoy the heat. OR, stay in with me and wait for the cool weather that I love.

    Meanwhile, back to the question. I would design Mr. Boozenporn’s curriculum to focus on two things, not one.

    1. Save a little bit out of your allowance or paycheck every time you get the money.
    2. Keep a running log or register of what you spend. This used to happen with a checkbook, but you can use the register without the checks. It’s the financial version of Weight Watchers. If you write down what you spend, you cannot deny what you have used. Writing it down automatically changes your behavior.

    Best of Luck Mr. Boozenporn. Bubby is a difficult student to teach anything.

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  2. Morning all, I would advise to try not to spend what you don’t have. In other words credit is a very dangerous tool to be dealt with. Jacque is right about always save a portion of whatever you recieve.

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  3. Good morning to all,

    It is good that Bubby is being encouraged to save some money. However, he should think carefully about where to put his savings, assuming that he will try to do that. Let’s assume he will.
    He probably will get little or no interest in a checking account, the stock market doesn’t seem to be very trustworthy any more, there are government bonds if you want to invest in a government that is not doing too well, there’s no earnings on money market accounts like there once was, and CDs hardly earn anything. Maybe a hole in the back yard or stuffing it in his matress would be the best way for him to go.

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      1. He might need to cover the hole with a lot of insulation in the winter to keep the ground from freezing so that he could keep making deposites or just fall back on using the matress.

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  4. When you are thinking about purchases (especially larger ones), think about if it is a *need* (e.g., food) or a *want* (candy and soda). It can be difficult to tease out sometimes – especially when you want something bad enough that you start rationalizing it as a need…

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      1. 4 grams of protien and a gram of fiber? That could be food, but could you chew it and swallow it and would you want to?

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      6. The dark chocolate almond clusters have 5 grams of protein and 2 of fiber. Those would probably qualify as a superfood.

        I think I will have some advice for Bubby later, but first I have to run over to Trader Joe’s real quick.

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      7. Ha! I’m at my mom’s, and I happened to bring some TJ’s dark chocolate almond clusters. 🙂 🙂 🙂 Gonna go find them after reading here!

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  5. There is a finance plan that our Lutheran church suggests called 80-10-10, which encourages people to live on 80% of what they have, save 10%, and give 10% to the church or to charity. I think it is important to remember that when we give to others we enrich ourselves. I wish I could say I could live up to this plan, but it is nice to aim for.

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  6. Morning–

    Family rumor has it an uncle buried a can full of money in the backyard way back when… but then he forgot where he buried it or forgot about it or something… anyway it was never found. So in addition to insulating it make sure you mark it well.

    We tried to teach our kids about saving and money… it’s a tough lesson that I don’t think always sinks in until they’re out there on their own anyway.

    I try to teach theater kids that you need to learn how to put value on your own work. And, when Free-Lancing, that you need to talk about money right up front; it’s just another business decision to work out. And if you don’t talk about it, don’t be surprised that they thought you were working for ‘free’ or for a minor gratuity.

    OT, dealing with a funeral and ‘On Eagles Wings’ was requested. I had to stifle a laugh remembering the conversation here. Plus, in the past, the organist had refused to play that song on the basis it wasn’t secular enough. However when no other organist could be found he was gently told to ‘just deal with it’ and honor the request. However now the organist is saying he doesn’t have the skills to play it. Fine, whatever, pick an old standby!! 🙂
    Ham sandwiches, seven layer salad and NO JELLO SALADS!
    I’ll have more details on Wednesday…

    Later–

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      1. Even more off-topic. BiB, at the RockBend yesterday, an artist over at Krista’s stage did a song called “I Ain’t No Goat”. Although it sounds negative, turns out that the singer would rather be a goat than an elephant or donkey – a political piece. Very funny!

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    2. Good for you, teaching your theatre kids about money. As an addendum, I would also say, when you are planning to move someplace for a job, one of your very first questions must be (and you can now google this, and hence need not ask in the interview)-how much does a one bedroom apartment (or whatever you intend to live in) cost in the city where the job is located.

      A lot of big city jobs sound like they pay a lot when you are first starting out, until you find out that it will all be eaten up by rent (which may not include heat).

      Not sure why a funeral needs sufficiently secular music , but I will let that one go. ‘On Eagles Wings’ is maudlin enough on the piano, there is no need to compound the offense by squeezing it out of an organ.

      On that note, it was all my son could do last Sunday to get through ‘Earth and All Starts’ (which seems to be a must for the start of the school year-something about the “classrooms and labs, loud boiling test tubes, I guess”-non-Lutherans, I am not kidding those are indeed the words in one verse) without completely cracking up. He knows just how much that thing makes me cringe.

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    4. Ben, asking for money up front is important. I know that because I tried to collect a small fee from a farmer for showing him a seroius pest problem in his field and also hoped he would become a customer for my crop consulting service. I hadn’t told him up front that I would ask for a payment and he refused to make a payment when I did ask. It was a very small fee. I decided that I didn’t want this guy for customer and I guess he probably wasn’t interested in paying for any of my services and only wanted free help.

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    5. can you find a folkie and tell the piano player you don’t need her. have the folkie take the over and play the secular stuff. they are often very easy yto find and 100 bucks to a folkie is a big deal

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    6. OK, clearly I don’t know what I’m talking about… this funeral will be at a Missouri Synod Lutheran church and the organist didn’t believe the song was religious enough. So what is the word I’m looking for?

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      5. Oh, if it’s Missouri Synod, that’s altogether different. “Eagles Wings” would not have enough fire and brimstone – not even close. Probably double-plus bad if it’s in the new ELCA hymnal.

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      8. The Missouri Synod calls themselves Lutheran, but they are a distinct group from what you might call the mainline Lutheran Church (the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America….ELCA….don’t let the “E” fool you – these are not bible-thumping evangelicals). After completing confirmation in junior high, I was told by my mother, the ELCA choir director, that I could now do as I wish with my faith – so long as I did not join a cult or the Missouri Synod. Wisconsin Synod is not unlike Missouri – and if you really want the history of how one branch of protestants could become so many different things, I’m sure there are folks here happy to explain it all (including the ethnic origins for some churches and why in my mom’s home town the Norwegian Lutherans and the Swedish Lutherans were not interested in merging congregations….). Are you taking notes? There might be a quiz later. 😉

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  7. Mr. B should teach those kids to add, subtract, multiply and estimate quickly without paper or pencil. 30% off sounds great, but how much will it still cost?
    a club i was adviser for was going to have a fundraiser – sell chances for $50 worth of groceries. and they wanted to sell the chances for 5 cents each. (remember, this was a fundraiser). i asked them how many chances they’d have to sell just to pay for the groceries……. these were college students, and smart ones. oy.

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  8. Balancing check books, are you kidding me? Who writes checks anymore? I’m with biB, Mr. B needs to be teaching plain old math and make it relevant to his students. You don’t have to be a financial genius to figure out that if you consistently spend more than you earn, you’ll be in debt always.

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      1. I made it too, Renee, and it is good, isn’t it? I also made the Zakuszka and it’s delicious. My freezer is brimming with tomato/eggplant/pepper goodies.

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  9. i think bubby will thank mr b if the program takes. my dad always said he could not believe that the school program would teach spanish, philosophy, photography and statistics but let a student graduate without knowing how to ballance a checkbook.
    saving is great. if you cant save you are spending too much on your lifestyle plain and simple. unfortunatly i speak from experience. commitments made in times of milk and honey are tougher to live up to when the fan enters the picture. modifacations need to be made and if there is roo for trder joes halaluhlah.
    my son found out that living in dads basement can be a great methid of saving. he has peanut bar jars full of stuff he will decide what to do with later. working night and sleeping days makes jack a very rich guy who can splurge on 200 dollar sunglasses and not realize what a dork that makes him in real life.
    other daughter works so hard to pay for long distance romance she cant keep up. third son doesn’t understand concept of money at all. don’t you just call mom and have her put more on the card?
    two little daughters always know exactly how much birthday christmas money they have left but the earning part of the equation is missing.
    think ill head on down to the peep show and think about it for a while.

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  10. Once you have sorted out your needs vs. wants as per Anna, take a good hard look at those wants and ask yourself how many hours of your life you are going to have to sell to pay for them. Being clear on assets and liabilities would also be good. Assets pay, libilities cost.

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  11. And don’t forget the prioritizing of what you need/want. Now that the teenager is driving and would like to have a car, she can be persuaded out of other more trivial purchases with the phrase “Would you rather have this _______ now and then wait longer to get a car?”

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  12. I was a horrible flop at teaching my kid the basics of money, so I’m feeling pretty humble on this topic. If you would like a full explanation of “ten ways to teach your kid about money that do NOT work,” I could write that book quickly. I have it pretty much memorized.

    I’m drawn to unconventional solutions to this problem. Forget all that pap about balancing your checkbook and reconciling the bank’s version of your economic life with your own records. Get real! Let’s have some goals that actual people might actually use. Here is one. People come in two types: spenders and savers. One has a heavy foot on the throttle and the other keeps a foot on the brake all the time. My advice: a spender should marry a saver, NOT another spender. It is too much to expect a marriage to have two adults with sensible attitudes toward money. But a marriage that doesn’t have at least one partner who understands that credit cards are part of an evil conspiracy will probably not last long.

    And if I were to teach good money management, I’d be sure to talk about pixie dust. Time is pixie dust. Time makes money grow like hosta beds or zuchinis. If you save a certain portion of every paycheck you ever get and put it in a dark hole where you never will touch it, the pixie dust of time will make your pile of money grow util you are rich. There are other ways of getting rich, but they don’t apply to Democrats.

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    1. Maybe time is pixie dust and maybe it isn’t. The stock market is said to be one of the best places to invest over the long run if some caution is used. I wonder if that is true now due to what has been revealed about the way Wall Street bankers behave and the failure of our government to do very much to change this.

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  13. Something no one seems to be teaching our youngers is patience… how to wait for the things they want and need. They’ve been raised wanting lots of stuff and wanting it NOW! Used to be it might take months or years to save up enough to acquire most anything. Instant gratification wasn’t even an option. Get that into their heads and the rest becomes much easier.

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    1. Agreed, Leslie (welcome to the trail)… it also doesn’t help when your kids spend time with other kids who have much more available to them. The conversation in which I have to repeat “well, that’s nice for them” (in response to “___ has a ____” happens quite a bit at our house!

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      1. vs, I can only imagine. Some very middle class friends of ours sent their four children to private schools (at great personal sacrifice and expense) where their peers were mostly from upper income families. Their oldest, called them losers when she turned 16 and they didn’t provide the new, expensive car she expected!

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      2. Well, at least the teenager doesn’t call me names! But we are the very definition of “house poor” which means we live in a place where there is a fair amount more discretionary income than we have. Luckily in the car arena, the teenager’s friends either have no car or a car rattier than ours. And she has pretty free access to our car most of the time, so she’s feeling OK about that at least.

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      4. If the s&h ever whips out something like “loser” he will be scrounging elsewhere for his dinner.

        Fortunately for him, he has absolutely no basis for expectations of a new and expensive ANYTHING.

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      5. Five or so years ago I had a ganglion cyst on my wrist and my son was making fun of it and I flipped out and called him a cold heartless bastard. It brought the house down!!

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    4. I was outraged too, when i heard that. Although I don’t believe in corporal punishment, it would have been a real struggle not to slap that young lady, and hard. And perhaps a real good kick in the posterior for good measure. I would have made a horrible parent, I’m afraid.

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  14. (aka leslie)
    Back with a new identity (blogging is new to me)…
    I’m looking forward to wandering the trail and finding cool treasures along the way.

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    2. So glad you found us, Leslie. I’ve found some new and wonderful friends here – several of whom were at Rock Bend this weekend! You’ll be in good company.

      Leslie’s a friend of mine, ‘booners!

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  15. You just have to hope your kids take after the more conservative member of the parental unit. In our case, Joel took after Michael – would pay off credit card every month, and didn’t understand shopping at all. “You go in to the store, get what you need, pay for it and leave.”

    OT – we made it through my mom’s going away party. This week is packing and moving up to Twin Cities, so I’ll be on when I can. Have a good week, Babooners!

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  16. There are so many things that would be helpful and many of them have been mentioned here. I’ll say one that I wish I had learned when I was young. It’s related to Steve’s idea of time = pixie dust. It’s the importance of saving money for when you’re old(er) starting when you’re young.

    I’m okay about not spending what I don’t have and have fairly modest wants, but now I’m looking at the future which seemed like it would never arrive when I was young and it’s kind of scary. I was always one to spend my money or give to charity…I just saw no need to save money for the future. Well now the future is almost here and I feel incredibly stupid for not realizing that it would come and that money would not just magically appear if I didn’t sock some away.

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      1. I’m trying! Not always easy…as tim said, commitments made in times of milk and honey are tougher to live up to when the fan enters the picture. and sometimes even “the best laid plans of mice and men gang aft agley.”

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      2. I know, Edith. In theory, this is all a piece of cake, but it doesn’t take much to upset the applecart, does it?

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  17. Bubby, I’m afraid I’m not going to be much help to you in learning personal finances. When I have a dime, I spend it. I’m just a starry-eyed, hedonistic, living-in-the-moment, rose-colored glasses wearing, hippy chick. For example, there is the pretty, shiny necklace I bought yesterday at Rock Bend… no, Anna, I certainly did not need it but I sure did want it. I do have some money saved, supposedly for retirement, but as Linda and I were discussing yesterday, it hasn’t grown at all in the last 15 years. The investment advisers were either lying or they were just plain wrong. This doesn’t do much to encourage me to save. I will likely be working at least another ten years.

    I don’t think I’m alone, though. I think there will be other people like me in the next 25 years or so. We should consider a cooperative, community living scenario in which we each bring our own talents and skills and live together, helping each other and caring for each other as we age. We could have a community garden, cooperative cooking and housekeeping, cooperative transportation, and shared social gatherings. I think we have to learn to think cooperatively and locally and learn not to rely on the ubiquitous “them”, because “they” haven’t done much for anyone but themselves.

    I’m still very tired today. My back and legs are aching. I wrapped my left foot today, if anyone is interested. I have a “new” printer to set up and some new seasonings to try as soon as I get my hands on some squash. I have some incredible offers to think about from an entrepreneur with whom we are all familiar. I’m so deeply grateful for friendship and music and sunshine you just wouldn’t believe it. Thank you all!

    I have to get back to the park and tear down stages and pack up for next year. We think there will be a 22nd annual Rock Bend Folk Festival! I’ll be back here tomorrow.

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    1. Krista, it sounds like RBFF was a huge success, and what a weekend for it. I can’t believe you’re still standing after all that work.

      Hope those entrepreneurial opportunities work out for you. Fingers crossed.

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    2. About the cooperative living scenario you’re suggesting, I can only say this. As I’ve grown older (old?) I’ve become less and less tolerant of others’ peculiarities; hell, I don’t even like some of my own. Don’t know that I could live harmoniously with a bunch of old, equally eccentric, old farts. I love the idea of cooperative living, but I think there’s a lesson in that the people I know who lived in communes in the 60s and into the 70s, have all disbursed into single family homes.

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      1. Rock Bend makes me think that way, PJ! I get pretty starry-eyed and tend to romanticize some ideas this time of year. I’ll get back to a more pragmatic outlook soon enough.

        Off to “work”!

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  18. Bubby should forget about paper altogether and exchange it for gold. And then he should take most of the gold and spin it into straw. And then he should buy goats. And then he should take what’s left and buy just enough yarn to knit one single goat sweater because now it’s winter. But he should leave the work undone because it’s BUBBY for God’s sakes! And on this cold December night Bubby’s barn will be visited by a pair of pixies and they will knit the most beautiful goat sweater the north woods has ever seen. The next morning a happy wandering stranger will yodel up to the barn and buy the sweater for DOUBLE Bubby’s asking price. And then Bubby will buy enough yarn for two goat sweaters, and again the pixies will knit them and they’ll be even more beautiful than the night before. And this scenario will continue night after night, and Bubby will buy more yarn and then more goats and then more yarn and then more goats and then more yarn and then more goats and more yarn and more goats until he realizes he’s forgotten to spend any money on feed and the goats have starved to death. OH NO – BUBBEEEEEEEEY!!!

    The moral of this story, Baboons?

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    2. I think Donna’s fable deserves more focused attention from the baboons than a late post usually receives. Look for this story at the top of the queue tomorrow morning!

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