Where Is The Money?

D. and I used to discuss money a lot. We didn't so much discuss what we would do with it, or how to get it, or spending it on the lottery or anything like that. What we would often talk about was how we were pretty much just sent right out into the world with maybe twenty minutes spent in a class to teach us how to write checks. There was nothing ever taught to us about budgeting, credit terms, loans or any of that stuff. We pretty much had to figure it all out ourselves (and I have to say that she did a much better job of it than I did). I made my mistakes by being a stupid 19 year old with a credit card that had a limit probably about 10 times higher than I needed. It took me almost 12 years to dig myself out of the debt that I had created in under three years.
It probably would have helped me if I had had something like the Teen Visa. With the card parents can track where, and how their kids are spending money, it is less expensive than getting a teen checking account, and parents are able to set up a chore system to pay kids for tasks completed. With one of these it is possible to teach a kid that the money to pay off credit purchases has to come from somewhere (like work) while also giving the parents control. The child also has a way to have money in case of emergency but the parent can also suspend use of the card at anytime. Dang, if these had been around back in the day I'd probably have a lot more money in the bank instead of paying all that interest to the credit companies.

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