I vividly remember watching my father accept change from a cash transaction when I was a child, and trying to figure out exactly how it was fair that he had handed over a $10 bill and received two $1 bills (and our lunch) in exchange. I couldn’t have been more than four or five at the time, and although we were at the zoo, my attempts to understand how money worked is much more memorable to me than any of the animals we must have seen that day. That teachable moment was one of several unforgettable experiences in my childhood financial education.
Now that I am a parent, I am thinking more concretely about how to pass on that education. Money is not a subject taught in school. It’s considered taboo to talk about money, and often people will have a sense of shame about it. On top of that, we live in a “Gotta Have It NOW!” culture where credit is easy to come by. Parents absolutely must educate their children about sound finances, but many simply do not know how.
Teaching Your Children About Money
Teachable Moments
Unfortunately, a single discussion about money is not going to cut it when giving your children the financial life skills they will need as adults. The most effective way of teaching your children is by talking money all the time. Here are some common occasions for regular financial discussions:
At the Grocery Store
From weighing produce and determining what the cost will be, to keeping track of coupons, to comparing name vs. store brand, to keeping a running total throughout the trip, the grocery store provides you with a wonderful opportunity for your child to hone his math, money, and budgeting skills. Making a game of the grocery store with younger children by challenging them to find a cheaper alternative or add up prices quickly will make the financial education fun. For older kids and teenagers, allowing them to take the list to see if they can spend less than budgeted (without sacrificing any of the needs on the list) will inspire them to be savvy shoppers—particularly if you let them keep the difference between what they spent and what you budgeted.
When Paying Bills
The monthly bill-paying chore is hardly anything you would call fun. But when kids are small and want to do everything Mom and Dad do, it’s an ideal time to teach children about money. Allow children to see how much money you have and how much must go out to pay bills. Let them practice their addition and subtraction skills to help you balance your checkbook. If you still pay bills by check, put the kids in charge of double-checking that you have all the necessary information in the envelope before they seal it and stamp it and put it in the mailbox. Explain how the things your kids might take for granted—like heat and electricity and, of course, cable—cost money each month.
On Vacation
Even the most budget-averse family generally goes on vacation with only a certain amount of money they can spend. Involve your children in the decisions even before you’re on the boardwalk debating between the hot dog vendor or the pizza parlor. Saving for a vacation is a fun way to teach children about the power of savings goals. If children understand that giving up something now leads to something wonderful later, they will learn the valuable tool of delayed gratification. With only a certain amount to spend, including children on the planning process of your vacation will help them to learn how to budget and how to rank the importance of different options. Once you are enjoying yourselves on vacation, giving each child a certain amount to spend while away is an allowance lesson compressed into a week.
Lifelong Learning
It may seem strange or uncomfortable to include your children in your day-to-day money decisions, but the only alternative is leaving them unprepared for their financial future. By making money something you talk about openly and with fun and humor, you will ensure that your children have all the tools necessary to make good money decisions.
Credit card giant Visa has announced a new payment service for U.S. consumers set to launch in the second half of 2011. The new offering closely mimics services offered by PayPal, allowing users with a Visa-branded credit, debit, or pre-paid account to transfer money amongst each other. “Consumers in the U.S. will soon be able to receive and send funds to any eligible Visa credit, debit or prepaid account, anywhere in the world,” reads the press release. “By simply entering the recipient’s 16-digit Visa account, email address or mobile phone number, consumers can send funds directly from their bank account to a recipient’s Visa account.” The company has also partnered with payment networks CashEdge and Fiserv, allowing them to integrate their person-to-person payment platforms with the new service. The personal payment program outlined by Visa is already offered outside the U.S. in dozens of different countries. The full press release is after the break.
Visa Moves Beyond the Point-of-Sale – Delivers Personal Payments to U.S. Account Holders
Critical network enhancement, new transaction type, and strategic agreements with CashEdge and Fiserv enable U.S. Visa account holders to pay each other for the first time
SAN FRANCISCO–(BUSINESS WIRE)–Visa Inc. (NYSE:V), the global leader in payments, today announced that consumers in the U.S. will soon be able to receive and send funds to any eligible Visa credit, debit or prepaid account, anywhere in the world. The breakthrough service extends the utility of Visa’s network from enabling payments at the point of sale, to enabling consumers to pay one another.
The new Visa personal payments service, which eliminates the inefficiencies of cash and checks for payments between individuals, was made possible through technical enhancements to VisaNet, Visa’s global payments processing network, and through the introduction of a new Visa transaction type that allows financial institutions to accept incoming funds.
Additionally, Visa today announced strategic product agreements with CashEdge Inc. and Fiserv, Inc. (NASDAQ: FISV), two of the leading providers of electronic person-to-person payment, account transfer and bill payment services to U.S. financial institutions. Through the agreements, CashEdge and Fiserv will have access to VisaNet, enabling them to integrate the Visa personal payment service into their respective person-to-person platforms – Popmoney® and ZashPay®. This will allow a participating bank’s customers to send money directly to a Visa account.
“For fifty years, Visa has worked to simplify payments at the merchant point of sale; we are now evolving our network capability to make it easier for our account holders to pay one another,” said Jim McCarthy, global head of products at Visa Inc. “Through our agreements with Fiserv and CashEdge, we can accelerate the delivery of new and innovative Visa payments services, and better enable financial institutions to extend these services to customers.”
How it Works
Bank customers of participating financial institutions will have the option to select a Visa account as the destination for funds when making a personal payment. By simply entering the recipient’s 16-digit Visa account, email address or mobile phone number, consumers can send funds directly from their bank account to a recipient’s Visa account. This makes sending money to a niece for her birthday or to a son in college simpler, faster, and more convenient than before.
“Providing a variety of fast, flexible payment options and establishing a large network through which consumers and small businesses can send and receive money are essential if we want them to trade checks and stamps for electronic payments,” said Erich Litch, president of Digital Channels at Fiserv. “Partnering with Visa allows Fiserv to grow not only the number of consumers and small businesses we can reach with the ZashPay service, but the ways we can reach them.”
“We are extremely pleased to be working with Visa on this initiative and leveraging their global network, which not only will allow Popmoney users to send money to recipients around the globe, but also will provide Visa customers with improved access to the convenience and security of Popmoney,” said Neil Platt, Senior Vice President and General Manager, U.S. Banking, CashEdge Inc. “The global market is eager to adopt personal and mobile payments and by partnering with Visa we can help meet this demand.”
Visa personal payments are already offered by financial institutions outside the U.S. with more than 70 programs around the world enabling consumers to send funds to Visa accounts. Availability of the service in the U.S. marks the first time a major payment network has introduced a global requirement for account issuers to accept incoming funds and thus enable a new generation of personal payment services.
The first U.S. financial institutions are expected to make Visa personal payments available to their customers through CashEdge and Fiserv by the second half of 2011.
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