Copy

The latest tips, features, videos, news, and more.

FamZoo News

End of September, 2017
Preparing kids for the financial jungle.

TIP OF THE MONTH

Phone resale value chart.

But it looks cool without the case...doh!

I remember the time my oldest son thrashed an expensive laptop shortly after I bought it for him. Man, did that grind my gears.

I made him pay for the replacement by garnishing his allowance for 18 months. The lesson stuck. That replacement lasted a very long time.

That was an effective, yet reactive measure to teach my son to take care of his possessions. A proactive measure would have been better. Less wasteful.

It turns out there’s a pretty genius proactive hack to get kids to take great care of costly items — like expensive smartphones.

CHECK IT OUT

STAT OF THE MONTH: 12.7%

Taco fraud alert.

It’s not an Orwellian Big Brother thing...

Only 12.7% of FamZoo card toting kids have activity alerts turned on. And, of those, less than half are sharing alerts with parents.

Why is that a bad thing?

Let my buddy Keith tell you. Activity alerts helped him shut down a taco eating thief who stole his daughter’s card this month.

READ ABOUT THE TACO BELL BANDIT

PODCAST OF THE MONTH

Bill on Masters of Money podcast.

TMI.

My discussion with Philip “PT” Taylor came out this month on his Masters of Money podcast. It’s probably more than you ever wanted to know about my personal philosophies, and why I founded FamZoo.

PT runs the biggest personal finance media conference in the world — FinCon. The next one is happening in Dallas just a few weeks from now.

In fact, there’s an open-to-the-public event during the conference on October 27th if you happen to be in the Dallas area. It’s called Your Money Live.

Let me know if you’ll be there. I will. It would be fun to meet in person, if the podcast doesn’t scare you away...

LISTEN TO THE PODCAST

ARTICLE OF THE MONTH

Kid money index card.

Thou $halt...

In his post, The 10 Commandments for Kids and Money, Jim lays out the 10 money guidelines he’d like his seven year old daughter to gradually learn before she leaves the nest.

It’s smart to think through this exercise early. Time flies!

Maybe even scribble your top money commandments on an index card, and tape it to your desk or computer as a constant reminder. (That’s mine above.)

What would your top money commandments be for your child to master?

SEE JIM’S

FEATURE OF THE MONTH

Split credit link.

You’re not spending all of that are you?

Your kid is already splitting allowance and odd job payments between spending, saving, and giving. Awesome!

But what about that humongous birthday check from grandma and grandpa?

You can split that one-off windfall in exactly the same way.

Here’s how to do it in one quick step. No math required.

CHECK OUT SPLIT CREDITS

SHOUTOUTS OF THE MONTH

Much appreciated!

  • Chase T. — for helping us identify a subtle bug that prevented members from using passwords longer than 24 characters but within our limit of 32. We squashed it. Thank you for helping us make FamZoo better.
  • Joe Saul-Sehy — for the outstanding FamZoo ad reads on the Stacking Benjamins show. “Reads” is in air quotes. Joe’s unscripted improv just gets better and better. Thank you for making FamZoo sound so good, Joe. Check out the 22:45 mark in Friday’s show. Better yet, listen to the whole thing. Kiplinger voted it the top podcast of 2016.
  • Credit Sesame — for sharing the results of the teen credit survey taken by 222 FamZoo teens. You’ll find the article here. And a big thank you to the FamZoo parents who prompted their teens to take the survey. I hope it stimulated some enlightening conversations.

QUOTE OF THE MONTH

Saving is making your kid smarter.

“The habit of saving is itself an education; it fosters every virtue, teaches self-denial, cultivates the sense of order, trains to forethought, and so broadens the mind.” ~Thornton T. Munger

Throw in a little parent-paid interest to make saving even sweeter.

ALWAYS HAPPY TO HELP

Dear Bill...

Got a question, comment, concern, suggestion?

I’m no robot, just an everyday dad. Hit reply, and I’ll respond.

Or catch up with me on Facebook or Twitter.

Talk to you soon,
Bill

Bill Profile Picture
Founder, FamZoo.com

We send our newsletter to parents who registered with FamZoo and anyone else who subscribes to the newsletter directly.

SUBSCRIBE

1207A Vine Street, Healdsburg, CA 95448  •  (412) 326-9661