Case For Cooking

Through the years I have been a huge believer in teaching kids about finance well before they hit college.  We started our kids off in their pre-teens with envelopes and budgeting their meager allowance into Spending, Charity, and Savings.  As they grew up into high school, allowance went away at age 16, but they were allowed to start a job.  During their senior year in high school each of the boys received a weekly budget for bus fare, school lunches, necessities, haircuts, school supplies--you get the point!

The goal of this process was to accustom them to being responsible and getting a taste of managing their money, even if only a small amount--they were encouraged to set aside automatic debits to their stock accounts--one son did well turning 300 investment in Dicks Sporting into a 700 dollar return that he promptly put in 6 shares of Apple that netted him a total amount of approx 3000 when all was said and done.

The other son burns holes in his pockets with cash--but even his limited saving paid for his volunteer trip to save the Sea Turtles last year with Rustic Pathways--so as to the success of our feeble financial education, I'm not 100% sure; but they did get the message that money should not control you.

Rather "your hard-earned money needs to be working for you" at all times--in a stock account, investing in property, passive income, developing your talents, getting better interest rates, Roth IRA, etc.--and the more your money works for you, the less you will be working for money.
We will see how successful we were when our last son embarks on his own next year June 2014.

As college begins, having these habits in place--paying yourself first, thinking about your expenses (most of which are dependent on you and your spending) in terms of wants vs. necessities, and living frugally (but not miserly) becomes critical if you are branching out on your own.

As in the previous financial link I provided from The Empowered Dollar and the blog I posted...take charge of your budget--start learning, start planning and thinking of ways to improve your cash-flow, even if it is meager at this point--developing those habits with little income will be the foundation of continuing those habits with a bigger paycheck.

As for the link that I am sharing today discusses, one of the first places to look for hidden expenses is FOOD costs!  This is where cooking skills, even if only a few, will stretch your budget a long way, and help you avoid the unnecessary costs of pre-made, pre-packaged, processed foods or eating out when you really can't afford to.

I know I have stated this before, but it is nice to see that others in the financial blogging sector think similarly!  Next to housing expenses, food costs, either groceries or eating out, is the second largest expense for most Americans.

Be curious and check out this blog snippet from www.20somethingfinance.com; and, if you have the time, I would encourage you to systematically read his entire "summer" project titled 'Summer of Savings'.  Great advice from someone in your shoes!

http://20somethingfinance.com/save-money-on-food-groceries/

Other bloggers worth looking at

---- www.budgetsaresexy.com
---- www.financialsamurai.com

Eat Well. Stay Hungry. Dream big. Don't Settle.

Your money could be doing a whole lot more for than going down the toilet!