Are you a Spendster?

In keeping with last week’s theme of marshmallows and self- control, here is an interesting website called Spendster.org. It offers you a chance to tell your story via video of how over-spending or impulse buying is wasting your money. It’s a fun way of coming clean about your money mistakes and hopefully learning how to better manage your finances.

On the home page is a cool calculator that shows you how much money you are wasting and where it could be used instead.

One of my favorite videos is a 4 year old who tattles on her spend thrift parents! Check it out here.

While this is a fun website, the underlying lessons for your children are invaluable:

• We all make spending mistakes. It’s a great lesson for kids and teens to learn while they are young and their mistakes are not too costly.
• It is important to realize when you have over-spent or if you have the tendency to buy on impulse. Learning to indentify a spending mistake or an impulse tendency can help your kids and teens to get back on track with better spending habits.

What can you do?

• Help you kids and teens develop a budget and teach them to stick to it.
• Discuss the difference between a need and a want.
• Show them that it’s ok to make a mistake…but to learn from it.
• And it’s OK to laugh at ourselves and our mistakes every now and then!

 

(Spendster is part of the National Endowment for Financial Education NEFE.)