2.At what grade do you believe this education should begin? I believe that it should begin in grade one
And end? in grade 12

3.List six topics you think schools should cover when it comes to teaching money management. 1. RRSP 2. Income tax,EI,CPP 3. Compound Intrest 4. Importance of savings/emergency fund 5. ins and outs of purchasing a house 6. insurance

4.What role do you think others (parents, bankers, community groups) should play in the education of our kids, specifically about money?
partenership role, early and on going conversations and lessons

5. Do you agree or disagree with the statement: Financial institutions should be held liable for lending irresponsibly when they don’t “educate” before they lend. (Elaborate if you wish.)

Disagree, but I do believe that before any money is given to a client they need to be fully aware of and penaltites ect that can occur.

As well when they give a client a preapproval amount for a mortgage they need to explain how they came up with this figure and make sure the client is aware of all of their other expenses.

What three things about money do you wish you had learned earlier?
1. how to budget properly
2. that CC are important for things like hotel reservations and car rentals but not for shopping sprees and wants
3. That from day one of earning or being given money you have to save some of it. It isn’t all for fun and games

What mistakes could you have avoided if you’d known more about how money works?
What do you think it will take to change The System and ensure the next generation of adults knows how money works?
Do you have resources you would recommend to help schools, teachers, parents, help children learn about money?
What else would you like to say on this topic?

And so starting simple, continue on through all the grades, up to last year, and by graduation kids should understand;

- compound interest, effective annual rates, how to compare terms, declining balance.

- basic credit card stuff, like: upon grad, you spent “x” dollars on a car loan. How long would it take to pay it off if only a minimum payments are made? How much would the car have cost in reality, by the last payment date? (Gee, Is it possible I’d still be paying for that car 10 years after it went to the junkyard?) Most kids would love to daydream of having a car, so just using that one example, SO, SO, much could be taught! How much can you afford to spend on a car if you’re making “x” dollars an hour, “x” numbers of hours a month.
- Learning to look at the BIG PICTURE: associated costs; What costs could be associated with buying that car? Taxes? Insurance? Depreciation? What kind of maintenance costs? Winter tires? How to decide how to buy the insurance? (Like what % rate is the insurance co. charging to take the insurance monthly, vs. borrowing a year’s worth of insurance from the bank?

- What if I need money for an unexpected thing that cropped up? Can I use the car for equity? Why, why not? Then maybe it will dawn on a kid that some things depreciate, while other things might be a more solid investment.

- Again: Big Picture. Using going to the prom, could show how it’s not just the dress and the limo, but gas for several trips to look for a dress. Oh, you got hungry on that trip – did you buy a milkshake, burger & fries? Buying flowers? Having a picture taken? This class should be the year before prom, but it would be relevant. This could be a great time to discuss how our emotions, insecure feelings can be “invisible things” that can cause us to spend waaay more than we should.

How to forecast for budgeting, how to keep the records.

#4 brings up an interesting point: How to tell & who to go to, to trust, for financial advice. When to pay for it, and how to know if the person is my, another’s, or represents the interests of more than one party. Are there basic laws (I’m thinking ‘arms length’, to protect the consumer? How do we know when someone has/hasn’t the legal capacity to act for us, when maybe they have something to sell us. Who may or may not have our best interest at heart? When -or do – agents have to disclose? What if I think I made a mistake – can I go back on a contract within a certain ammount of time?

#5 -Facets of: “What does “The fine print” mean?” Is “Whull, I didn’t knoooow…” ever a valid excuse?

- A few points re: verbal vs “Get It In Writing”

- Credit ratings. |Can they follow you throughout your whole life? Can a good rating save you money or a bad rating cost you more? Compare two people. One graduates college with a good rating, one with a bad rating. How much more could the person with the bad rating suffer – and what you should expect/could command if your rating is excellent. Protecting our identy. What to do if you lose your credit card. Are ya liable?

-All kids should get a few go rounds about their income tax, should they get a job, using mock income tax forms.

- Lessons in very basic accounting starting/running a business such as lawn maintenance, babysitting. Who is in business? You are! Everyone is in business for themselves. You are either running it well or poorly.

#6 – Attitudes towards money. Did you ever get mixed messages about it? “Money is the root of all evil.” Money is neither good or bad. It is a tool which is used well, or poorly, and that is relative to each person’s moral beliefs.

- What about gambling? I do remember something about the Law Of Averages in a math class. But they talked about stuff like lightning strikes, never mentioned gambling.

- Attitudes towards money are often formed on an unconscious basis, a belief pattern cobbled together from all around us. Many sayings encapsulate the attitudes. The various attitudes run the gamut from “Easy come, easy go” to “Put your nose to the grindstone, a penny saved is a penny earned.” What imight a balanced “middle way” attitude look like?

#7 – Everything. It would have changed everything about my whole life from graduation till now, decades later, and most probably, on into my future.

#8 – What it might take to change this might be somebody who goes through the school system, graduating with good grades, and then getting a fancy pants smart lawyer to sue the school system for failure to educate on these issues. Hey, who knows, if a company could sue over hot coffee being hot…

What resources do I have? I don’t know. I’m a low-tech person in a tiny country village. But we just got on the jar system today, and we want to be able to pass on what we’ve learned, once we know we’ve understood the method right and have been practising it for awhile.

All I want to say now, is thank you for being out there, and sharing so generously of yourself. It’s so late, and it was such a long busy day, and I’m not used to writing in such a small square as this comment space allows. If you need me to rewrite my comments, I’d surely do it if need be. Don’t want to spend the time tonight though, as I’m sooo tired, and might be just saying what many others have already said. So yeah, thanks again, so much!

2.At what grade do you believe this education should begin? And end?
List six topics you think schools should cover when it comes to teaching money management.
Grade 8/9, when teens are beginning to earn their own money. Topics covered should be need vs wants, living within your means, credit cards are not ‘free money’. How to calculate interest, how to budget, and keep track.

3.What role do you think others (parents, bankers, community groups) should play in the education of our kids, specifically about money?
Parents should begin teaching fin. resp. at an early age, by example, and using allowances as a way to teach kids to save for what they want.

4..Do you agree or disagree with the statement: Financial institutions should be held liable for lending irresponsibly when they don’t “educate” before they lend. (Elaborate if you wish.)
I disagree, it is up to the individual applying for a loan to educate themselves, be responsible for their own choices.

5.What three things about money do you wish you had learned earlier?
What mistakes could you have avoided if you’d known more about how money works?
I guess I’m a rarity, the only thing I wish I’d done earlier is to start RRSP contributions at a younger age. Otherwise, I think I’ve made wise financial decisions. We pd our mort off in 6 1/2 yrs, I think due to the fact that my parents taught me fin. resp. from an early age. IE:began paying them rent after my first job.

6.What do you think it will take to change The System and ensure the next generation of adults knows how money works?
Parents need to take a bigger role in preparing their children for the real world, financially.
7.Do you have resources you would recommend to help schools, teachers, parents, help children learn about money?
No
What else would you like to say on this topic?
My philosophy is to always budget for worse case scenario [lay off], any thing above that is a bonus.

2. As early as possible. Simple things like monetary denominations and how to make change could be taught in primary school, working up to budgeting, saving, and compound interest in middle school, how credit works in junior high, with the stock market in high school.

3. Budgeting, Balancing a Chequebook, Supply and Demand, Credit (including cards, student loans and mortgages), the Stock Market (including history of bubbles and crashes), Taxes. There are many more.

4. Parents need to be the main participants in educating their child about money. It would be wonderful if more financial information geared towards children was available from the government, independant groups, and financial institutions. Perhaps handouts or small colouring books starring some mascot from a major bank telling kids how their savings can grow in a bank account or how credit cards actually work?

5. Disagree. I think people already displace too much blame. Be accountable for your own decisions. However, legislation requiring financial contracts to be translated in plain language and readable font should be encouraged.

6. How a lack of using credit would leave me with no credit history. To open an RRSP in my teens. The actual value of a dollar.

7. I could have avoided the embarrassing situation of my husband having to co-sign a credit card I wanted (despite my being the sole breadwinner in the family at the time), because I had never been the primary cardholder on one and therefore had no credit history. Apparently having a good utility billing history and a student loan wasn’t enough. Infuriating.

8. More focus on financial education, particularly in schools.

9. Sadly, not yet. Though I will be trolling the internet to discover son before my son is old enough to learn about it.

You can protect yourself from all those things by setting up your business as a corporation instead of a sole proprietership.

Insurance will protect you from being sued, and if the business runs into financial problems, creditors can only go after the corporation’s assets, and not after you or any of your own personal money or assets.