Raising Financially Confident Kids

I know I said I’d be reviewing books and such every other week, but I had the opportunity to review two great books from Revell—one fiction, one nonfiction—but both reviews needed to be posted during the same week. I decided to go for it. Today, we’ll hit the nonfiction and tomorrow, you’ll get an Extra Edition.

I picked up Raising Financially Confident Kids by Mary Hunt because educating my children about finances is very important to me and I want to start now, while they are very young.

I do not want my children to grow up with a sense of entitlement. I want them to walk around each day with a profound sense of gratitude and a heart bent toward sharing with others. (I want that for myself as well!)

I had some specific things I wanted to take away from the book (how do you talk to your preschooler about money, when do you start allowances, what about those tricky teen years) but honestly, I did not expect to enjoy reading it.

We’ve been through Dave Ramsey’s Financial Peace University. Our only debt is our mortgage. (Boy, that feels so good to say after carrying two mortgages for seventeen months!!)

I don’t need to be convinced that debt is bad for your relationships, and that debt free living allows you to better serve the Kingdom.

I’m already sold.

So I sort of expected to skim over the “yeah, we’re already doing that” parts and focus on the sections that applied to me.

I didn’t do much skimming.

Raising Financially Confident Kids was not only packed with useful information, it was a very enjoyable and quick read - it even has a great twist at the end!

There are chapters for all stages of development, and great advice on shielding our children from consumerism and tearing down attitudes of entitlement. I’ll be pulling this out again as my kids get older to refresh my memory on how to explain things like compound interest and helping them see the “lie” in advertisements (if you have this toy you’ll be popular, etc.). And my kids are going to start hearing me use this line, "We don't choose to spend our money that way," a lot!

The “salary” plan she implemented with her own boys over twenty years ago intrigued and terrified me! It’s hard to argue with the results, and it certainly gave her sons the opportunity to learn how to manage money while still in the safety net of the home. I’m a few years away from that point with my own sons, but I can see us using a version of this method down the road.

I highly recommend Raising Financially Confident Kids to parents of children of all ages.

Available August 2012 at your favorite bookseller from Revell, a division of Baker Publishing Group.

The super fine print: The fine folks at Revell sent me a copy of this book in exchange for my honest opinion. I was not required to give a positive review.