Account Passwords

Since I am the one who takes care of all of our bills, investments, banking, and savings online, I have about 50 million passwords that I have a hard time remembering sometimes. Well actually a lot of times. Well I've been thinking about opening up a safety deposit box at our bank so that we can keep important papers and a list of our accounts and passwords. Well it turns out that this may be a really good idea. Check out Liz Weston's article on Don't take your passwords to the grave. So I will call around a check out the prices. It's not like we will need a very large box. Will keep you updated on my progress and the prices.

Planning on the Cost of Our Baby

So since this is our first baby, I guess I have been worrying about the cost, what things we need to get, and all kinds of other stuff. Well Kiplinger's Success With Your Money magazine has a great article on the costs of a new born and what to expect. The article is called "When Baby Makes Three (or more)"; I like to call it a bun in the oven. The article states that even though having your first child can be a financial shock, there are tax advantages and you do save money by spending more time at home with your child and with family. Your baby's first years can cost between $4000 and $6000. I guess it's time to cut out some of our luxuries and spending money going out. We've tightened our budget to get out of debt, but now it looks like we will have to do more. This doesn't include the price of having to move into a new house. I think we are okay for a little while. We have a small starter house, but an extra bedroom. Goodbye computer room :( . At least this will give us more than a couple years before we need a bigger house. The article says to make sure you have life insurance, health insurance, and some type of disability insurance. The news isn't all bad, there are some good tax breaks that I will get into in my next post along with some of the insurance info. If anyone has any advice or can give me some ideas of extra costs or ways to save money, I would be very greatful.

Teaching Kids About Money

Now that my wife and I are getting ready to have a child, I have been thinking alot about how we plan to educate him/her, especially about money, saving, and investing. I know that when I was growing up I just always knew it was there, we never talked about money or saving so I pretty much never did. I also didn't know about investing, but I sure knew about maxing out my credit cards. It wasn't until recently that I have gotten into investing and saving for retirement. Dan Caplinger's article Make Finances a Family Affair, on Motley Fool states that "Teaching your children about money is an extremely important part of your parental responsibilities. Because most schools lack any significant education about finances, it's up to [the parents] to create a strong foundation of knowledge that your children can use to guide their financial decisions. I know that I would be better off if I would have learned to save and invest at a younger age. One thing that many of the articles that I read left out is philanthropy. I believe that no matter how much you make, it is always good to give some money back to your community, church, people in need, etc.... I believe that this is a lesson that is very important to teach our children. One thing my parents did teach me was to give back, even if it didn't seem like much, helping someone else is always a good thing.

How do you teach your child about money?

1) Start at an early age with change and a piggy bank.
2) Give a weekly allowance for chores and split up the money into savings, spending, and giving(philanthropy).
3) As they get older get them started with a savings account(maybe a high interest savings account).
4) When they are old enough teach them how to invest and make their money work for them.

Hopefully I will be able to give our child a better understanding of personal finance than I had. What do you think? and what are some other things that would we could teach our child about money and finances?

Knocked Out One of Our Goals

So my wife and I have literally knocked out one of our goals, or you could say knocked up. Turns out she is pregnant and though everything is exciting, I start to have all of the thoughts that new fathers must have. Will I be a good father, can I protect him/her. Can I teach them to be financial free so that they don't make the same mistakes that I have made. Well I guess we will have to see. For right now the prospect of being a father is a little overwhelming and extremely very exciting.