Credit & Debit Cards, Money Mgmt - iPad/iPod Celebrity Calamity App Review

Here is a free app called Celebrity Calamity that's useful for teaching students about credit cards, debit cards and money/cash management.  It's really well done and has the added bonus that it's presented in a game format so it provides entertainment and learning at the same time.  Follow the link below to check out the video review to give a quick guided tour without having to download it.

View video app review

Download app from itunes



James Whelan, www.moneymatters4life.ca

Budgeting - Are you top-down or bottom-up?

I was re-reading an article from MoneySense, one of my favourites (link below) and they were talking about budgeting and the two main approaches - Top-down and Bottom-up.  Top-down is where you  set a budget and follow it.  This is the one most talked about where you collect all your receipts to figure out where you are spending your money, set a budget amount for all the spending categories and then track every expenditure.  If you're a very detail-oriented person, this works for you.

The one that's not talked about so much is the Bottom-up approach.  With this approach, you decide in advance how much you want to save in advance and put it aside before spending on other things.  The article gives a saving target as an example but you could extend this idea for other things.  Let me give you an example.  When I was in university, I had 4 different room mates over my time in school and we shared the grocery expenses but didn't really know who would be doing groceries so came up with a simple solution.  At the beginning of each week, each of us put a agreed amount of cash in a cookie tin and whoever was going to the grocery store used the cash and put the receipt and change back in the can.

After university, when my wife and I had more financial responsibilities (e.g. house, car, insurance), we used this same idea.  The cookie tin became a separate bank account and the cash in the tin became transfers from our accounts right after our pay cheques were deposited for all these regular expenses.  What was left in our banks accounts after the transfers could be spent on other, more discretionary things.

Try talking with your kids or students about how you budget and what works well/not well for you.  It might require a bit of experimentation but bottom line is everyone has to decide what works for them.

James Whelan, www.moneymatters4life.ca

Link: How to Save More, Summer 2012, www.moneysense.ca

Are your kids or students listening?

In one of my previous posts, I talked about sharing financial adventures with kids.  Do you ever wonder if you're getting through to them?  If they're listening?

Whatever you know do, don't give up.  You'll be surprised how much they can pick up.

My wife and I were pleasantly surprised by our children Christmas morning. They gave us an envelope with some of their allowance to help pay for a new microwave.  We had a really old one that needed replacing.

Made all our talks seem worthwhile.

James Whelan, www.moneymatters4life.ca

Debt and Loans - iPad DebtPayoff Lite App Review

I mentioned a free app called DebtPayoff Lite during my December posting - "Debt Tracking and Amortization - App Review" that's useful for teaching students about debt, loans and amortization.  I had promised a video review to give you a quick guided tour without having to download it.  Follow the link below to check it out.

View video app review

Download app from itunes



James Whelan, www.moneymatters4life.ca

Spending and Saving - iPad goalGetter App Review

I mentioned a free app called goalGetter during my November posting - "Saving good? Spending bad?" that's useful for teaching students about spending and saving.  I had promised a video review to give you a quick guided tour without having to download it.  Follow the link below to check it out.

View video app review

Download app from itunes



James Whelan, www.moneymatters4life.ca
 

Debt Tracking and Amortization - App Review

Back with an iPad app review of a free one called DebtPayoffL that allows someone to set up different debts (e.g. car, university), each with it's own amount owing and interest rate.  It then shows all the debts in a table with a row for each debt and a progress graph and payoff date shown.  Touching each row gives you the detail payment schedule.  There are also some Loan calculators you can use to do "what-if" amortization calculations.  Lots of good features with this one. The free version allows you to track two debts and if you upgrade to the full version you can track as many as you need.

This app would be a good tool to help teach students about debt, loans and amortization calculations.  It looks like you could use it outside the classroom as well to track real debts.  I'll do a demo video of this one soon and look at more of the features.

James Whelan, www.moneymatters4life.ca

Funding post secondary education - Have you had the talk?

Did you check out the video in the last posting? Here's the link again in case you missed it:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=58jU2Ll_yZA

I took this of my son before he started high school to test some questions we incorporated into surveys given to students prior to running a course.  I thought it would be interesting to see what his answers would be.

As part of these surveys, we ask students if they plan to take post secondary education and how they plan to pay for it. Some of the results are quite interesting. One set of the survey results had 10% of the class answering "don't know" to the "how you plan to pay" question. These were grade 11 students with only one more year of high school.  A bit worrisome.

Parents, have you talked to your kids about paying for  school?

I'd love to do a survey of kids and their parents using these same questions.  If any of you would be interested in getting us to do such a survey, please contact us.

James Whelan, www.moneymatter4life.ca