FINANCIAL FREEDOM

Whether they want to be financially rich beyond our wildest dreams, or live a simple self sufficient lifestyle, one of the greatest learning gifts we can provide for our children is an understanding of financial issues and how to achieve financial freedom.

Robert Kyosaki's richdad.com is a site well worth visiting. This is the USA one, but there are other international sites as well. Robert Kyosaki is a forward thinking genius in financial matters. He has a great belief in the importance of educating our future generations (and us big kids too!) about money and financial freedom and the huge lack of this kind of material taught in schools. Schools teach kids to be employees... Robert's aim is to teach them to be entrepreneurs and in big business. To create financial freedom for themselves and their families... and to be in a special position to be able to give back to the world in whatever way they feel it is their destiny to do so. The site itself offers various info, plus some fun things. You can also download a school's version of his pc Cashflow game. I registered as a homeschool and had no trouble. Robert also produces various versions of his game for sale, plus several books, a couple of which relate especially to young people. These books can also be found in various bookstores, and are often available at public libraries.

Someone else who has some interesting things to say is our very own Aussie self taught financial mastermind, Anita Bell. Her site is anitabell.com and is worth a look. There are some excerpts from her various books, and some other useful stuff. These books are well worth reading. You can order them though her site, or probably find them in most book stores. Public libraries should also have some of them.

Below are some fun ideas that might enhance kids interest and understanding of money.

• Encourage your child to help plan, and carry out, a family budget, or their own personal budget.
  
• Have your child start a regular savings plan. Depending on their age, this may have to be done through a parent's account. Look into the best way to do this. Have your child set some goals for what they'd like to save for, and how they might achieve it.
  
• Is your child interested in creating their own home business?
  Possible ideas are odd jobs for family or neighbours, pet care while owners are awy, dog walking, designing and printing stationery, washing cars, growing produce, craft items or lots of other possibilities.
  Make sure you check into all safety and legal considerations of whatever they decide on and supervise your children throughout the process.
  Keep financial (expenses, profit etc.) and other records of the business.
  
• Creating a coin collection may spark an interest and lead to deeper insight into money. It's also an enjoyable hobby. The child will also need to save money towards the purchase of coins, if so desired. However, they might also consider getting some pen friends overseas and exchanging with them.
  
• Get together regularly as a family, or with a group of friends, and play a game of Monopoly Cashflow, or one of the many other money games available.
  Challenge your child to design and make their own money game. Invite others for a game!
  
• Have your child make up some money related maths problems for someone else to try.
  Make sure they know the answers!
  
• Have your child research the currencies of other different countries.
  Can they find some other countries that use dollars and cents, like we do?
  Find out what main currency units other countries use.
  Choose a country and make an illustrated poster about their currency.
  
• Find out some interesting historical facts about money and its development. Make a display poster, or scrapbook.
  
• Find out what you can about bartering.
  Invite friends over for a bartering market day. Make some things, such as craft or food items, to exchange, or use the opportunity to swap some things you don’t need any more for something different.
  
• Do some reserach on the stock exchange. Have your child try "buying" (just pretend, unless you can afford to lose it!) some shares, and watch their progress.
  
• Have your child look into "buying" some real estate. Research houses on the internet, newspapers etc. Work out what loans might be best, and delve into interest, repayments etc. Look into what rent various houses might bring. What expenses might there be? Are they good investments, or not? Maybe you could even go to a few open days and a couple of auctions. But be careful... don't get caught up in the excitement and bid!

Have fun with money ideas. Remember, talking about money with children is good... don't hide it away as if it's something that shouldn't be discussed, or something they don't need to know about yet.

Their financial freedom may depend largely on the view of money matters they learn from you!