Checkbook Math

[sroweks]

I remember when in junior high public school my math teacher took a break from our curriculum to teach us how to use a checkbook and savings account along with managing money. We had actual checkbooks and daily there were life events that we had to contend with by writing checks, budgeting, etc. I would like to my kids to work through something similar.

Is there anything out there similar to what I described? All I found on the net was a workbook from Remedial Publications titled "Checkbook Math," which is okay, but I was looking for something a bit more engaging. Thanks!

[forty-two]

I don't think you'd need a program to do this, really. Just print out a bunch of blank checks from the net, or scan in one of your own, take out all the personal data, and print it. You could add your kids' names and fake account data, etc. - personalize it a bit.

Then you just need to put together a bit of info. Assign them all a base salary - $20K, $30K, whatever. You could have a list of professions, each with an appropriate salary, and let them pick one or draw one out of a hat. (For realism, you could have an associated student loan debt with each choice ).

Then put together housing info. Find an assortment of apartment and house info in the papers or online - get a picture and approx. monthly payment for each (use an online mortgage calculator to get monthly payments for houses), as well an estimate of monthly expenses for each (electric, water, gas - things that tend to go up with the size of the place). Don't stress overmuch about exact figures - just that big places cost more to maintain than small places. Do the same for cars and car insurance. Or you could let your kids, with your help, do their own research for all this.

Get prices for phone, internet, cable, cell phones, and let them choose what services to get. Get prices for groceries, clothes, toiletries, insurance, state/fed taxes - just use your own budget for the categories. Again, your kids could do their own research into prices here, if you wanted. Assign due dates for each paycheck and expense (1st, 15th, 31st, etc.)

Basically you'd do the exact sort of research you'd do upon moving to a new area. How much you'd do as prep and how much you'd do with your kids would depend on what you want your kids to learn from it and how much time you want to spend on it.

With that info, help your kids make up a budget, just as you made your family budget.

Then the game begins. Have a list of unexpected expenses (fun opportunities, things breaking, health issues, sinkholes opening up under the house , etc. - be as creative as you like). Each day have them pick a card, and deal with it as they can, while keeping up with regular expenses. If they can't afford something, you can decide how realistic you want to keep it (bring up options of credit cards, loans, payday loans, loan sharks ; discuss consequences of doing without or going into debt, paying late fees, etc.).

It's just like real life - think of all the things you plan for or have had happen to you, and there you go - you have your events. You can add creativity by having silly examples of unexpected things.

Checkbook and budgeting are the epitome of real life skills - why not use real life to teach it ?

[SheWhoWaits]

We used this:
http://www.amazon.com/Your-Checking-...7564716&sr=1-1

I had the kids work in the workbook for a while, and about 2/3 of the way through, I set up a quicken account for them and had them finish the workbook on quicken. Also, whenever I went to the bank, I had them fill out the deposit slips for me.

[SheWhoWaits]

We used this:
http://www.amazon.com/Your-Checking-...7564716&sr=1-1

I had the kids work in the workbook for a while, and about 2/3 of the way through, I set up a quicken account for them and had them finish the workbook on quicken. Also, whenever I went to the bank, I had them fill out the deposit slips for me.

[MamaT]

We use Money Matters for Teens. It covers check writing and so much more. It is written by Larry Burkett.

[Nan in Mass]

Kind of like the game of Life LOL.

[Nan in Mass]

I did the short version of this right before my son went off to college - I pulled out our checkbook, copied a check, and had him fill it out until he had memorized how to do it, then gave him a few real ones to do. Then I did the same thing with the deposit slip. Then I pulled out a newspaper and we looked at the employment section and the housing section. Then I showed him our utility bills and our boat and land tax bills. Then I told him about how my school loan had worked and reminded him about the game of LIFE. Then I had my husband sit down with him and go through how much money he makes and where it all goes each year. He explained about retirement accounts, credit cards, our few stocks, and the difference between things that you buy that enhance your life now and things that you buy with the intention of selling them for more later and things that you buy that will give you money (like rental property you own or stocks or savings) and how people mistake one for the other. And then he talked about inflation. Then together we briefly discussed different life strategies. The whole thing took half a day with me and an evening with my husband. Sometimes I wonder how much he will remember, but at least we talked about it. He'll have to learn the rest on the fly. Anyway, it was simple enough to teach him to use a checkbook using our own checkbook, the same day that we went downtown and got him his own checking account. It certainly was engaging that way. I remember a teacher having us pick a stock out of the newspaper and watch it. That was in 6th grade. We had a newspaper week. We were told that newspapers were written at a 6th grade level and now we were old enough to read them, and the school bought us each a newspaper every day for a week. We spent time looking at each section and talking about it. Perhaps it was in social studies? Or English? Anyway, it is one of the few things we did where I felt like I learned something and I still remember it.
-Nan