Tag Archive for "Credit Cards"
On September 23, 2009 at the Clinton Global Initiative Visa announced a new FIFA World Cup™ branded educational video game as the centerpiece of a commitment to reach 20 million people worldwide with financial literacy information by May 1, 2013 known as Financial Soccer (and Financial Football outside the US). The game provides an innovative new approach for helping children and adults learn about personal finance through a free video game that combines the world’s most popular sport with an award-winning financial literacy curriculum.
I’ve now played the game twice. Once by myself (I won) and once with 27 students in the beginning accounting course I teach at Bridgewater State College. You can select the level of play: amateur, semi-pro or world-class which is determined by your age. Once in the game you can select the difficulty of the questions each time your team gets the ball. You “score” a point when you get a shot and answer the related question correctly. It was a lot of fun. I recommend you try it. You and you children can learn together.
While you’re there check out Visa’s Practical Money Skills for Life where you will find more financial literacy tools, games, calculators and other resources.
Let me know how you make out playing Financial Soccer or Financial Football…not just your score but what you learned. Score!
Here is a great post by a leading authority on women & money, Barbara Stanny, on what college students need to know about money. I would argue high school students need to know it too.
16 Things I wish I Knew About Money When I graduated College.
What are you teaching your children about money?
A recent article in the Boston Globe, College by the Numbers, reported that college students hold 4.6 credit cards on average with a combined average balance of $3,173. With the new law, The Credit Card Accountability, Responsibility and Disclosure Act, this is a thing of the past.
Unless the parents of children under 21 years of age want to co-sign for the credit card or the child has independent financial means to repay the credit, no credit card will be issued. Keep in mind that being a cosigner of another’s debt means you are agreeing to pay it all off if they don’t pay and their payment habits will reflect on your credit.
Now is the time to give your children lessons on how to budget on a limited amount of cash because with no credit cards they will need to know. On the News & Resources page I list several sources of financial literacy information to help you and your children become financially savvy.
