The Second-Biggest “Holiday”
The start of a new school year may not seem like a holiday to school kids, but for retailers the back-to-school shopping season, now in full swing, is the second biggest ìholidayî of the yearósecond only to Christmas. According to the National Retail Federation, the average family with school-age children will spend nearly $530 this year on school supplies, school-related electronics, and clothing.
Mattís View
Most of the back-to-school shopping advice articles now filling the personal finance pages of newspapers and magazines offer up the usual ideas: shop around, compare online prices with offline prices, and, while itís too late for this year, get the list of items your childrenís schools will require before the summer break begins and then be on the lookout for summer sales. One story recommended leaving the kids at home while doing your back-to-school shopping. I couldnít disagree more. Back-to-school shopping offers a great opportunity to teach kids money management lessons such as budgeting (how to make and, yes, stick to a budget), comparison-shopping, and making tradeoffs (Letís see, do I buy a trendy new messenger bag or keep using last yearís backpack and buy three pair of pants and a new pair of shoes instead?).
Managing Money by The Book
- "Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock. The rain came down, the streams rose, and the winds blew and beat against that house; yet it did not fall, because it had its foundation on the rock." - Matthew 7:24-25
Recommended Resources
- Money, Purpose, Joy - Discussion Guide
- If you want to take your relationship with money to a whole new level, bring the subject into your small group. It can be scary to open up about money, at least at first. But the "Money, Purpose, Joy Discussion...…Read the rest
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