Moneytalk

What New Year’s resolution can help me learn financial responsibility?

Dear Mr. Suffrin: Everyone is making New Year’s resolutions and as a 15-year-old high school student I want to know what’s the best resolution I can make regarding finances. I get $20 a week as an allowance from my parents and I usually make some extra money cutting grass for my neighbors during the summer.

At my age, what type of financial resolution should I make that would help to teach me responsibility with money? – Need a Resolution in Des Allemands

Dear Need a Resolution: You should keep your New Year’s financial resolution simple since you are just beginning to learn about being responsible with money.

My suggestion would be to open a bank account and avoid the frills and extras as overdraft protection.

The experience of depositing your allowance and summer earnings, reconciling your bank account monthly when your bank statement arrives, the potential experience of bouncing a few checks, and the associated fees that are charged for overdrafts, will help you learn a basic responsibility in learning about cash in the bank, the consequences of not balancing a checkbook, and budgeting.

Students’ questions about finances answered – only in the St. Charles Herald-Guide. Financial expert and school board member-elect Al Suffrin, a certified public accountant, takes on the tough questions from parish kids- and their parents – in an important weekly column everyone should read.

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