Lukas Furlan loves hockey. And he loves to play with high-end gear. Last fall, when he was shopping for a hockey stick with his father, the two didn’t see eye to eye on the budget. Dan Furlan, a lawyer who grew up in a modest bungalow in Scarborough, thought $100 was generous. Lukas, age 14, however, had his sights set on a state-of-the-art Kevlar-wrapped carbon stick, for a distinctly immodest $300.

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The United States Mint H.I.P. Pocket Change™ Web site has seven areas:  Games, Toons, Coins and Medals, Coin News, Collectors Club, Mint History, and About this Site.  You get to them by clicking on the coin icons lined up on the left side of each page.You can use the Kids Guide to see lots of the site’s features at once, and find out what each one is like.  You can also get to the features through the site map, but here is a brief description of what each section has to offer:

• Games. Here you’ll find activities ranging from simple coloring pages to challenging puzzles.  Put real coins together, make up your own, play games of skill or words or just plain fun.
• Toons. You can join the Pals as they learn about coins from other countries and how coins are made, plus download screensavers and travel in the Time Machine.”
• Coins and Medals. This section has tons of information about everyday coins, special coins, medals, and the coin-making process.  This is where to find out about current and past coin series like the 50 State Quarters^® Program.
• Coin News. This section is dedicated to all that is newsworthy in the world of coins.  There’s a quarterly newsletter, a coin story each month, and lots more!
• Collectors Club. Feel stumped about the mysteries of coin collecting?  Inspector Collector is just the badger to lead you to the solutions!  There’s a special section for boy scouts, too.
• Mint History. Explore the United States Mint through its history, especially the buildings where the business of coinage goes on still.  Tantalizing trivia too!
• About This Site. Lots of good background information here, as well as how to use the site.  Find out where H.I.P. Pocket Change came from, where it can take you, and how you can get there.

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Welcome to FSI: Fraud Scene Investigator, an online interactive investor education program that teaches and empowers students howto detect and stop a million-dollar investment fraud and put the mysterious con man, “Mr. X,” behind bars. Through this free resource, students will learn how to research companies and understand the warning signs of fraudulent investment pitches.  Play now.

Occasionally the super-rich behave just like us: Camouflaged in the trappings of normal human beings, some live conservatively, keeping their lavish gestures to a minimum. But sometimes the well-heeled members of society wear their status on their sleeves: By pulling up to five-star hotels in their Bugatti or jet-setting to Paris for the weekend they have us believing that we’d be happier too with that kind of money.

But before you buy into the mystique, remember “there’s a cost to having money,” says Californed-based lawyer Richard Watts and author of Fables of Fortune: What Rich People Have That You Don’t Want. His book – which challenges the myth that greater wealth is synonymous with greater happiness – is the byproduct of more than three decades working as a “keeper of secrets” for some of the wealthiest families in the U.S.

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“When I became a man, I put aside childish things.“

Between the carefree days of childhood and the many stresses of independent living, there’s an extraordinary no-man’s land called ‘the teenage years’. Handled the right way, these years can provide the ideal forum for your children to ‘put aside childish things’ and get ready for the grown-up world.

In the modern world, of course, managing your finances is a major part of maturity. So how do you actually teach your kids to budget before they fly the nest? These five steps might not transform your offspring into budgeting geniuses – but it’s good to start with the basics…

Step 1: Introduction to Budgeting

Give your teenager a fixed allowance. Help them figure out what they’ll need to do with it: if they want to buy music, games, and clothes, and still finance some kind of social life, get them to think about how the available funds need to be split up.

Everyone’s different, so that might involve a few separate piggy banks or a spreadsheet on a PC – the important thing is that they learn to see their spending in terms of categories.

(Of course, you don’t need to introduce this ‘division’ idea straight away. You might choose to let them make a few mistakes first, then come in with a solution once they’ve discovered the frustration of running out of cash.)

Step 2: Decision-making

Let your teenager make their own decisions about spending. Simply being responsible for their own cash can really open their eyes to the difference between ‘want’ and ‘need’.

Once kids realize that they can buy Shirt A and go out for an afternoon with their friends and have some money left over – or buy Shirt B and have no money left until the end of the month – they’re likely to see prices in a different light!

Step 3: Opportunities

Give them the opportunity to earn a bigger allowance. You might suggest extra chores they could carry out, or increase their ‘hourly rate’ if they learn to do a better / faster job.

The trade-off between spare time and spare money is something they’ll have to get used to in adult life, so let them figure out how much effort they’re prepared to put in to get the things they want.

Step 4: Introduction to Real Life

If you feel comfortable with your kids knowing the ins and outs of your finances, why not show them a real budget? Show them how little of that seemingly impressive ‘income’ figure is left over once the ‘outgoings’ have soaked up their share.

They might be dismayed when they see how many expenses there are (and how much they add up to). They might also be encouraged to work harder at school if they understand how important it is to get ‘income’ as high as realistically possible!

Step 5: Learning from Mistakes

Once they’ve grown up and left home, they’d better not expect their boss to give them more money just because they’ve spent their salary too quickly! It might sound harsh, but be prepared to say no if they come asking for more. It’s a tough part of parenting, but as they say, the more you help them…

You could offer to go through their finances with them and figure out where they’ve gone wrong (even if the offer’s met with a sullen silence). You could offer them a loan, but make them commit to a repayment plan. After all, that’s how real life works – and preparing for real life is a huge part of what the teenage years are all about.

Once they’ve grown up…

There are professional services out there that can help adults manage their money better, including different types of current account. For example, there’s the two-account system you can read about at http://www.thinkbanking.co.uk/account/current-account/, which can help people in the UK budget and get their bills paid on time.

Once your teenager has grown up, they might decide it’s worth paying for professional help with their finances – or they might decide to check out how the professionals work and see what they can learn to do for themselves. The more you can teach them about budgeting and money management while they’re teenagers, the better equipped they should be to make that kind of decision in later life.

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