Teens spend about $200 billion a year on toys, games, clothing, movies, live events, arcade games and electronics — all forms of immediate gratification that run counter to sound long-term money practices. [The] 13-year-old is about to chart a course through this wasteland of spending and would benefit from having a grip on a few core concepts. By now, [he or] she should be well acquainted with saving and understand how impulse and peer pressure can set back her longer term goals. She should be able to research products, comparison shop, and make good decisions about what offers the most value. The budding teen should also be skeptical about advertising claims and familiar with identity theft. He/She should know how to fill out a job application, be able to set up a personal spending budget, and understand the difference between stocks and bonds and mutual funds. Her three jars should be emptied; the money should be in a bank account with check-writing and ATM card privileges and she should know how to make deposits and withdrawals and track her balance.
At 18 you should know this:
Here come the college years and very likely the last chance to make any kind of real impression on a child's money habits. He/she will go off to school (or work) and navigate his finances from here on out pretty much on his own. By now, he should have a credit card in addition to an ATM card and understand all about late fees, interest expense, the importance of paying bills on time and the scourge of making only minimum monthly payments. Young adults are often appalled to learn that a $5,000 balance can take 20 years to pay off through minimum payments. Meanwhile, the card company will reward them with an ever greater credit limit if their payments are on time, and before they know it they have more debt than they can repay. "They shake their head and say, 'Hey, I didn't think I was doing anything wrong,'" notes JumpStart's Levine. Knowing about credit is most essential at this age, and that includes understanding what a credit score is and how to find it and why it's important. But he should also be able to do things like evaluate if financial information is objective and current and use an online calculator to research things like car loans and mortgages. He should understand that student loans must be repaid with interest and have some idea what career he'll be pursuing before loading up on student loans he may never be able to repay.
Please post a response.
For MY part, as you people should already know, I am very thrifty and don't spend money on things I don't need. However, even though I have my own bank account, it's my mom who's managing it, and so technically, i have absolutely no idea what's in it. I don't know how to make a withdrawal/deposit in Taiwan, but I do know how to do it in America (I think...if I still remember.)
ReplyDeleteNot to offend anyone, but I don't really think Nanke Bilingual students know enough about money, because to ME, personally, I often feel like they part with their money too readily for trivial things. It annoys me when I am dragged into the deal, too, no offense, people...And I hate it how people (no one in particular) always say in response to college tuitions and such: "Just get a loan from the bank!" Maybe I'm just too uptight, but paying back money makes me feel like I'm suffocating.
I don't know. I think I feel more strongly about money than other people do.
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ReplyDeleteI spent 4 years paying back my student loan - and then I came to Taiwan... to finish it. My sister came to work in Taiwan for the same reason. I have friends who got married just so that their wives could help pay off their student loans. think carefully about borrowing money.
ReplyDeleteI think what I wanted to say was already said by Mr. Tai and Megan up there. Actually I think most of us know more or less about money, except for those who try to follow the fashion. Okay, many of us including me buy some "useless things", but doesn't that differ according to everyone? But most of us try to save in many ways. Such as going online and "getting" games, music, movies, and so on. Doesn't that show we aren't willing to part with our money. So in all people including our department, all spend money and save money in sometimes ways we don't notice. Spending and saving are the result of our thoughts, and we can control our thoughts.
ReplyDeleteStudents in our school don't understand the true value of money. I should say no student really understand them unless they have been in to the working field. It doesn't matter if they worked part-time job or full time, but they will understand how hard it is to earn money and the unfairness of your boss. The environment will change your way of seeing this world. You don't become so naive or the way you used to see it when you see it at school.
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion the situation in our school is following: We all visit a private school, for which our parents have to pay 40,000 NT per semester. Also we visit the bilingual school, because we lived in a country before, where we were used to speak English and a lot of our students want to study in the US. The most of our parents work in the science park and want that we get a good job later, like them.
ReplyDeleteA lot of parents come from Taiwan and made a part of their career in a foreign country and made a lot of money. This money they invest in their children. They pay a privat school, later the university/college and of course they also want that teir children are happy. That's why I think that the students of our school, compared for example with Germany, get much more money.
Taiwan is a shopping paradies with a lot of different possibilities to spend money.
Also we have in Taiwan night markets, where you can buy either food or "useless things". In my opinion Taiwan is a very capitalistic country.
Now I want to come to the main problem.
The people, and especially the students of the Taiwanese youthculture can not imagine what happens in other parts of the world. This students don't have the connection to continents like Africa. The slogan in the developing countries is: the stronger one survives. A lot of people in the world would die for a cup of rice. We don't think about this when we buy a pair shoes for 3000 NT-dollars, wether we have yet 6 pairs.
One of the most popular adage in Asia is of Konfuzius. He said (may be with other words):"Rice don't fall from the heaven!"
This fergot a lot of students, when they play in the night market shooting games and pay for this 200 NT. With this money we could help a lot of people in Africa.
The second problem is in my opinion that the students are dependent by their parents. In my opinion i would hate it when my parents would decide to which college I have to go!
P.S. veni, vidi, respondi
Bilingual students know about money, they just don't necessary think about it when they're "in the moment." People spend too much money on material stuff. You could buy a t-shirt for 200 NT but a lot of people choose to purchase clothes with brands, like Adidas, Nike, etc. which cost a lot more.
ReplyDeleteAlso, as Megan said before, students in the bilingual department pay too little attention to the college tuitions. Sure, you could get a loan from the bank but most people choose to forget that you also have to pay back the money afterwards. Most students in the bilingual department don't have to worry about the money because their parents have a nice job. However, this results in the students not knowing enough about money and how hard you have to work to get a nice t-shirt.
I think that all the student in the world do not know enough about money. In this world, technology is getting better and better. More and more students wants the high technology products. So students tried there best to get the product.
ReplyDeleteThis is a very big problem in the USA. It is because I heard that, in the USA students buy Apple products. After they bought it, so they bring it to school. Two days later, someone stole it. So they went to buy another one. So people keep stealing it. So that person keep buying it.
In this case we can know that nowadays students do not know enough about money. They can not understand working is hard, and getting money is hard.
Basically, what i wanted to say has been said above already. I strongly agree with Patrick about the fact that Students don't know how to conserve money because they haven't been working hard to get the actually money they're using. They're just using their parent's money. They think its really easy to make money, in fact its not. You get money in exchange for hard work, not just by waiting for money to come to you.
ReplyDeleteI agree with everyone above, people tend to want things that are trendy? when they see everybody with one thing they ought to get it, but they have no idea how long it takes their parents to get that amount of money especially spoiled children...
ReplyDeleteWHAT HAPPENED TO MY COMMENT! Argh I'll condense and retype.
ReplyDeleteI think we all have some sense in saving money, some more than others. When we find ourselves spending lavishly in places that matter to us, we try our best to save in other ways. But we definitely do not know as much about money as those in the working force I must say....
That's weird! I saw your first comment...
ReplyDelete