Teaching Kids and Teens About Money

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FamilySecure - Helping Families Protect Against Identity Theft
2007-10-01 23:30:00
As adults, one of the things that many of us fear and our concerned about is identity theft. We monitor our credit reports, shred bills, are careful about who we share our personal information with, and we even go as far as to take out insurance to help in case the unfortunate event of identity theft does occur. One thing that we don't do is monitor our kid's credit. Yes, that is just one more thing that parents need to consider. Many identity thieves are now stealing kids social security numbers and applying for anything from credit cards to mortgages; many of the instances are even family members acting as the identity thief. A new product that I am going to use and one that I recommend looking into is FamilySecure, a new product from Experian Consumer Direct. Here is the press release from today announcing the product:Helping Families Protect Against Identity Theft — Experian Announces FamilySecure.com Parents and guardians are alerted for signs of potential identity thef...

Dollar Wi$e Week 2007
2007-09-25 00:19:00
How many of you have heard of Doll ar Wi$e Week ?I hadn't until just today but evidently The United States Conference of Mayors created the event as a way to help teach communities, families, and kids the value of saving. The official week runs from September 24th- 29th and cities all over the country are participating with some unique community events to highlight the importance of saving.Here is a link to the full press release on PR Newswire if you are interested in learning what various communities are doing to celebrate the week.The Dollar Wi$e site does provide a great list of free resources that I encourage you to take advantage of. I wish they would have included links to our Chore & Allowance System and Visa Buxx program, but maybe next year.Until next time...Earn Smart. Spend Smart.Davewww.PAYjr.comwww.Buxx.com

Gift Cards as Unique as SnowFlakes
2007-09-15 20:49:00
Can you believe that it is already time to start thinking about Christmas shopping again? Well, if you are as busy as I am and looking for a great new gift idea, you have got to see this!Visa Photo Gift Cards - Say Good-Bye to Generic Gift Cards & Gift Certificates GiftCardLab® revolutionizes the Gift Card industry with the 1st Photo Visa® Gift Card allowing people to upload digital photos, art, and graphics in order to completely customize a Visa Gift Card. Gift Cards are the hottest gift items during the holiday season with over 75% of people buying at least one gift card. The TowerGroup predicts that gift cards sales in 2007 will reach $90 Billion but with the launch of GiftCardLab, the impersonal gift, just became personal... Gift Cards are a great idea for all occasions because they eliminate the risk of gift giving, they are convenient and most people prefer receiving gift cards. Visa Gift Cards are becoming the most popular type of gift card because people...
More About: Unique , Flakes

Back To School CheckList
2007-08-22 22:24:00
Well, its that time of year again...its time for some added sanity for stay-at-home moms and all the groans and moans from kids as they have to head back to school. Time sure does fly when you're working 80 hour weeks...seems like the summer just started. I thought I would put together a checklist of back to school tasks and take credit for thinking about the tasks that wife will actually have to complete. ;)Prepare emergency contact sheets and information that schools and teachers will needMake sure your child has all required immunizationsMaybe a good time to get a physical, especially hearing and eye check to make sure nothing holds back their learning abilitiesPrint supply list from school websiteReview school dress codes for any possible changes from the prior yearBuy school uniforms, gym clothes, or any other required new clothesStudy up on what your child will learn this school yearSit down with your child and remind them of school rules along with consequencesMark school...
More About: School , Back , Back to School

Investing for Kids
2007-08-14 20:46:00
One of the common questions that I receive from parents these days is about investing for kids and grandkids - how to do it, tax issues, the right amounts, etc. I must say, what a wonderful thing to be thinking about as a parent or grandparent, it is great that you have the means to do this and it is great that you think about how very small amounts of investment will have a big impact on your kids or grandkid's future. For those of you who are interested, I've done some research for you and here is what I have found:The first thing to think about is the types of accounts that you can set up for your kids or grandkids. You will likely set up an account through the Uniform Gift to Minors Act (UGMA) or the Uniform Transfer to Minors Act (UTMA). Basically, these are accounts that you will be in your child's name but you will have control over the account until the child reaches the age of majority, 18 or 21 in most states. Once your child reaches this age, they have completed contro...
More About: Kids , Investing

Great debate about Prepaid Cards
2007-08-10 02:01:00
I thought all of you might be interested in the great debate about the PAYjr program going on at The Table for Five blog. Here is chain of posts - please take some time to add your comments, its a great blog to check out if your are a parent.Would you give your teen a prepaid debit card? My oldest son Ryan is only ten and a half, and I’m already considering getting him a debit card. Every other week when my husband gets paid, the boys get their age in dollars for allowance. So Ryan gets $10 every two weeks, Nathan gets $8.00. Nathan has me run him right over to Target for the latest action figure, Ryan saves his. He has $60.00 saved, and now I’m thinking instead of just handing him cash, why not get him a debit card that I can load his allowance on, and keep in my wallet, and he can use it to pay for whatever he ends up buying? And then, in one of those fortuitous strokes of luck I seem to get every once in a while, I got hired through PayPerPost Direct to do a review of a prog...
More About: Great , Debate , Prepaid , Cards , ID Card

Great Fox segment on PAYjr
2007-08-06 19:31:00
What a wonderful segment on PAYjr done by Dallas Fox News. We were also on National Fox news recently and I'm trying to get a hold of that clip to share with all of you because there was some great debate and commentary about whether prepaid debit cards are good for teens.http://www.myfoxdfw.com/myfox/pages /News/Detail?contentId=3969277&version=1& amp;locale=EN-US&layoutCode=VSTY&page Id=3.2.1Earn Smart. Spend Smart.Davewww.PAYjr.comwww.Buxx.com
More About: Great

PAYjr Featured on Today Show
2007-08-06 19:24:00
PAYjr was featured on the Today Show this morning and here is a link to the blog on the segment. Please take some time and chime in about how PAYjr has helped your family.http://allday.msnbc.msn.com/archiv e/2007/08/06/305177.aspxEarn Smart. Spend Smart.Davewww.PAYjr.comwww.Buxx.com
More About: Featured , Today Show , Feat

The Scene - Nationwide Mall Campaign
2007-07-18 21:45:00
For those of your who did not see us out at Stonebriar Mall this past weekend, here are some pictures from the event.As you can see PAYjr is participating in a nationwide mall campaign with is a back to school kick off event, called the "the Scene ". Other companies participating include Sobee, Sprint, Fatal1ty, and Girls' Life Magazine. Here is a list of the malls we'll be visiting and we love to see you come by and say "hello". Mall Name Event Date Southlake (Atlanta) 7/14/2007 Stonebriar (Dallas) 7/21/2007 Fashion Show (Las Vegas) 7/28/2007 Northridge Fashion Center (LA) 8/4/2007 Stonestown (SanFrancisco) 8/11/2007 Alderwood (Seattle) 8/18/2007 Eden Prairie (Minneapolis) 8/25/2007 Jordan Creek (Des Moines) 9/1/2007 Spring Hill (Chicago) 9/8/2007 Lakeside (Detroit) 9/15/2007 White Marsh (Baltimore/DC) ...
More About: Campaign

PAYjr Visa Buxx Launch
2007-07-18 21:33:00
We finally did it. Last Wednesday, we launched the PAYjr Visa Buxx program. A ground-breaking program that allows teens to upload images, pictures, etc to create their own card design. In addition, we launched a card design competition allowing anyone to compete for great prizes and royalties on their designs. www.PAYjrVisaBuxx.com/competitionToday, I'm in NY meetin with various venture capital firms, journalists, and bank prospects. I have had the worst travel luck recently...Today, there are storms in NY so I'm on a train as we speak heading to D.C. to try and catch a flight back to Dallas. Earlier, I got stuck on a subway because there was too much water on the tracks and last night, I was stuck at Penn Station because no cab was willing to take me to my NJ hotel (closest I could find for a reasonable rate). What a mess...Seriously, if you are traveling anytime soon, you better check with me and make sure we are not going to the same place because you do NOT want any of ...
More About: Launch , Visa Buxx

iPhone - I love it!!!
2007-07-05 03:05:00
How many of you are lucky enough to have an iPhone. If you already have one, you'll know what I'm talking about in this post - If you don't have one, I'm so sorry because it is the coolest gadget I've seen in a long time.I was able to get mine on Saturday, the day after they launched and didn't even have to wait in line at the local Apple store. You can ask my wife, since that day, I haven't been able to put it down. It actually attracted quite a lot of attention at dinner that evening with people from tables all over the restaurant coming to see the cool new phone.Here are the things I love about it: all my work contacts from Outlook are now in my phone so I never get caught without someone's contact info. I have access to my work email all the time text messages now show up in a "conversation" so you can track the entire discussion I can keep images of all the cool new PAYjr Visa Buxx cards on my phone and show them to interested investors, the press, etc. I don...
More About: Love , Iphone , Love it

Happy 4th of July!
2007-07-05 02:55:00
I hope everyone has a wonderful 4th of July . Happy Birthday to our country and to my Father who turns 55 today. (he sure doesnt look or act it)Things have been really busy around the office lately so I've tried to use today to catch up on things. We are launching our new PAYjr Visa Buxx Card next week on the 11th so its been all hands on deck at the office as you can imagine. I am so excited about the potential of this new launch. I think teens are just going to love the ability to design their own card or choose from a variety of existing card designs. You can catch a sneak peek at www.PAYjrVisaBuxx.com. We are also launching a card design competition next week and we'll be coming to a mall near you soon. We are participating in the Scene, which is a teen event that will occur at 12 major malls across the country. More details coming soon...Don't forget all the people serving in the armed forces who are not with their families this holiday - Be safe and I hope you come ho...

What am I going to do with myself?
2007-06-25 16:46:00
Well, its been a busy week and weekend to say the very least...My youngest son, Sterling, turned 8 on the 22nd and we had a birthday party for him on Friday and Saturday - Friday for his friends and Saturday for family. So Friday, my wife and I had 7 eight year olds over to our house to spend the night, talk about a night to be stocked up on Advil...;) Actually, all the kids were very well behaved, just loud and that is the fun of it I think. On Sunday morning at 4am, my mother and step father left town with my two boys for a 2 1/2 week trip to D.C. and then to St. Louis to see family and do some site seeing. This will be the longest that Sheila and I have gone without our two boys and I would be lying if I said there wasn't a couple tears in both of our eyes when they drove away. Our oldest son was even shedding some tears as they drove away but he tried to hide them in a pillow. It is amazing how difficult it is to let go as a parent, it is something I've never quite experi...
More About: To Do , Going , Goin

Cool parent advice site - www.Minti.com
2007-06-13 04:44:00
I ran across this great parenting site tonight, Minti. I've added my blog to their site and I recommend taking a look when you get a chance. PAYjrCEO.minti.com
More About: Advice , Cool , Site , Parent , Pare

The power of a blog!
2007-06-13 03:46:00
I have to say that I am shocked...I thought we had received good PR for PAYjr in the past but the traffic we received from our multiple national TV spots, our WallStreet Journal article, etc fail in comparison to the traffic PAYjr received since Saturday when we were featured on TechCrunch, a blog focused on technology. Visitors to PAYjr increased dramatically and we actually had over 750 new enrollments for our program in one day! Its amazing how much buzz, or buxx in our case ;), a single blog can create!What is even more amazing is the number of other blogs that picked up the story and ended up writing about us as well. I know this blog was supposed to be focused on financial education but its hard not to talk about some of the experiences I'm having watching PAYjr grow from a concept into a "real" company. I must say however, reading the negative comments on the blogs is very stressful for me. Its hard to pour your blood, sweat, and tears into something and hear negative comm...
More About: Power , Blog

A True Corporate Role Model - Target
2007-06-08 17:10:00
I wanted to spend today's post to thank and raise awareness about Target 's community involvement. I was searching their site the other day and ran across some amazing resources and learned a lot about what Target does in the community that I had no idea about before.Target has been giving 5% of their profits to the communities they do business in and that translates to over $3,000,000 per week...that is not a typo, $3,000,000 per week!There are way too many activities that Target supports for me to list them all but here but one that I think really like is the ability to designate a school in your area or that your child attends and then they will donate 1% of your purchases using a Target Card to that school. One of the things that I really like about the program is that Target actually shows you how much they have donated to your designated school. How many companies spend the time to give people reporting on something like this? I pulled a report on Frisco High School to sh...
More About: Corporate , Model , True , Role

Does Sheilding Kids Help Them Long-Term?
2007-06-01 17:14:00
It seems like this topic has been coming up a lot lately and I thought it might be something good to debate in this forum. As parents, should we shield our kids from negative things (candy, TV, consumerism, Internet, etc) or will that lead to longer term issues?We've all heard the stories, many from our own childhood, where the kids that weren't allowed to do something then ended up partaking in excess once they were out of their parent's control. A friend (and parent) recently told me a funny story where his nieces and nephews are not allowed to eat sweets but recently at a family event, there was a chocolate fountain and these kids ended up dipping their heads in the fountain to sop up as much chocolate as possible - can you picture the mess? His point was that he allows his own kids to have sweets in moderation and therefore, his kids are less likely to abuse a situation or deal in excesses. (His point was also that he had better parenting skills than his sister but we'll ...
More About: Kids , Long , Term

Kids and the Internet
2007-05-30 19:27:00
Great stats about kids and the Internet found at: http://publications.mediapost.comJust An Online Minute... Tweens' Web Use Expected To Surge by Wendy Davis, Wednesday, Oct 4, 2006 2:30 PM ETMORE THAN TWO-THIRDS OF KIDS between the ages of 8 and 14 are Web users, and many members of that group are spending money online, according to a new report by research company eMarketer. Around 67 percent of U.S. children 8-11 are online, while 74 percent of kids ages 12-14 are on the Web today, per eMarketer estimates. By 2010, those proportions are expected to soar to 71 percent (ages 8-11) and 85 percent (ages 12-14). Kids aren't just surfing the Web; they're also spending money online. Citing estimates from Packaged Facts, eMarketer states that tweens accounted for $9.7 billion in spending last year. eMarketer also advises advertisers that these youngsters can be reached "everywhere"--at social-networking sites like MySpace.com, downloading music, instant messaging and the like. B...
More About: The Internet

Will the Internet make Banks Extinct?
2007-05-24 02:04:00
A new company with a groundbreaking service might replace the need for traditional lenders. The company's name is Prosper and they basically serve the role that banks have traditionally played; investing money from people who have it and lending to people who need it. The site allows people to set up profiles and create postings, almost like classified, asking for a loan. The site then pulls credit scores and allows investors to choose loans to bid on based on their risk preferences. Its basically a marketplace for loans that matches lenders and borrowers; the function that banks have traditionally filled. Think about it...banks will provide typically less than 1% (.42% reported by BankRate) interest on an average savings account. The bank then takes that money and lends it out for personal loans, car loans, mortgages, credit cards, etc and typically will pull in anywhere from 5%-35% depending on the risk level. The bank then keeps the delta between the two rates. If this n...
More About: Internet , Banks , Make , The Internet , Extinct

PAYjr Visa Buxx
2007-05-21 16:15:00
Ok, honestly, how many of you watched the CBS News interview? One thing that really didn't shine through was the fact that we are launching the PAYjr Visa Buxx Card in July, which will allow teens to design their own cards. The technology is very cool and I think this will be the catalyst for finally making a teen prepaid card a valuable education tool for parents while also being cool for teens - a winning combination!In order to really understand the technology and product, you should really go to www.PAYjrVisaBuxx.com and try the demo that we have open to the public. We will be launching a card design competition soon as well, which will allow people to create a card, upload the image and then vote on the cards they like the most. We'll be giving away some great prizes as part of this competition. I also urge you to swing by our latest version of the PAYjr website, which provides a free online allowance and chore system for kids under 12 and the PAYjr Prepaid MasterCard for...
More About: Visa Buxx

PAYjr On CBS Evening News!
2007-05-18 16:31:00
My hand is soo tired from all the autographs I've had to write since last night...;) Obviously kidding about the autographs, but not about PAYjr being featured on the CBS Evening News - I call the segment "Katie and Davie". I did the interview on Monday here in our offices and I must say that I've been a bit nervous all week about how the story would turn out. We try so hard to provide a valuable service to parents, kids and teens, but sometimes the press groups us in with other card programs that take advantage of kids and I was worried that might happen with this story. I believe it turned out well though, fair and balanced. I wish it would have been a longer segment but I can't complain. Traffic on our site has already picked up dramatically and I'm getting a lot of interview request from other news organizations so Oprah...here we come!http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/ 05/17/eveningnews/main2821916.shtmlEarn Smart. Spend Smart.Davewww.payjr.comwww.payjrvisabuxx. com

Keeping Teens Safe with Spending Supervision
2007-05-15 15:06:00
This seems like a harsh topic today compared to my typical light hearted posts but I have received a couple emails from parents who have raised the topic of controlling where their teen is spending the money they give them. Evidently, these parents have experienced situations where their teens take their allowance and use the money to purchase drugs or other harmful and illegal items. What an awful situation for a parent; I can only imagine what it must feel like to have a teenager that has fallen victim to drug use. The question becomes how to stop this from occurring.I believe that teens that have fallen victim to this likely fall into two categories. Teens that are tempted by the drugs and happen to have cash in their pocket to make the purchase and teens that are addicted and it really doesn't matter if they have cash in their pocket or not; they are going to find a way to get the drugs, no matter how much a parent cuts off access to money.For teens that are addicted, I hig...
More About: Spending , Safe , Supervision

Take an extra minute and save money online
2007-05-13 17:55:00
I created this post a while back and forgot to post it so guess what...you get a couple post in one day...!!! Are you excited?Taking a few minutes and looking online for virtual coupons is a great way to save money and its a great lesson to teach your kids too. Many of us are shopping online these days and all too often, we just make a few clicks of the mouse, grab our credit card and buy whatever it is we were looking for. With one extra quick step, you can grab a quick online coupon and save money. Not taking advantage of this is just throwing money out the window. Here is a good example for you:Coupons for Discovery StoreBest Buy CouponsToy coupons at KB Toys Couponchief is a great place to bookmark and just take a look next time before you or your kids go shopping.Earn Smart. Spend Smart.
More About: Money , Save Money , Online , Save , Extra