24 January 2008 123 views No Comment Print This Post  Email This Post

My sixteen-year-old sister has officially joined the ranks of the working stiffs. She is gainfully employed as a hostess at a restaurant near her school. She even gets a real paycheck.

She was pretty excited about that first paycheck — she had the total figured out, and knew exactly where she wanted to spend every cent. Of course, she hadn’t even thought of the chunk of her check that would be going directly to Uncle Sam. I think you could have heard her yelling two states over. Once that temper tantrum was over, she got to have two more: Mom expected her to pay her own car insurance out of that check and Dad wanted her to put some her college fund.

I think there would have been a lot less screaming if she’d been a little more financially literate. She’d never received an allowance, but Mom and Dad were usually willing to make a deal to buy her what she wanted. I’m not saying that she needed to know every detail of how to contribute to a 401(k) plan, but I do think that a little knowledge about why she needs to save and budget could come in handy.

In honor of her first paycheck, I’ve put together a list of basic financial resources for my sister. None of them are exactly exciting, but that doesn’t make them less important. I’d like to share them with you as well — you may have passed Financial Literacy 101, but I bet you know of a teenager (or even someone older) still struggling with the basics. This is the list to pass along to them.

• Taking Control of Your Finances: A Special Guide for Young Adults. This guide from the FDIC is basically a collection of introductory articles about banking and financial planning — advice on saving for big purchases, explanations of how checking accounts and credit cards work, and more.
• Pay for Your Education, from students.gov. One of the biggest reasons high school kids save is to pay for college. Students.gov has advice on budgeting for college and creating a savings plan.
• Beginner’s Guide to Investing, from SEC.gov. This guide is also a collection of articles, with extensive information about various types of investing.
• Money101, from CNNMoney. If you are looking for a step-by-step guide to learning how to organize your finances, this site is the perfect starting point.
• Teaching Teens About Money Management. The American Institute of CPAs has several financial literacy resources organized into 360FinancialLiteracy.org, including those targeted towards teens.

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