Teaching Your Children Wealth
When we're at the supermarket, Henry happily tosses his favorite items into the shopping cart. When we're at a restaurant, Hannah invariably craves an appetizer, a main course and dessert.
This, of course, is no great surprise. Like a crooked chief executive with a compliant board of directors or a salesman with a generous expense account, my children have no incentive to be thrifty. Let's face it, they aren't footing the bill. I am.
How can you get children to show greater restraint? After years of trial and error, I think I have discovered the key: You've got to make kids feel like they're spending their own money.
Inheriting Wisdom: Ever wondered why the children of wealthy parents often grow up to be wealthy themselves? Clearly, many of these kids benefit from a more expensive education and from financial gifts from their parents.
But that doesn't explain the entire phenomenon, according to a study by economics professors Kerwin Kofi Charles and Erik Hurst that is slated to appear in the December 2003 Journal of Political Economy. Instead, it seems wealthy parents also help their kids by passing along good financial habits.
Prof. Hurst, who teaches at the University of Chicago, says these children seem to adopt not only their parents' savings habits, but also their investment style. For instance, if the parents owned their own business or invested heavily in stocks, the kids are likely to do the same.
He doesn't know precisely what the mechanism is. Maybe it's the power of example. Maybe parents who are financially prudent are more likely to teach their kids how to save and invest. But whatever the case, it seems the financial lessons learned in childhood are enormously powerful.
On that score, I am leaving nothing to chance. After all, I am the personal-finance columnist for The Wall Street Journal. It would be a tad embarrassing if Henry, age 11, and Hannah, 15, grew up to be financial ne'er-do-wells.
Believe me, I have had my worries. At one point, Henry appeared to be developing a serious baseball-card addiction, while Hannah seemed to need a weekly fix at Abercrombie & Fitch. Whenever they ended up with a few extra bucks, I knew exactly where the dollars would go.
To nix these nasty spending habits and instill great appreciation for the mighty greenback, I tried a bunch of strategies, some successful, some not. For instance, I started an investment game, where we all picked a mutual fund and then I invested a small sum for everybody each month. I figured this would give the kids a lesson in investing, while also teaching them the virtues of saving regularly.
But despite my high hopes, the game has been a bust. Henry has displayed the financial acumen of the typical performance-crazed mutual-fund investor, opting for a highflying growth-stock fund at the peak of the bull market and then swapping to a conservative balanced fund close to the bear-market low. Yet, despite these missteps, he hasn't shown the slightest remorse.
Why not? My hunch: Even though his funds lagged behind those of his father and sister, he knew his account would keep growing, thanks to his father's regular monthly contributions. Just as it's easy to spend other people's money, so it's painless to lose somebody else's cash.
Saving Themselves: I didn't have much better luck with "Dad's bank," a makeshift financial institution that consisted of a spiral notebook where I kept track of Henry and Hannah's modest savings.
Henry, in particular, was disturbed by the way his deposits ended up in his father's wallet. Sure, I credited the accounts with a generous 1% in monthly interest and, whenever either kid requested a withdrawal, I always promptly produced the necessary dollars. But Henry clearly doubted the soundness of this banking system. It just didn't seem like a real bank.
So I shuttered Dad's bank and opened real savings accounts for both kids. The new accounts didn't pay nearly as much interest. But Henry and Hannah got monthly statements in the mail and they could view their accounts online. And, best of all, the accounts came with a no-fee cash-machine card.
Now, whenever Henry and Hannah want to buy something, they don't ask me for money. Instead, they troop down to the local cash machine and withdraw $20 or $40 from their savings accounts.
The effect has been astonishing. Almost immediately, Henry lost his appetite for baseball cards, preferring instead to watch his account grow. Hannah, meanwhile, hasn't given up on Abercrombie & Fitch. But her trips to the mall have become far less frequent.
I asked Hannah what explained her newfound thrift. "Before, it seemed like it was your money," she offered. "Now, it feels like it belongs to us."
Want to see how your children's attitude changes when they are spending their own money? Try one of my favorite tricks.
Next time you go to the mall, give your kids $10 each to spend, but tell them you expect change. Trust me, you won't get much back. On a subsequent visit, give them $10 again. But this time, tell them they can keep the change. You will be amazed by how much less they spend.
教您孩子理财之道
花别人的钱是很容易的。只要问问我的孩子们你就知道了。
当我们一家人逛超市时，亨利(Henry)会兴高采烈地把他最喜欢的商品扔到购物车里。当我们在餐馆点菜时，汉纳(Hannah)则总是要一道开胃菜、一道主菜和甜点。
这些行为当然不足为奇。就像狡猾的首席执行长碰到一个是百依百顺的董事会，或者销售员可以大肆报销一样，我的孩子们根本不想节约。面对现实吧！负担费用的是我，不是他们。
那么，怎么能让孩子们克制些呢？经过几年的尝试和总结，我想我已找到了答案：你必须让孩子们感到他们是在花自己的钱。
汲取智慧
是不是纳闷为什么富家子弟长大后往往也很有钱？不错，他们当中的许多人在学费高昂的学校念书，也有父母的赠与。
但是，根据经济学教授凯文?查尔斯(Kerwin Kofi Charles)和埃里克?赫斯特(Erik Hurst)所做的调查，这并不是全部。相反，有钱的父母也传授良好的理财习惯，帮助子女致富。这项调查结果将刊登在今年12月份的《政治经济学》(Journal of Political Economy)上。
在芝加哥大学(University of Chicago)执教的赫斯特指出，这些富家子们继承的不仅是父母的节约习惯，还有他们的投资之道。举例来说，如果父母自身拥有产业或大量投资于股票，他们的子女常常也是这样。
赫斯特并不清楚其中的奥秘。也许是榜样的力量吧；也许擅于理财的父母更愿意教孩子们如何攒钱和投资。但不管怎样，孩童时期学到的理财知识似乎特别有效。
因此，我就不遗余力地进行实践。毕竟我是《华尔街日报》(The Wall Street Journal)个人理财专栏作家嘛。如果11岁的亨利和15岁的汉纳长大后对理财一窍不通，那多少是有些让我尴尬的。
我的确有自己的烦恼。有一阵，亨利沉溺于收集棒球卡，而汉纳每周都要光顾服装公司Abercrombie & Fitch。一旦他们手头余下了几块钱，我准知道这些钱会花在哪。
为了遏止这种不良的消费习惯，让他们重视金钱的力量，我尝试了各种策略，有些获得了成功，而有些则失败了。例如，起初我玩投资游戏，让每个人选择一个共同基金，然后每个月给他们放进去一小笔钱。我想这样可以使他们懂得投资，还可以时时教导他们节省。
尽管我对此给予了厚望，但结果是一败涂地。亨利是典型的追逐业绩的投资者，总是在成长性股票基金备受追捧，处于牛市场顶峰时买入，随后在熊市几乎触底时转向保守的平衡型基金。尽管如此，他一点也不懊悔。
为什么呢？我的直觉告诉我：虽然他的业绩远远落后于父亲和姐姐的，但他知道自己的帐户资金永远在不断增加，因为父亲每个月都会放一笔钱进来。正如花别人的钱总是很容易那样，损失别人的钱也是毫不心疼的。
自己攒钱
我还备了一个笔记本，上面记录了亨利和汉纳的小小存款。这本"父亲的银行"是个权宜之计，它的运气也好不到哪里去。
特别是亨利，他对自己的存款最后被放入父亲的口袋里很不满意。虽然我给他了高达1%的月利率，而且当他们要钱时，我总是马上兑现。但亨利显然对这种银行体系的可靠性表示怀疑。这不像一个真正的银行。
因此，我放弃了这种做法，转而为两个孩子在银行里开立了活期帐户。新帐户的利率自然没那么高。但亨利和汉纳每个月都会收到银行的对帐单，也可以在网上查询帐户余额。最重要的是，这两个帐户还提供免费的提现卡。
如今，每当亨利和汉纳想要买东西时，他们不会问我要钱。相反，他们奔向自动取款机，从个人的帐户里取出20或40美元。
这样做的效果真惊人。简直是立杆见影，亨利对棒球卡没了兴趣，而宁愿看著自己帐户里的钱不断增加。汉纳并没有放弃逛Abercrombie & Fitch的嗜好，但光顾的次数明显减少。
我问汉纳她怎么一下子变得节省起来。她答道："以前感觉那是你的钱，但现在，觉得钱是属于自己的了"。
想看看当孩子们花自己的钱时，他们的态度会有哪些转变吗？试试我的几个诀窍吧。 下次你去购物中心时，给每个孩子10美元，但告诉他们你希望他们别把钱花完。相信我，你别做指望。下次逛街时，你还是给他们每人10块钱。但这次，告诉他们可以保留剩下的余额。你会吃惊地发现他们的花销一下子少了很多。
