Free Often Comes with a Fee.
Teaching Teens How to Avoid Unnecessary Costs.
Let’s face it, life is not free. Banking and managing money is a service that consumers have to pay for. Take my teenagers for example. They hadn’t a clue of what life really costs until we opened their own saving and checking accounts, and they had to start paying for themselves.
What they’ve discovered is along with financial freedom comes the responsibility aspect, which in this case, I used fees to help demonstrate how better management, preparation and knowledge in regards to their accounts can pay off. For example, at my credit union, we are charged a small fee for debit card transactions. Every bank, credit union, and financial institution charges fees, either boldly in your face or in very small legal print. This fee really represented a great learning opportunity for my kids:
1. READ YOUR NOTICES! My credit union regularly sends out notices to their members regarding account updates. My kids receive these notices and often discard them or neglect to read them. If they had read them, they would realize that to avoid debit fees, all they would have to do is pay with credit and sign for their purchase versus typing in their PIN – a great option that they can use almost everywhere! And, they earn rewards points by signing.
2. PLAN AHEAD! Moreover, they can plan ahead and budget. My kids were tapping into their accounts sometimes 10 times per day! Minimizing their transactions by forecasting their week’s activities helped them spend less.
In the years to come, most money gurus have predicted that fees will only continue and perhaps even rise as banks and financial institutions try to compensate for the new credit card legislation. For the future, kids need to better understand fees, learn about them and even accept them. The whole idea of “Fees aren’t fair” – well my response . . . “Life’s not always fair.” You can either huff and puff or learn some stuff.
As was in my kids’ case, just by being more educated about their account, they avoided a fee completely!
