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www.insideHALTON.com | OAKVILLE BEAVER | Thursday, September 5, 2013 | 12 T Learn Financial Planning 101 as you teach your children form household chores as a requirement or is it an automatic and routine payment? Talk about how ef ciently your children spend their money. A logical extension to receiving the allowance is how to budget spending or saving. Differentiate between what items they spend money on and whether an expense is a need or a want. You can have an interesting conversation about deciding between wants and needs. If the allowance includes purchasing some or all of their clothing, decisions about the need of a winter coat versus the want of going to more than the affordable number of he best way to learn something is to teach it. Financial Planning 101 is a constructive family event for parents to teach their children. Here is our guide showing how that could happen. Use your imagination and have some fun in the process. Set aside some time to have a family meeting. We suggest an hour would be enough but depending on your children's age you might lengthen or shorten that time. Ask in advance about nancial topics of interest. Younger children may want to learn about receiving an allowance. Will they per- Dollars & Sense Peter Watson Guest Contributor Stories with Eileen & Paul September 21 - Molson Canadian Studio at Hamilton Place September 26 - Oakville Centre, Oakville Ontario Tour SEPTEMBER 2013 For complete ticket infomation visit: www.jdelderandassociates.com movies can be challenging. One idea might be to pay a slightly higher than the needed allowance but with a regular savings plan where some of the allowance is put away for post-secondary education. The discipline of saving routinely is a good lesson for your children to learn. Then there is the topic of investments. What are good investments? Choose if you want to include stocks, bonds, mutual funds and other investment options based on the savings goal. Talk about taxes and discuss the government's collection of money from Canadians and then on our behalf spending it to run the country. Perhaps a little diversion into politics would be prudent with discussions about how ef ciently you think the government spends our money. While you are discussing taxes, it would be useful to consider tax planning. What are good strategies and how can they be used to help pay for post-secondary education? What are the different savings vehicles that offer different tax advantages? These ideas mentioned are all focused on the nancial elements of the discussion. The teaching aspect might be challenging. How you teach can be as important as what you teach. Consider the case method of teaching where each member of the family participates. You have your ideas and your children will have theirs. If you get into the details of something you do not fully understand then take a brief break so either you or the children can search the Internet for an answer. For example, if there is a question on the Registered Education Savings Program, it would likely take very little time to nd the answer. After your family nancial training meeting, ask your children in the spirit of a course evaluation, what they learned. The same question should be asked of the parents. Our prediction is that both children and parents will learn from this exercise. Children will have been introduced to inventive ideas about money management and parents will have likely learned from the process of teaching their children. -- Submitted by Peter Watson, MBA, CFP , R.F .P ., CIM, FCSI., Certi ed Financial Planner Our Biggest Sale Event Ever! Burlington Location Only OAKVILLE LOCATION 20%OFF STOREWIDE 23rd Annual Tent Sale Friday September 6 10:00 am - 9:00 pm Saturday September 7 9:00 am - 5:30 pm Sunday September 8 11:00 am - 5:00 pm 4047 Fairview St. Burlington · 905.634.3439 | 500 Speers Road, Oakville · 905.339.3439 info@interiordesignhouse.com · www.interiordesignhouse.com HELP US FILL THE TENT: Food Drive benefiting Partnership-West Food Bank. Donate a non perishable food item and receive an entry to win a $300 IDH Gift Certificate