Organize It – The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Money for Teens Book Review

I know, this isn’t really a post about how to organize, but in a sense it is organizing your money and especially for your teen. Kids nowadays need to learn that money doesn’t grow on trees. I know most of the kids think it does.

 Let’s be honest, if you ask your Tween or Teen, how to write a check, would they know how to do that? Where does money come from?? I bet most of them couldn’t give you an answer.

Funny story was, when my husband and I first got  together he had no clue about money; he knew he gets his paycheck but that was it. Of course back then he was living with Mom and Dad and why worry about things, right? He had no clue what a mortgage was, he swore his mom and dad owned their house, the cars Free and clear.. he had no clue that you write checks to pay for bills and so on. Well neat less to say, he’s come a long way and now understands all the ins and outs and even how to save.

Now it’s my kids turn to learn all that. I don’t want them to go out into the world thinking” well everything is always paid for”. Schools try their best to educate the kids, but with a lot of new teaching requirements, and deadlines for other things, Teaching money skills isn’t always top priority for the schools. I do have to admit, my son’s school, is a charter school and they have been teaching “money wise” the past 6 weeks in preparation for a field trip to BizTwon. I can not believe the knowledge my Tween has vs. what my Teen knows, by just what my Tween has learned in school. His teachers did an amazing job introducing the class to “Be smart with your Money”. So I went and looked for some help for my Teen.

If you have a Teen, well if not yet, I’m sure one day you will have one. You know they always know best and of course they know how the world works, well then give them a check book and all your bills and ask them to budget for you…. let’s see how that goes….  I found a little help from a book called “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Money for Teens “. This book is written by Susan Shelly and has a lot of knowledge, tips and ideas for your Teen, I would also suggest for your Tween to start reading it.

The Book starts out with Introducing Money as a Fact of life,  to how you can “get” money, how to be a smart saver, smart spender and keep track of what you have … It is all broken down in chapters that are easy and fun to read and help you understand the ins and outs about money.

The book has,  on almost every page a box called “Money Matters’ it will give you tips for the chapter you are reading for example in the Independence section  ” Money Matters : Even young children quickly learn that having a little money of their own makes them more independent. Consider the second grader who, without asking her mother, remembers every Thursday to take 50 cents to school, so she can buy ice cream after lunch. She’s taken a step toward independence by doing so.”  there are a lot more of these and they are all very well informative and some of them even made me think and say “That’s so true we should do that”.

On some pages you will also find a box called “Imagine That” it will give you ideas like this ” The average interest rate on checking accounts is 1.52 percent, according to Bankrate.com . Better than nothing, but not much to get excited about. Trying to tell your teen to look for how to make your money work for you.

I consider myself money wise and try my best to educate my kids, but you know kids don’t really like to listen to Mom… so this book makes it easier. It also has in one section  Questions about “Do I need to buy this item” it asked 8 question for your teen to think about and at the end it tells you if you said yes to question # x yz this may not be a good purchase think about it again and if you answered Yes to question ABC this sounds like a wise purchase, think about it to make sure this is a good purchase for you.

I love how the book involves the Teen that is reading the book, by asking question, wanting the child to interact with he book. We think everyone should invest the few $$ and get this book, it will help your Tween or Teen learn a lot and make them look at money in a different light. If we don’t edcuate our kids, no one will and they will end up with no money and more debt that could have been avoided by the right education.

From the Back Cover

Teens are targeted as consumers more and more. This gives them tremendous influence, but it also sets them up to be taken advantage of. “The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Money for Teens” teaches them how to get money, save and invest it, budget it, spend it wisely, and keep track of it. Whether they’re saving for their first car, trying to make sense of a checking account statement, or trying to establish a good credit history, this guide has solid information and teen-tested tips.

About the Author

Susan Shelly is a freelance writer, researcher, and editorial consultant. A former newspaper reporter and columnist, her beats included business, education, politics, and crime. She has written freelance material for an online news service and for various magazines, newspapers, businesses, and agencies.Her other works have included corporate histories, guides to networking and business research, and health- and family-related publications. She is co-author of The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Personal Finance in Your 20s and 30s and The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting an Investment Club. Shelly lives with her husband and two children in Shillington, Pennsylvania

You can find this book on Amazon.com as a Paperback Regular Edition or the Kindle Edition and it retails for $12.95, which makes it very affordable but a BIG tool to teach your Teen about money.

For more information you can follow The Complete Idiots Guide on  Twitter, check out their Blog or YouTube Channel

I was  provided with the product listed above for my honest review. No other compensation was received. All opinions are 100 % my own.