Online Budgeting for Teens
The Internet isn't just for emailing, homework and keeping updated on friends' lives. It also offers valuable resources for teens who are serious about managing money and getting debt under control. Whether a teen prefers to play money management games, consult with friends, read witty blog posts or peruse no-nonsense articles, there's a tool for every teen online.
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Downloadable Worksheets
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The Internet is the perfect place for teens to download a budgeting worksheet that fits their lifestyles. Use Google Documents or an Internet search of "budgeting worksheet" to find a basic spreadsheet with a section for various expenses, their projected costs and their actual costs. Add or delete categories as necessary. For example, if a teen is only responsible for paying for car maintenance and entertainment, remove the document's other segments, like utilities and health insurance. Replace them with teen-specific expenses like gas, auto insurance, cell phone bills, food, movies and music.
Debt Calculators
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It may be helpful for teens to experiment with debt calculators online, even if they don't actually have credit card debt. A debt calculator asks you to input a credit card balance, the card's interest rate and how quickly you would like to pay it off. Then it calculates how much you would have to pay each month to meet your goal -- an amount that is often significantly higher than one's monthly minimum payment. Seeing how different interest rates and balances affect debt may help teenagers understand how easy it is to fall into credit card debt and stay there.
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Internet Games and Resources
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Some teenagers learn best through play, so it's no surprise that the Internet is teeming with money management games for children and teenagers. Survive a night in the Bad Credit Hotel on Controlyourcredit.gov to learn about credit and debt, or learn about budgeting, saving, investing and paying for college at Italladdsup.org. Aside from Internet games, there are other valuable online resources for teens to learn about money. Visit Jumpstart.org or FTC.gov to read articles on money management, or subscribe to a personal finance blog or podcast. If you are the parent of a teenager, allow your child to watch you pay bills or shop around for insurance online. Because many adults use only digital bill payment, teens don't get the opportunity to physically see how the process works.
Other Online Tools
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Social media, auction websites and comparison shopping websites like Price Grabber and Consumer Search are all useful tools for finding the best deals on purchases. If your teen is looking for the best deal on a used car, for example, he can use his favorite social media website to ask his friends for recommendations on dealerships. If a teen is saving up for a laptop computer, comparison-shopping websites make it easy to see how different products compare to each other in quality and price.
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