Wealth Building For Generations

Although different people come to wealth in different ways, one of the surest ways of building wealth is through a gradual process of using small amounts of money to grow something substantial. Most of us are not going to "win the lotto" or come into large sums of money. But many of us have charge of small sums of money on a very regular basis. Making a series of small steps and small actions with the money that is available to us, and building them upon each other helps to create a lasting foundation for lifelong wealth.

If you want to ensure that your family, your children, will have the tools for building and enjoying lifelong wealth and financial independence, you must see that they begin to learn the principles of sound financial management and wealthbuilding very early in life.

I recently had an interesting conversation with a young woman (mid-thirties) who I would guess is not "wealthy" in monetary terms, but who is quite successful in her life and career, and appears to be quite comfortable. We were discussing life-changing and life-altering experiences when she relayed a story about her college years.

While less than mid-way through her college career and still quite young, she was given the opportunity to participate in a year-long work-study program with a major US corporation. She realized even then that the opportunity being offered to her had the potential for changing the direction of her life, and it turns out, she was quite right. However, the "catch" was that in order to take advantage of the opportunity, she would have to move hundreds of miles from her home and family, find and secure lodging, set up a new household and make arrangements for transportation to and from her place of work.

She had little resources with which to begin, and she was going to have to convince her family that she could handle the responsibilities involved in the venture before receiving their permission and blessing to make the journey. According to her account, it took her three weeks of planning, but in the end, she was able to pull everything together successfully.

She was able to purchase plane fare, rent a car for a week (with the help of the employer) so that she could make arrangements for her living situation, find a place to live, pay deposits for lodging and utilities, do some investigating with the program administrators to find a roommate who was also a program participant with whom she could share living expenses, and so on.

Within three months of beginning her work-study program, she purchased her first car, was managing her finances to cover all of her living expenses, and had already begun to save quite a nest egg from her work study employment toward future costs for completing her education.

In telling her story, she credited one thing in particular which she said helped her immensely in this situation. When she was still a child, her grandparents, who were obviously wise people although they had never received the benefit of higher education, had her to participate in their monthly budgeting activities. They sat her down when they would gather their bills, figure what money they had to pay for living expenses, what money they would keep and what money they would save. The discussed budgeting and included her within those discussions, and as they figured their budget in “long-hand” (before calculators), they let their granddaughter "check" their figures with the calculator to make certain they had it correct.

What they were really doing was teaching her necessary fundamental financial skills about budgeting, saving, check writing and more.

Bottom line...we expect our children and young people to learn how to conduct their finances successfully; to know and understand monetary value, to understand how to use credit, to manage their money well when they get older. But how will they know how to do those things if we're not actively teaching them; if we're not modeling those skills for them?

Learn to manage the money you have. That's how more money comes to you. And as you learn, teach your children. That's the best way to ensure the financial well-being of your family for generations to come.

For more information and assistance in teaching kids financial management, I encourage you to visit Prosperity4Kids.com. It's an excellent website for helping you to begin teaching your kids sound principals for prosperity.

http://www.Prosperity4Kids.com