Kids Have THAT much money??

Parent Cafe
1

<p>I was watching the Suze Orman “Can I Afford it Segment” and three kids (9, 10, and 16) called in and asked if they could afford items.</p>

<p>The 16 year old kid stated he made $400 a month and had $100 in expenses, but has $42K saved up. How it that even possible? </p>

<p>The 9 and 10 year old allowances were $24 and $30 a month and they have $3k in savings.</p>

<p>Just wondering if you’re kids have/had that much money when they were younger. I was lucky when I was younger to have a couple of hundred dollars saved up and in high school maybe a couple of thousand after I started working.</p>

2

<p>That’s about where I was at, too. I was proud to “lend” my dad twenty dollar bills, back in the pre-ATM days.</p>

3

<p>I don’t even know how a 16 year old could have that much saved unless he/she received gifts. My kids worked typical jobs and did save a couple of thousand while in high school; that did include summers. One of them did voice-overs and saved more than that while in elementary/middle school. Then his voice changed and that was that, at least for a while.</p>

4

<p>$3k in savings is not unreasonable if the parents give generous allowances and require them to save their allowances.</p>

<p>$42k for a 16 year old is not reasonable unless family gifts are involved. Most places you have to be 16 to start working, so he probably hasn’t worked anything besides odd jobs so far, and odd jobs can’t bring in $42k.</p>

5

<p>If the family is Jewish, it is possible that the 16 year old’s savings would probably include gifts received for his/her bar or bat mitzvah. In which case, not unusual.</p>

<p>The 10 year old’s allowance comes out to $7/week - not unreasonable.
The 9 year old’s allowance comes out to about $5/week - also not unreasonable.</p>

<p>And many parents require their children to save a portion of their weekly allowance to teach them about delayed gratification and the power of saving for something you want.</p>

<p>If these parents did that, and taught their kids the value of money, more power to them!</p>

6

<p>Well…I hope the kids remember that money in THEIR names is assessed for college at about 20% while money in their parents’ is assessed at only 5.5% by FAFSA for calculating the EFC. When our kids worked prior to college, the accounts they had were trustee accounts with one of US as the primary account holder for just this reason (no our kids didn’t have $47K in the bank…but ykwim).</p>

7

<p>Some kids have inherited money. Both of mine inherited about $25,000 at a time when the younger one was still in high school.</p>

8

<p>If those kids have that kind of money saved up at that point, they may not need/qualify for FA!</p>