Mary Hunt's Debt Proof Your Kids: An Interesting Thing Happened on the Way to Getting a Financially Confident Life ... My Kids Got One Too

this is a fantastic book. my husband and i implemented the "monthly salary" as recommended by mary hunt for our 14 yr old son and -- so far, so good. with that money he's responsible for certain things throughout the month, and those items were outlined at the beginning of the financial plan. he's still learning, but then again, aren't we all? i think mary hunt is a wonderful author, and she speaks and writes from personal experience. she dug herself out of more than $100,000 in debt. she's very encouraging to those who are looking to improve their financial status as far as getting out of debt and staying that way. and she can even help improve the marriage relationship with her other book, debt-proof your marriage. it's a great read, too.

Really enjoyed this book. It's an easy read. The centerpiece of the book outlines a great plan of giving your kids a salary, with the requirement that they are responsible buying themselves a list of items, and every year that list and salary grows until they are managing their complete finances by their senior year. The book recommends starting as young as 10. Also, beyond this plan, the book has great side commentary on teaching your kids about debt, budgeting, and lots of other aspects of finances.

This book has some great ideas for how to teach financial responsibility to your kids. It gives you an easy guide that has been used on their children and which really makes sence.

This summer I read Mary Hunt's Debt-Proof Your Children. Three months ago we started the salary for all three of my children. Here's the update on our progress with Mary's ideas on Debt-Proof Your Kids. First of all if you have children READ MARY'S BOOK .. Debt-Proof Your Kids ... this has been the single best thing I've read on preparing your children for financial freedom in their adult life. I was skeptical at first, but am a FIRM BELIEVER! now. It's amazing the attitude towards money my children have now. My children 15, 12, 10 are to the age where they like to buy Christmas gifts for their friends. This year (when first started on a salary 3 months ago) I told them it would be their responsibility to buy gifts for their friends. They're finished now and there was not even a mention of - Hey Mom how about some extra money. Believe me, this was the case before they were on a salary. It relieved me of the - Mom can I have this ... they save their money and buy it if they still feel that way. I didn't realize how much more fun shopping can be when you don't have little ones asking for everything! Everyone is still doing great on their salaries-- my oldest is much more frugal than I would have thought, my middle daugher is still buying more candy than necessary (or LIP GLOSS) but she's still has money saved and is doing well buying her own clothes when she needs them, and my youngest is doing well (even remembering to fill out his own lunch envelopes.) I thought paying them their money the first of every month instead of throughout the month would be hard to budget for, but it's going well. I know exactly the $ amount and they stick to it.

This book is almost a "scares you straight" book. When I started seeing myself on so many pages, I was really sweatin'. An easy read, it is also full of great advice for teaching your kids. As I got further into the book, I particularly appreciated its layout. The first half of the book is primarily anecdotes about encounters with debt, and results of the author's attempts to teach her children about handling money, also pulling in other research about kids and attitudes toward responsibility. I was a little worried about where the meat might be until I got to the second section (ch. 11), which details various aspects of money and money handling (credit cards, types of debt, compound interest, etc.) and ends each section with "The minimum your kids need to know about _____." I found this section a great resource for making notes about what I needed to talk to my own kids about. The final three chapters in the book talk about specific age-related issues and how much kids can be expected to understand at each age level. I found this section great for customizing a plan specific to each child.