Fourteen Days until France
August 11, 2009
Hannah, my daughter, leaves in fourteen days to study abroad in France for a year.
Hannah will be an Ambassador with the Rotary Youth Exchange. If you want to see a world, and you are in high school or would like to do a gap year, I highly recommend this program.
Hannah is getting ready to leave. Besides all of the packing she needs to do and the PowerPoint presentation that she needs to complete, Hannah is putting her money matters in order.
Anyone with experience in managing their own money and traveling abroad knows that you MUST call your bank(s) if you plan on using your accounts in any form or fashion when you are overseas. Otherwise, if you try to use that credit card or that debit card, your bank will likely not approve your impending transaction because they will take all of the precautions they can to protect themselves and assume that your card has been stolen, because they don’t have the correct information.
So if you want to use your accounts while overseas, it is best to tell your banks that you will be overseas and that you may use your accounts.
Hannah has decided that she will open an account with a bank in France. Hannah will take euros with her in order to open the account. But as a backup, Hannah will take her debit card for her checking account here in the States, just as a precaution for emergency funds. So Hannah called her bank yesterday to advice them that she would be traveling abroad and that she wants full unfettered access to her accounts while she is abroad.
Now, you know me. I’ve got a fifteen-year-old who manages her money without much counseling from me anymore. I’ve taught her a lot and now she just needs to ask me questions from time to time.
But this time, I asked her questions. I asked her how the call went. She says it went just fine. I believe her. And if it didn’t, well, it can get fixed later, right? I’m not going anywhere and I am always willing to help kids learn about money.
Justine
Learning about exchange rates
April 14, 2009
Hannah is living in Limoges, France this week. I’ve been chatting with her on FaceBook.
While I am at work, I keep my FaceBook page open. Every once in a while, I check to see which of my ‘friends’ are online. Typically, in the mid-afternoon, here on the eastern seaboard of the United Stated, my daughter pops up with a green dot. And then I get to chat with her. For only a few minutes – that is the only allocation I merit. But I think it is pretty darned great when I get it.
Yesterday, Hannah told me about some of the clothes she bought in Limoges. I love that Hannah and I regularly discuss money. And we discussed her purchases because Hannah has her own clothing allowance and has to budget her money for her clothes all by herself.
So Hannah is buying clothes in France. But in doing so, she also has to think about exchange rates. When Hannah looks at a price for a jacket in France, it is priced in euros. And Hannah has to translate that to US dollars in determining if that is what she wants to spend.
Wow, what a great learning experience. It makes a kid think even harder about how they are spending their hard-earned money. A very valuable lesson, in my view, for a kid on her way to becoming an adult.
I have no idea what the exchange rate between euros and US dollars is right now. I could go look it up. But I don’t need to. I know that Hannah knows that rate and she’s got it locked in her brain right now.
Justine
Jon’s spring break trip to the beach – Part 2
April 3, 2009
Jon leaves tomorrow for his spring break trip to the beach. Jon paid for his lodging on this trip by himself. It was good and cheap and a great way to get a teenager to pay his own way for a vacation.
Jon and I had discussions regarding other money topics and this trip this week. For example, there was the question of who would pay for food. Jon knows that in our family, we parents feel like we should pay for our kids to eat. So even if he is going on a spring break trip, maybe I should pay for the food. So I told Jon that I would pay his portion of the grocery bill for the week. The chaperoning mom has determined that she is going to buy all of the groceries for the entire household and split it up at the end of the week and invoice everybody. I thought that was a great solution and I told Jon I would pay that portion of his expenses.
Even so, I told Jon that he needs to bring his extra spending money. This is his trip, not mine. So go-karts, ice cream, entrance fees, pinball machines – those are Jon’s responsibility.
Jon and I reviewed how much cash he should take with him. We also reviewed the fact that he use his credit card when and where he can – that by using the credit card, he gets the opportunity to borrow the money, interest-free, from the credit card company and give up the cash later. Jon likes that idea.
So Jon is taking some cash and his credit card. A shirt, some swim trunks, a boogie board. I think that is all a thirteen-year-old needs to encounter sheer, utter happiness during spring break.
Justine
Jon’s spring break trip to the beach
April 2, 2009
Jon, my thirteen year old, is leaving for the beach on Saturday. It’s gonna be spring break and he will be gone for a week.
The lucky dog is going to be in a big front row beach house, on a Carolina beach, with about ten high school girls. It’s crazy, I know. Jon’s friend, T., finagled his way in on the trip when his older sister, who organized the trip, couldn’t fill the house with enough girls. T. told his sister that he would help her out if my son, Jon, could come as well. Don’t worry, their mom is chaperoning. But it sounds like a great time for my 13-year-old, doesn’t it?
So the opportunity came around in January. The mom said that T., the little brother, could go if he paid for his half of a spot, at the price of $100, with his own money. And that he would need to bring a friend to fill the other half-of-a-spot. Lucky Jon got invited.
The boys each take half-a-spot because they will be sleeping on sofas. The girls get real beds and bedrooms. The boys don’t care – they just want to be at the beach.
When the mom and T. pitched the idea (to me first, to get my permission, and then to Jon), I told Jon that he was paying for his $100 spot by himself. If T. was paying for himself, Jon was paying for himself, as well.
Jon was so enthusiastic. He didn’t blink and said, “Sign me up.”
T.’s older sister said she needed the money in a few weeks’ time. I told Jon that he should get it to her now. He had the money and the sister needed to collect and get the deposit made on the house. I explained to Jon the importance of money in demonstrating commitment. Jon got that, immediately, and took the $100, in cash, to the sister the next day.
And now Jon is getting ready to go to the beach. And he paid for it himself. At the age of thirteen. Awesome.
Justine
Hannah’s spending money for two weeks in France.
March 19, 2009
Hannah is going to France in a few weeks. She will be an exchange student living in French families’ homes for two weeks.
Hannah needs spending money while in France. Hannah has her own money – she works and gets an allowance, so she has money to spend in France. Hannah’s father and I are not giving her any spending money. We paid for three-quarters of the cost of the trip. We required Hannah to pay for one-quarter of the trip.
But David and I WILL give Hannah money for the meals that are not covered by the cost of the trip. We believe that as Hannah’s parents, we should pay for her reasonable cost of food, even if she is on an educational exchange trip.
So we’ve asked Hannah to write a detailed request for spending money for food. Hannah has determined that she would like that money in her checking account so she can access her food money as cash from an ATM machine while in France. We are amenable to that, but Hannah needs to spell out the request. We will advance her the cash prior to the trip, and then interview her when she gets home to make sure that what we gave her approximated her actual cost of meals while in France.
I think that works.
Justine
Calling the banks for Hannah’s overseas exchange trip.
March 18, 2009
Hannah’s trip to France for spring break is coming together.
Hannah called her credit card company to let it know that she was going to be in France for two weeks. Hannah didn’t want her use of her card restricted while she was there. And that can happen if the credit card company sees activity in France that it didn’t know might occur.
So Hannah managed that potential outcome by calling Citicards, her credit card company. The agent let Hannah manage that call and those tasks on her own, without my help.
Then Hannah called her bank that holds her checking account and debit card. That didn’t go as well. Hannah banks with a mid-sized community bank. The bank can be very nice, but it isn’t as sophisticated as the larger banks. So when Hannah called to tell them that she would be traveling to France and using her debit card while in France, they wouldn’t talk to her. They had to talk to me.
That’s too bad. Kids need to be able to manage their own checking accounts and debit cards.
It’s funny that I have some friends who let their teens have a debit card but not a credit card. And then we see that, for Hannah, having the credit card is more of an exercise in being able to manage her own affairs independently than having a debit card. That strikes me as odd.
But Hannah made the calls and she is ready, financially, for her trip. Well, almost. More later….
Justine
Being an exchange student with one’s own credit card.
March 17, 2009
Hannah leaves for two weeks in France in a few weeks. She is going with a group from her high school. The group tours Paris for a couple of days and then goes to Limoges for nearly two weeks. Our American kids will be living with French families and attending the french high school for almost two weeks. What an experience!
Hannah and I have been to the orientation meetings for the exchange trip. And to Hannah and me, money is just too big of a topic at these meetings. Everyone is worried about spending money for their kids and how they should take it.
Parents are uncertain about what to do about spending money while abroad. The are concerned about how to allow their children to access spending money for the trip.
“Should I give my child my credit card? How do I do that?”
“Should I give my child cash?”
“Do I give my child my debit card?”
Upon questioning Hannah about what her peers are doing for spending money on this trip, Hannah reported to me that almost everyone is bringing cash with them. We all know the dangers of carrying cash, especially on overseas trips. And especially when you are only 15 or 16 years old.
To me, this is another great outcome of teaching one’s children how to use credit and debit cards early on. Our family is having none of the ‘money angst’ that the other families are having about Hannah being away for two weeks in France. Hannah has her own credit card that she has been using for three years. Hannah has her own debit card that she has been using for one year. Hannah is so comfortable with using these items here in the States, that it isn’t going to be much of a leap to use them in another country.
Plus, I know that Hannah, by using her credit card, will get a better value for each dollar she exchanges than she would buying Francs as cash. If you do the research, or if you are an experienced traveler, you know that the exchange rates through the banks on credit cards are always much better than at the cash exchange counters.
Another great reason to teach your kids how to use credit cards while they are still young and living with you.
Justine
