Money Smart Kids
Think Single
The best gift parents can give their daughters is to teach them to be financially independent.
By Janet Bodnar, Editor, Kiplinger's Personal Finance
March 13, 2003
My thanks to Beth, a college senior and an intern at my office, who told me the other day how much she enjoys my columns. The one advising parents (especially dads) to think twice before handing out car keys and cash to their daughters particularly hit home with her.
Beth's parents gave her a credit card for emergencies, and Dad pays the bills. But she worries about what will happen when the gravy train ends after graduation. "If I want CDs and don't have the cash, I use the credit card," she confesses. "My dad doesn't know that I don't really need all those manicures and pedicures."
The best gift parents can give their daughters is to teach them to "think single" and be financially independent. It's tough for young women to say no to parental handouts, but, like Beth, they aren't always comfortable with them.
"I'm very scared about the day when I will have to keep my own budget," confides Chantal, a college sophomore who relies on her parents to pay her credit card and cell phone bills. "I'm one of those college students who's likely to be in debt by the time I'm 25."
Stephanie is already there. At 25, she recently sought credit counseling to pay off $7,000 she owes on three credit cards.
"When I was a teenager, my dad was always one to take care of things," she says. "If I was about to bounce a check, he'd say, 'Don't worry, I'll put some money in your account.' If I was going out, he'd say, 'I'll get you some gas and be right back.'"
When she couldn't make her car payments, Dad did. "I know it's not good for me," Stephanie confesses, "but it's easy to be dependent."
Better for parents to practice a little tough love. When Paula, now 32, was a teenager, she was grounded for a month because she borrowed $20 from a friend to buy something at the mall.
"My parents might have been obsessive, but I have grown up to be a fabulous money manager," says Paula.
She says she sized up prospective husbands based on two standards: Can he balance a checkbook? Is he free of credit card debt? "My husband did have some debt, but it was student loans, so I gave him a pass."
That's thinking single.
Janet Bodnar is the author of a new book about women and money, Think $ingle!.
