By allowing ads to appear on this site, you support the local businesses who, in turn, support great journalism.
Teach your kids to save and invest
Placeholder Image

Ideally, our children should learn good behavior from us. But when it comes to living within our means, and saving and investing for the future, we’re not setting such a good example. Consider the following:

Savings are low - The personal savings rate in the U.S. in 2006 and 2005 was negative - something that hasn’t happened since the Great Depression. Thus far in 2007, the savings rate has crept into positive territory, but it’s still anemic.

Debt is high - Household debt, as measured by the ratio of debt payments to disposable personal income, has reached record highs over the past couple of years. Of course, your children aren’t responsible for our discouraging savings and debt trends. But if you’d like to help them boost their chances for achieving financial stability in their adult lives, you can take a number of steps, including the following:

Reward children for saving. Children, like adults, tend to repeat behavior that is rewarded in some way. So, if you want your children to become good savers, you might want to match their contributions, either fully or partially, whenever they put money away, whether it’s in a big jar or a bank account. Once they’ve saved a certain amount, you may want to let them withdraw part of it to purchase something they want.

Exhibit restraint in spending.

When you want to teach your children an important lesson, what you do is sometimes more important than what you say. So, if you want to stress the importance of delaying immediate gratification and avoiding excessive debts, you might want to talk about something like your car, if it’s older, and say you wish you could get a new one. When your child asks why you don’t, you can respond that you don’t have the money for it now, and you don’t want to have borrow too much money to get one, because that would just mean a big payment later on.

Explain principles of investing. Even fairly young children can typically understand what it means to invest in stocks, if it’s carefully explained to them. Use examples of the companies with which they may be familiar - Disney, McDonald’s, etc. - and stick to the basics. For example, anyone can own small pieces of these businesses. You might even decide to buy a few shares of one of these stocks and, along with your children, follow its returns.

Give examples of inflation. If you want your children to become financially literate, they’ll need to understand the effects of inflation. Start them out with simple examples, such as the cost of candy or milk when you were a child versus those costs today. Then, explain that as the cost of virtually everything goes up over time, you need to put some of your money in investments that will hopefully have the potential to grow faster than the rate of inflation.

By following these basic suggestions, you can help your children develop financial behaviors that can serve them well throughout their lives.

 

Evans is a financial advisor with Edward Jones in Richmond Hill.

Sign up for our E-Newsletters
Record April boosts Savannah's container trade at port
GardenCityTerminal
The Port of Savannah moved 356,700 20-foot equivalent container units in April, an increase of 7.1 percent. - photo by Provided

The Georgia Ports Authority's busiest April ever pushed its fiscal year-to-date totals to more than 3.4 million 20-foot equivalent container units (TEUs), an increase of 8.8 percent, or 280,000 TEUs, compared to the first 10 months of fiscal 2017.

"We're on track to move more than 300,000 TEUs in every month of the fiscal year, which will be a first for the authority," said GPA Executive Director Griff Lynch. "We're also anticipating this to be the first fiscal year for the Port of Savannah to handle more than 4 million TEUs."

April volumes reached 356,700 20-foot equivalent container units, up 7.1 percent or 23,700 units. As the fastest growing containerport in the nation, the Port of Savannah has achieved a compound annual growth rate of more than 5 percent a year over the past decade.

"As reported in the recent economic impact study by UGA's Terry College of Business, trade through Georgia's deepwater ports translates into jobs, higher incomes and greater productivity," said GPA Board Chairman Jimmy Allgood. "In every region of Georgia, employers rely on the ports of Savannah and Brunswick to help them become more competitive on the global stage."

To strengthen the Port of Savannah's ability to support the state's future economic growth, the GPA Board approved $66 million in terminal upgrades, including $24 million for the purchase of 10 additional rubber-tired gantry cranes.  

"The authority is committed to building additional capacity ahead of demand to ensure the Port of Savannah remains a trusted link in the supply chain serving Georgia and the Southeast," Lynch said.

The crane purchase will bring the fleet at Garden City Terminal to 156 RTGs. The new cranes will support three new container rows, which the board approved in March. The additional container rows will increase annual capacity at the Port of Savannah by 150,000 TEUs.

The RTGs will work over stacks that are five containers high and six deep, with a truck lane running alongside the stacks. Capable of running on electricity, the cranes will have a lift capacity of 50 metric tons.

The cranes will arrive in two batches of five in the first and second quarters of calendar year 2019.

 Also at Monday's meeting, the GPA Board elected its officers, with Jimmy Allgood as chairman, Will McKnight taking the position of vice chairman and Joel Wooten elected as the next secretary/treasurer.

For more information, visit gaports.com, or contact GPA Senior Director of Corporate Communications Robert Morris at (912) 964-3855 or rmorris@gaports.com.

Latest Obituaries