The Money Mustache Community
Other => Off Topic => Topic started by: englishteacheralex on November 14, 2017, 02:59:45 PM
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I teach high school and I love it.
One interesting part of my job is "Homeroom Advisory", in which I have ten minutes three times/week to share life skills with my group of teens.
This week, the American Cancer Society came by and did a presentation for the whole school on e-cigarettes. Fascinating. I'm supposed to follow up with the kids this week.
To me, "Smoking is a stupid marketing trap that only people your age are naive enough to buy into. But it's perfect, because it's designed to separate people from their money for life, even when they're old enough to realize they've been hoodwinked" is a fantastic message for teens. Who's not going to get on board with that message?
I was thinking about other important things that everybody ought to be told as a teen. The MMM forums thread on MLMs comes to mind. I might anger some of the moms out there, but I'm thinking of working on a ten minute presentation about why MLMs are a horrible trap.
What else should all teens know? What other horrible traps can I warn them against?
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The warnings about smoking/e-cigarettes are great. Young people just can't hear that enough. Same with caution around drugs and alcohol, especially in regards to binge drinking and drunk driving. I've spoken to different high school groups in the Every Fifteen Minutes program. Some do actually listen!
*Regarding MLM, I think I would put that as part of a discussion on financial security, FICO scores, economic traps to avoid like high interest loans of any type, spending more than you make, car leasing, etc. Obviously there's lots of ground to cover
*For teenage boys (and I'm the parent of one), learning to perform a self examination for testicular cancer. HPV vaccines.
*Can you discuss etiquette too much with young people? I don't think so. Touch on topics like proper hand held device use for both safety (driving) and common courtesy (no texting while at dinner). How about when to write a thank you note and how to actually do it?
You sound like a good and engaged teacher! Not sure if any of the jumble of what I've written is pertinent, but I do look forward to hearing what others write on this topic.
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What to do after college- Not everyone wants/needs or is suited to going to college and getting a 4 year degree(or would use it even if they got it). Do you have students who are more hands on, who may do better in a vocational school for plumbing, welding, electrical, HVAC or something like that? Do you have any local schools or unions/groups that do internships/training in these fields? Can you have them come in and give a presentation? It never hurts to make people aware of all the options.
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The TCO of life. Total Cost of Ownership. Pick any topic. Babies, cars, apartments, etc.
The value of knowing how to DIY stuff aka home ec topics (cooking for one or two), carpentry, auto mechanics, etc.
Personal finance.
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High pressure sales techniques, how to spot them and say no.
Payday lenders, your ticket to eternal debt slavery.
Average earnings of college graduates by degree and a comparison to the trades.
Spot a stroke FAST (Facial drooping, Arm weakness, Speech difficulties and Time to call emergency services)
Heart attack, symptoms and response.
Opiate overdose, why is that person laying on the floor turning purple?
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Taxes, witholding, etc. And how much of your gross income is taken up by them.
Ex: Gross annual salary = $50,000. What that actually means your take-home pay is. Broken down into how much you net per month.
Then out of that, how much you'll likely spend on health insurance, rent, etc.
Just kind of breaking things down so that their mindset is not, "Wow, someday I'll be making $50,000! I'll be freaking rich!"
Not to break their spirit early, but hopefully to help them have more respect for their pennies and dollars, and hopefully less likely to fling them out the window thinking they won't have to care about them when they have more money.
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Dovetailing off of Joe's Total Cost of Ownership: Interest rates and payment plans.
I run into this with 18 year old troops who can't understand that buying something hugely expensive is still hugely expensive even if the payments are chopped up, only that interest is usually in the equation making it even more expensive and tying down your money for years that can be impossible to get out of. This goes for TVs, cars, furniture, and gets progressively worse the longer the payments or the more consumable/shorter lifespan of the item.
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Don't pay interest on a depreciating asset.
Don't mix alcohol (or drugs) with sex: drink when you drink, and screw (or neck: whatever) when you screw. If you can't remember it the next morning, that's bad.
No sexytimes unless everyone involved is enthusiastically on board. Every time. Use protection. Also, everyone involved should have approximately equal amounts of fun: don't be a jerk.
(Got a 16-year-old here...)
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1. The power of compounding. Which will work against you just as quickly as it works for you. Do you want to work to pay your wages to other people to cover stuff you already bought? Or do you want to be the guy who provides the money and then gets paid by other people for the privilege? And "saving" $100 at 1% is stupid if you owe $100 at 22% -- do the math, show them how much worse off they will be (this bleeds into opportunity costs, which is another important point).
1.a. Just because you can cover a payment in your monthly budget does not mean you can "afford" something.
1.b. If you don't have cash to pay for something now, what makes you think you'll have cash next week, or next month, when the CC bill comes due? You have the same job, the same income, and now you're adding a new "thing" to make payments on + interest.
2. To go along with that, basic building blocks of our economy -- a stock is a small piece of ownership of a company, and owning it gives you the right to a small percent of every dollar that company earns for the rest of its life. Just for owning it. A bond is lending someone money, and then they pay you back more just for the privilege of using your money. Which circles back to 1: do you want to be the guy sitting on a wad of cash, who can use it to buy businesses that will then give him more cash, or who can lend money to some guy who wants to buy a new phone right now? Or do you want to be the one paying 20% more for a toy, just because you can't be bothered to save up the money first?
3. Every single company has hired a bunch of smart, highly-educated people to try to convince you to buy stuff you don't need, because it's cool, or everyone has one, or your life will be so much easier, or you work hard and "deserve" it, or whatever. Realize that they don't care about you -- their job is to separate you from as much of your money as they can. They think you're dumb enough to fall for it. It's your job to prove them wrong.
4. Pay yourself first. From day 1. If you've never seen it, you won't miss it. Added bonus that you'll have less money to hand over to advertisers.
5. What taxes really are -- the money our government uses to provide the services and enforce the laws -- and what they are actually spent on. E.g., people always seem to think that some ridiculous amount of money goes to foreign aid and the like. Compare the government revenues to the budgets and the national debt, and ask them to consider whether we should cut spending to balance the budget/decrease the debt, and if so what they are going to take it from (once they see the "real" numbers).
6. How to fill out a 1040EZ.
7. The Shockingly Simple Math. It is their choice to decide how long they want to work for The Man. The less "stuff" they need, the sooner they can be free to do what interests them.
8. Take everything you think and feel with a grain of salt. Talk about the recent science showing how the parts of the brain that control decisionmaking don't fully develop until @25. Kids are brilliant and energetic and primed to fly off into the world and feel immortal, because that's exactly how your brain and hormones are supposed to make you feel at that age. And strong emotions actually shut down the parts of the brain that think logically and can find the best solution. Figure out some guardrails to impose on yourself to avoid doing something that could totally fuck up the rest of your life before you are old enough to know better. Set some basic ground rules for yourself that you do not violate, ever (don't drive after drinking; always use a condom; don't mix mood-enhancing substances; don't bring a weapon to school; limit bad choices to one at a time (e.g., don't have sex while drunk or high), etc.).
9. Everybody screws up sometime. What will determine your success or failure is what you do next.
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^^^ Following from this:
NEVER, EVER, EVER, just trust someone who tells you that you can afford something, unless YOU have done the math yourself.
Especially not people whose job it is to sell you that thing. (Mortgage brokers, I'm looking at you.)
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Making explicit the implicit messages of advertising. "If you buy this shampoo your hair will look better" is not an unreasonable claim to make. "If you buy this shampoo you will be more successful in your career and have more friends!" does not add up.
Total cost of ownership is an excellent one. What this means and what it covers - not just adding up all the monthly payments plus all the interest, but all the necessary maintenance costs plus all the necessary maintenance TIME.
How to politely decline when someone is pressuring you to do something you're not sure about or don't want to do. Be it cigarettes now or an overprice dmortgage in ten years time.
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With a teenager in the house... a few things we keep trying to emphasize...
"Want" vs. "Need"
Difference between "being rich" and "looking rich", and while this can go many ways, one of them is definitely the difference between owning something vs. buying on credit.
Very few things come easy. Example: There are very, very few "get rich quick" ideas, and even some of those people (America's Got Talent, etc.) still had to do a lot of hard work and practice.
Who make the laws and decisions that affect them (President vs. Congress vs. Governor vs. State Senate vs. Mayor vs. City Council vs. School Board and so on). For example, Who decides what time of the day school starts? Who decides if their parents can add on to the house? Who decides the speed limit? Who decides the smoking/drinking age? etc.
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When I was in middle school, one of my teachers offered a series of lessons entitled "Critical Thinking." We were introduced (in a kid-friendly way) to concepts like how to see through media advertising messages and how group psychology worked. It was pretty unusual, in retrospect -- but honestly it was so valuable. It helped us develop mental armor in a world of peer pressure and consumerism.
Maybe you could develop a high-school level version?
Also, I really wish I had known, as a teenager, about savings and investments. Back then this seemed like something dudes wearing suits and Rolexes on Wall Street were involved in, that had zero relevance to my life. Maybe explain how compound interest works (without getting too involved in directing students' own personal finances of course -- this could be more about simply explaining the system).
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When I was in middle school, one of my teachers offered a series of lessons entitled "Critical Thinking." We were introduced (in a kid-friendly way) to concepts like how to see through media advertising messages and how group psychology worked. It was pretty unusual, in retrospect -- but honestly it was so valuable. It helped us develop mental armor in a world of peer pressure and consumerism.
There are several psychological studies that I have heard about as an adult that changed the way I think about people. Stuff like the one where smoke comes from underneath a waiting room door but everyone else is an actor and doesn't react so the one real participant doesn't either, and theoretically everybody burns to death. I still sometimes don't speak up if no one else is doing anything, but I am aware of it and I have stepped forward in situations since hearing about that study because I know what's really going on in my mind.
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Mrs. Pete told about this one another thread:
Point out to high schoolers that getting married costs $35 (or the cost of a license.) The rest of it is just pomp, circumstances, and a party. No one needs to wait months or weeks or years to save money for a marriage, that is for a wedding.
Same for death ceremonies: cremation services cost about $650.00. No one needs to spend $13,000 on a stupid funeral with all of the trimmings.
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Very seriously: how to change a tire. Boys AND girls.
How to cook at least 5 decent, nutritious, 'easy' dinners.
How to do laundry.
It would shock you how much of all that DH and I have had to teach 'full grown' adults.
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Finance-related:
"Never cosign someone's debt unless you are okay being the only one to pay the full amount. It doesn't matter how much you trust that person. Say you love your boyfriend/girlfriend and they take out a loan. Even if they are making all the payments and do everything right, they could get hit by a drunk driver. They could get laid off from work for a reason that isn't their fault. When something goes wrong, you will be on the hook for that loan. Instead of being able to help out your bf/gf with their living expenses, you have to pay on that loan or your credit will be trashed, too. This is especially big for student loans, which can haunt people forever."
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Protect your skin from the sun. Seriously....I am well into middle age and if I could go back and change one thing I think it would be to keep the sun off my face! I, and so many of my friends, have had various bits cut off for biopsy or frozen off, not to mention all the brown spots and wrinkles. It is painful and expensive. I started wearing hats and sunscreen about age 30, but my dermatologist told me we get almost all our sun damage before age 21 because we are outside so much.
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Great thread.
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Estimated monthly student loan repayments for tuition at an in-state 4 year university vs private 4 year university compared to monthly income for a handful of professions
My parents did this when I was in high school and it easily saved me $100,000. Like most high school students, I had no idea how high the monthly payments would actually be and just assumed that I wouldn't be granted the loan if the payments weren't affordable.
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You know, if someone made all these suggestions into a youtube video with relevant explanations, graphs, etc, that would be an incredibly useful thing to have exist. Even for not-18-year-olds. Just in case some creative person out there is bored =)
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I'll cast another vote for Total Cost of Ownership as a great topic you can wrap up in a 10 minute package. OP has a brutal time limit for a lot of the topics mentioned.
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Estimated monthly student loan repayments for tuition at an in-state 4 year university vs private 4 year university compared to monthly income for a handful of professions
My parents did this when I was in high school and it easily saved me $100,000. Like most high school students, I had no idea how high the monthly payments would actually be and just assumed that I wouldn't be granted the loan if the payments weren't affordable.
This would be incredibly helpful. I was a first-generation college student, and I signed the loan docs with basically no sense of what I was getting myself into. Luckily, this was in the 80s, where $10,000 was a lot of loan money.
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Estimated monthly student loan repayments for tuition at an in-state 4 year university vs private 4 year university compared to monthly income for a handful of professions
My parents did this when I was in high school and it easily saved me $100,000. Like most high school students, I had no idea how high the monthly payments would actually be and just assumed that I wouldn't be granted the loan if the payments weren't affordable.
You beat me to it. I was going to suggest "Smart student loan usage." I get it that some students legitimately need loans to go to college, but nobody NEEDS to start out their adult life with the equivalent of a mortgage in student loan debt. It saddens me when I hear how students have taken on sooooo much debt. A high schooler or college student is simply not experienced enough to know how much $150,000 really is and how a debt like that will impact their life.
I work with a woman who borrowed $350,000 to get a PhD in some sort of business/consulting topic. She's between 45 and 50 now and still has about that amount of student loan debt. I would ballpark her salary between $125,000 and $150,000...definitely no more than that. She also has a very nice car and a nice (highly mortgaged) house. She will NEVER pay all that crap off...and forget about retiring early. Thinking about it makes me cringe.
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Just kind of breaking things down so that their mindset is not, "Wow, someday I'll be making $50,000! I'll be freaking rich!"
First salary job I had I was making $40,000 and would get paid twice a month, so I thought, 40,000/24 = $1,667. Wow! That's a lot of money every two weeks! Then my first paycheck arrived... cue me being Rachel - "Who is FICA and why does he get all my money?"
I have no idea how you'll fit all of this in in 10 mins, but a brief overview of how adult financials actually work... taxes on salary, 401k contributions, budgeting (fixed vs. variable expenses)...
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Just kind of breaking things down so that their mindset is not, "Wow, someday I'll be making $50,000! I'll be freaking rich!"
First salary job I had I was making $40,000 and would get paid twice a month, so I thought, 40,000/24 = $1,667. Wow! That's a lot of money every two weeks! Then my first paycheck arrived... cue me being Rachel - "Who is FICA and why does he get all my money?"
I have no idea how you'll fit all of this in in 10 mins, but a brief overview of how adult financials actually work... taxes on salary, 401k contributions, budgeting (fixed vs. variable expenses)...
Exactly. I'm pretty sure you're not alone in that. It's quite a wakeup call.
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Useful anecdote: For the price of my wife's student loans, I could buy a second house and a new car.
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I'll cast another vote for Total Cost of Ownership as a great topic you can wrap up in a 10 minute package. OP has a brutal time limit for a lot of the topics mentioned.
Crash course 10-minute lesson, give them a day or two to think about it, then revisit for questions?
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Possibly not the kind of thing you had in mind: but -- musculo-skeletal gross anatomy. How muscles move the body. I've never understood why we teach kids where their liver is -- which they can't move around, and will never need to know unless they're surgeons -- and not about the basic infrastructure that everybody uses every day to do everything they'll ever do, from talking to typing to walking around the block. I'm always having to explain the basics of human movement to clients. Things like, "yes, the powerhouse muscles when you bend over to pick something up off the floor are the glutes," and "yes, but when you picked up that pen you were also lifting eighty pounds of torso." We live in these bodies. They're home. We should know about them.
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It's not necessary to get married, but if you do, your choice of spouse likely impacts your daily quality of life more than any other decision you'll ever make.
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There's nothing wrong with finding, studying, and believing in a religion (or choosing not to). There is something wrong with the idea that your path/approach/practice to spirituality should apply to others who don't see things the same way.
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You should take some time to explain how companies like to trap people by selling worthless "consumables" on a subscription basis. Instead of simply paying one price for an enduring asset and then keeping it for years and years, people are duped into paying a monthly fee for the item/goods and then end up paying three to four times to price for the item. An example of this would be the ridiculous "subscription box" bullshit that's everywhere right now.
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Love this list. So much knowledge here! I'm going to put something together for students.
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Re: all the payments, interest, points. One of the most useful quotes I ever read was, "The poor ask how much it costs per month. The rich ask how much it costs." I try to always keep this in mind- know the total cost, interest and all.
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Possibly not the kind of thing you had in mind: but -- musculo-skeletal gross anatomy. How muscles move the body. I've never understood why we teach kids where their liver is -- which they can't move around, and will never need to know unless they're surgeons -- and not about the basic infrastructure that everybody uses every day to do everything they'll ever do, from talking to typing to walking around the block. I'm always having to explain the basics of human movement to clients. Things like, "yes, the powerhouse muscles when you bend over to pick something up off the floor are the glutes," and "yes, but when you picked up that pen you were also lifting eighty pounds of torso." We live in these bodies. They're home. We should know about them.
Our whole medical systems seems to be devoted to biochemical medicine and not the "physical". Besides pills are so much easier than actually doing your exercises/stretches/yoga :)
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Do a series of ten minute workshops - one topic a day so you have and keep their attention.
Maybe also ask about people's thoughts and questions about the previous day's topic.
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checkbook management
Personal finance
Someone told me that they don't teach that anymore. I wouldn't know.
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checkbook...
It won't be long before our youth ask "what's that?"
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checkbook...
It won't be long before our youth ask "what's that?"
In my life, I've used cheques for the following reasons:
- To give a landlord multiple months of rent (via postdated cheques)
- To give to my work so they can read the numbers on my account for direct deposit
That's it.
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checkbook...
It won't be long before our youth ask "what's that?"
In my life, I've used cheques for the following reasons:
- To give a landlord multiple months of rent (via postdated cheques)
- To give to my work so they can read the numbers on my account for direct deposit
That's it.
The U.S. has held on to checks for WAY longer than most other "developed" countries. It's really, really weird.
They are finally sort of going away, though.
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checkbook...
It won't be long before our youth ask "what's that?"
In my life, I've used cheques for the following reasons:
- To give a landlord multiple months of rent (via postdated cheques)
- To give to my work so they can read the numbers on my account for direct deposit
That's it.
I used maybe three this year. I paid a cleaning service at my last residence because he didn't have a credit card scanner on hand, showed a new utility the voided check, and had to mail one yesterday for my son's school. It kills me when I'm forced to re-order hundreds of checks just for those handful that I'll use.
I find the use of checks and fax machines to be on a similar death-spiral.
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How to use a slow cooker to cook huge amounts of food with 10 minutes of preps with low effort and almost no chance of failure.
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Where I live (may be different for you):
If the Police find drugs in your bag never say "I'm only holding it for a friend". [This is possession with intention to supply] Say "what's that, I haven't seen it before," or "lawyer".
I had two friends lose jobs and get criminal records because they were carrying someone else's bag; they maintain that they didn't know anything was in there.
Also, a caution is a real thing, that stays on a criminal record. It is not signing a bit of paper that stops an investigation.
There are other ways to get out of bed or out of a chair. I found the Alexander technique so useful when I had back pain, and I teach this chair thing to people who have been struggling for YEARS. You lean forwards until your weight is properly over your feet and your knees are bent, and then look straight ahead and stand up using your legs like a little squat. Do the opposite to sit down. It reduces the strain on your back as you sit or stand.
How to lift and carry things properly.
Advertising (again, maybe location specific): When they say "76% of participants agreed hair was shinier", look at the sample size. Often the sample size is tiny. They've run the same "experiment" over and over, with 17 people, and then only reported the one when 13 people had the positive reaction they wanted. A giant marketing company aren't running small experiments because they are short of cash...
Regression to the mean.
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Go over the topics in this book on at a time:
https://www.amazon.com/How-Win-Friends-Influence-People/dp/0671027034/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1511710744&sr=8-2&keywords=how+to+win+friends
I so wish I had this information back in high school and throughout my adulthood. I had heard about it previously, but the title turned me off, thinking it was about manipulation. It's not. It's about how to relate to other people on a personal basis.
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“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.”
― Robert A. Heinlein
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I teach high school and I love it.
One interesting part of my job is "Homeroom Advisory", in which I have ten minutes three times/week to share life skills with my group of teens.
This week, the American Cancer Society came by and did a presentation for the whole school on e-cigarettes. Fascinating. I'm supposed to follow up with the kids this week.
To me, "Smoking is a stupid marketing trap that only people your age are naive enough to buy into. But it's perfect, because it's designed to separate people from their money for life, even when they're old enough to realize they've been hoodwinked" is a fantastic message for teens. Who's not going to get on board with that message?
I was thinking about other important things that everybody ought to be told as a teen. The MMM forums thread on MLMs comes to mind. I might anger some of the moms out there, but I'm thinking of working on a ten minute presentation about why MLMs are a horrible trap.
What else should all teens know? What other horrible traps can I warn them against?
More about employment..
Kirby and Filter queen vacuum sales, cutco knives sales person jobs... I had friends fall for each of these.
Online job scams. "Modelling agencies"
Employment law - how not to get taken advantage of by landscaping, carpentry or asbestos demolition companies, rules about overtime and minimum wage pay.. what working off the books means and why working for cash is not a great deal.
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checkbook...
It won't be long before our youth ask "what's that?"
In my life, I've used cheques for the following reasons:
- To give a landlord multiple months of rent (via postdated cheques)
- To give to my work so they can read the numbers on my account for direct deposit
That's it.
You may not have kids... I have deliberately gotten rid of all cheques in my life as of a few years ago.
The big stumpers are the organized sports that want a cheque as a deposit for the uniform "rental".. they don't cash them unless no uniform is returned at the end of the season. They really don't want to take a cash deposit because it is such a hassle to return.... Another kid issue -- I have had to pay for a very large school trip in cash because I could not give them a cheque, nor could I give them an email money transfer, which I would have preferred, but the treasurer was unfamiliar and uncomfortable with because she may not have ever used the online banking system for the school organization..? IDK.
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I think the message that mental health is as important as physical health is an important one. Maybe a brief discussion about counselling services available, online resources, going to the doctor to get meds/referrals, what to do if a friend or acquaintance is in a bad way etc.
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I'm not a huge fan of the verb "adulting", but if there is ever a time and place then this is it.
This adulting blog (http://adultingblog.com/tagged/steps), which also has a book out, has hundreds of these sorts of things that might help for inspiration.
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PTF, as usual on topics like this I get overwhelmed with everything I think on the subject.
If these haven't been mentioned:
- basic first aid + CPR
- what to do if you find a friend who has passed out drinking; signs that an ambulance needs to be called
- what to do in the case of a small kitchen or electrical fire
With respect to cigarettes and drugs, I always like to mention how much they age the skin/appearance. The expectation of a slow death by suffocation (lung cancer or emphysema) doesn't seem to bother the young as much as the prospect of getting less attractive.
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What to do when you make a mistake and how to apologise like a grown up.
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How nothing you post on social media will ever be forgotten? How not to share every secret with the kids at school? By telling one kid potentially whatever that secret is will be known by everyone in short order. In other words don't throw the bullies a bone.
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How nothing you post on social media will ever be forgotten?
Oh, yeah, that reminds me. Don't get tattooed with the name of your girl/boyfriend, even if you are sure you will love her/him for the rest of your life.
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Great thread. Many of these I could use in my own job. PTF.
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What to do when you make a mistake and how to apologise like a grown up.
Yes. Yes. YES. Plenty of adults don't know how to own their mistakes.
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How nothing you post on social media will ever be forgotten?
Oh, yeah, that reminds me. Don't get tattooed with the name of your girl/boyfriend, even if you are sure you will love her/him for the rest of your life.
No naked and/or sex photos or videos in any digital media, unless you want the world (including all future employers, in-laws, etc.) to see it. It doesn't matter how much you trust your SO... Even assuming your SO would never be vengeful as an ex, there are still so many stories out there of people's cell phones and computers getting hacked (or even slipping into the hands of a 'friend') and exposing naked/sex media to the internet. Your boyfriend might be a good guy, but his friend Bob who offers to hold his phone may have no compunction about posting photos on the internet or forwarding them on to friends as a 'joke.' Your girlfriend might be great, but all it takes is one mistake while her kid niece goes looking for Angry Birds to ruin you. Heck, there are even stories about personal photo collections getting automatically shared in the cloud because security settings changed on a phone with an update.
If you really want naked/sex photos, make it a Polaroid or other non-digital film. At least then it takes some effort and intentional sabotage for things to go against you.
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OP, isn't the advice on this thread a lot better and more interesting than "don't sell Amway or become a Pampered Chef host?" :)
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It's quite good and has given me a lot of food for thought.
It can be a little discouraging to attempt to give advice to teenagers. The problem is you have to be pretty good at psychology, because marketing is everything with kids. So the bullet lists are great, but I'm wrestling with how to sell this stuff. Making constructive choices sexy...hm....
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It's ok to not know what you want to be when you grow up.
Most adults don't know what they want to be when they grow up.
Ride a bike
Also, most of the stuff in the sunscreen song / fake convocation speech (http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/chi-schmich-sunscreen-column-column.html) (I don't really do the sunscreen thing, but when in doubt, ride a bike) :
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Enjoy the power and beauty of your youth. Oh, never mind. You will not understand the power and beauty of your youth until they've faded...
Don't worry about the future. Or worry, but know that worrying is as effective as trying to solve an algebra equation by chewing bubble gum. The real troubles in your life are apt to be things that never crossed your worried mind, the kind that blindside you at 4 p.m. on some idle Tuesday.
Do one thing every day that scares you.
Don't be reckless with other people's hearts. Don't put up with people who are reckless with yours.
Floss.
Don't waste your time on jealousy. Sometimes you're ahead, sometimes you're behind. The race is long and, in the end, it's only with yourself.
Remember compliments you receive. Forget the insults...
Stretch
Don't feel guilty if you don't know what you want to do with your life. The most interesting people I know didn't know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives. Some of the most interesting 40-year-olds I know still don't.
Enjoy your body. Use it every way you can. Don't be afraid of it or of what other people think of it.
Get to know your parents. You never know when they'll be gone for good. Be nice to your siblings.
Understand that friends come and go, but with a precious few you should hold on. Work hard to bridge the gaps in geography and lifestyle..
Live in New York City once, but leave before it makes you hard. Live in Northern California once, but leave before it makes you soft. Travel...
Don't expect anyone else to support you...
Be careful whose advice you buy...
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If you really want naked/sex photos, make it a Polaroid or other non-digital film. At least then it takes some effort and intentional sabotage for things to go against you.
I think film is generally a bad idea for sexytime pictures unless you're going to process yourself.
Digital photos stored offline, not on a handheld device are probably the safer way to go.
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If you really want naked/sex photos, make it a Polaroid or other non-digital film. At least then it takes some effort and intentional sabotage for things to go against you.
I think film is generally a bad idea for sexytime pictures unless you're going to process yourself.
Digital photos stored offline, not on a handheld device are probably the safer way to go.
Face OR junk. Never both.
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I don't know how I'd present this to high school kids, but...
the value of what, back when I was in the software biz, we called "rapid prototyping" or "build one to throw away."
The idea being that when you're designing something new -- anything from a new mousetrap to a new morning routine -- build a quick & dirty, but actually working, version of it. It's not till you build one that you know what the tough parts and the bottlenecks of building it are going to be. So just assume that the first version is going to fail. Build it fast. (You can't totally cheat though -- it actually has to work, even if just in miniature.)
I use this ALL the time in my daily life. You might also call this "build it first and then design it."
Otherwise you tend to waste time overthinking the easy parts, and you don't run into the hard parts until a) you're already running low on resources, and b) you've invested so much in the project you feel you can't afford to let it fail.
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If you really want naked/sex photos, make it a Polaroid or other non-digital film. At least then it takes some effort and intentional sabotage for things to go against you.
I think film is generally a bad idea for sexytime pictures unless you're going to process yourself.
Digital photos stored offline, not on a handheld device are probably the safer way to go.
Face OR junk. Never both.
Draw a face on your junk. Everyone's happy.
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Who make the laws and decisions that affect them (President vs. Congress vs. Governor vs. State Senate vs. Mayor vs. City Council vs. School Board and so on). For example, Who decides what time of the day school starts? Who decides if their parents can add on to the house? Who decides the speed limit? Who decides the smoking/drinking age? etc.
What an interesting idea - I'll second that! So much attention in the USA is paid to who wins the presidency and senate, but so little to the city council and planning and zoning, etc.. The latter has a lot of everyday impact on your life. It also would help the youngsters start to understand the relationships between all the different governmental entities.
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My physiotherapist and I were discussing this. Teach them the physically correct way to do things so they don't trash their bodies. Seriously, this would be a much better use of Phys Ed time than most of what I ever did in Phys Ed. Since it isn't covered in Phys Ed, put it in "stuff everyone should know but doesn't so they are in pain by 40".
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Who make the laws and decisions that affect them (President vs. Congress vs. Governor vs. State Senate vs. Mayor vs. City Council vs. School Board and so on). For example, Who decides what time of the day school starts? Who decides if their parents can add on to the house? Who decides the speed limit? Who decides the smoking/drinking age? etc.
What an interesting idea - I'll second that! So much attention in the USA is paid to who wins the presidency and senate, but so little to the city council and planning and zoning, etc.. The latter has a lot of everyday impact on your life. It also would help the youngsters start to understand the relationships between all the different governmental entities.
And helps them distinguish who to hold accountable t when a new rule or law is being proposed (or at election time!)
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Marrying the wrong person can be expensive, both in divorce fees and splitting assets. (hat tip to TallTexan)
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Hedonic adaptation.
You could start by asking the classic question of which person is happier after a year: a lottery winner or recently injured paraplegic. Or perhaps a different scenario in case a student might immediately recognize this one.
I'll just drop this if someone hasn't read it yet:
http://www.mrmoneymustache.com/2011/10/22/what-is-hedonic-adaptation-and-how-can-it-turn-you-into-a-sukka/
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Compliment publicly, criticize privately.
Shut up and listen. People will think you're a lot kinder and a lot smarter.
Care and feeding of the human body, including really basic stuff. I'm always amazed how many people don't know how to stop minor bleeding by holding pressure on it. They dap, wipe, and hop around. Sure, eventually most little cuts will stop bleeding despite all of that drama, but knowing what to do for a big-but-doesn't-need-stitches cut could save an expensive and time-consuming visit to an ER or urgent care.
Matt Frazier of No Meat Athlete likes to say "Don't ruin an apology with an excuse." I think there are exceptions to that ("Sorry I missed the meeting; I was in the hospital having my appendix out.") but often it's best to just apologize and leave it at that. No one cares about the traffic that you didn't plan for, the alarm clock that failed to go off, etc. I also think knowing that you're not going to use little things as excuses makes you better at planning for what could go wrong.
"If you're not early, you're late." Plan to arrive at least a few minutes early to everything. Nothing pisses me off more than the people I work with who are chronically late to everything. What they're telling me is that their time is more important than mine. For teenagers in particular, it's also good for keeping them safer and less stressed while driving or biking to their destination. No need to speed or try to make that almost-red light.
Radical Personal Finance had an interesting podcast about how to interact with police officers in a way that is respectful but still maintains your rights and keeps you out of trouble if you haven't done anything wrong. Letting them search your car without a warrant, for example, might seem like no big deal, but what happens when they find the Vicodin that your mechanic dropped in there? And being arrested, even wrongfully, even with your name totally cleared later, can really put a damper on your career options.
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Condoms are cheap. Children are expensive. You can get pregnant your first time. So use a prophylactic every time.
Girls can get very cheap to low cost birth control.
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I would show this on a monitor (4.5 minutes)...it's the video on understanding privilege. Then I would try to teach compassion and empathy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awGctTODPBk (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=awGctTODPBk)
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The difficulty I have trying to teach finance to teenagers is that they don't have enough money and they don't make enough money to care about it yet. I've been rolling around in my head different approaches to try and make it more interesting, but I'm not sure you can do much more than plant the seeds.
Remembering how the seeds got planted for me:
1. A presentation entitled "How to die as a millionaire without ever making more than 40k/yr" and it was just about saving $100.00/month.
2. A presentation entitled "The true costs of smoking" where they equated a cigarette habit to an annual two-week vacation in Hawaii. This planted the seed to think about all daily transactions/habits in terms of their accumulated cost.
Seeing friends that fell off the edge at one point or another, I am very reluctant to get caught in a half truth or misleading statement.
Talk to any drug user long enough about what was going on in their life when they started, and why they didn't immediately stop, and you're likely to hear some variation of "it actually does make you feel good at first."
If you tell kids that cigarettes are purely a marketing thing and purely bad for you and so forth, you're lying. It's great for the kids that believe you and never even try it, but some of them are going to try it anyway, and yea the first one they'll cough, but it is a drug and there is stimulation that happens. So you lied about that, what else did you lie about? Maybe heroin isn't so bad. Saying that smoking is stupid, not to start, when they might have older role models that are demonstrably not stupid that smoke, you've immediately lost credibility because you were overstating your case. Remember, nowadays they don't start smoking now, it's later, when they're working at a restaurant, and they get an additional break if they smoke, so they go hang out with the smokers and pretend, and eventually try it. Literally everyone I know under 30 who smokes, that is how they started.
Being honest about everything is important.
I think discussing that $70k/yr number that was bouncing around, the whole "more doesn't make you happier" might have resonated with me as a teenager.
And the cooking thing, yes, my life would have been massively better had I learned how to prepare food earlier. I always tuned it out because it was couched in making it healthy which meant making food that tasted bad in my mind, so don't emphasize the health benefits, just show how to prepare good, decently priced food, that will taste pretty good. You're competing with McDonald's so it's not like it's hard.
Boiled chicken with seasoning, crock pot pulled pork, chicken quesadillas using the boiled chicken and pre-shredded cheese, pastas (you'd be surprised how many kids haven't had anything besides spaghetti or mac n cheese). Fried rice, peas and carrots, steamed broccoli (esp with cheese), baked potato and sweet potato, sweet potato french fries omg. With two hours of their time you can walk through a dozen meals that all cost less than a dollar per person and take less than half an hour to make, and can be pre-made and are portable.
Going through simple decisions that can increase the health of food when you do go out to eat, like ordering light cheese on pizza or asking for an unbuttered bun at the burger place. Little things add up over time. "Don't clean your plate."
Could you imagine assigning "cook dinner and take a picture" to your students as homework? My parents would have been thrilled.
Good luck.
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COOK DINNER AND TAKE A PICTURE IS GENIUS.
I think I might try it.
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How to do basic maintenance on different appliances, etc. For example - changing the filter on your furnace, cleaning the filter on the vacuum or dishwasher, cleaning the gutters on your house, etc. How to start / check your furnace, how to program a thermostat ...
When we bought our house I had no idea how to do most of these things - thankfully my DH did, plus I found a book about home maintenance for dummies. :D
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I echo the poster who said that part of the problem with a lot of this extremely useful stuff is that it's too far away from high schoolers' experience for them to retain it or be interested in it. Basic maintenance on different appliances won't "stick" for kids who won't own any of those appliances for at least 5-10 years.
All this stuff is useful, but it really needs to be parsed for stuff that will actually be relevant for them as 16-18 year-olds, and presented in a way that will stick in their minds given their reality.
AND: Presented in a way that can make them actually physically DO something to reinforce it, as much as possible. Which is why the "make dinner and take a picture of it" is such a great idea.
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Taxes, witholding, etc. And how much of your gross income is taken up by them.
Ex: Gross annual salary = $50,000. What that actually means your take-home pay is. Broken down into how much you net per month.
Then out of that, how much you'll likely spend on health insurance, rent, etc.
Just kind of breaking things down so that their mindset is not, "Wow, someday I'll be making $50,000! I'll be freaking rich!"
Not to break their spirit early, but hopefully to help them have more respect for their pennies and dollars, and hopefully less likely to fling them out the window thinking they won't have to care about them when they have more money.
My business teacher (in 7th grade) did this for us with his paycheque. It was eye-opening.
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Rule of 72.
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A good TVM discussion is whether you would take $1 million today or a penny that doubles everyday for 30 days.