The first thing I always want to say at Halloween time is for kids to make their own costumes instead of buying or renting them. Costumes and accessories are so expensive.

Yes, then teens look at me like I’m a peasant with three heads. What could be more embarrassing than a hokey homemade costume?

“But ahh, there’s the catch. I’m not going to make  it. You are.”

That didn’t quite work. It needed some serious spin. So then I tried this approach and finally got somewhere:

If you have any aspiring fashion designers at home, let them really have at it. Give them old clothes to really alter, rent them a sewing machine. Try to get a few friends involved for a group costume.

If teens aren’t inherently interested in putting together costumes, tell them that if they make their own, they can use the money they save to go out with, or throw a party with. If they get a group of friends, and their parents agree, they can save a lot and really throw a party.

Now, it’s arguable that if you allow them to spend the money they saved not buying a costume, what’s the point? Well, if you can afford it, you teach them the lesson that using available materials and doing things yourself can save a fortune. That fortune can add to your quality of life, such as a party. It is also conservationist. We have many materials around us all the time that can be transformed into new things.

This can apply to taking old clothes, like a skirt or shirt that your teen fashionista is tired of, and adding buttons, or accents of different cloth to make it a new style. It can apply to painting a room instead of hiring a painter, landscaping, repairing bathroom tile, building a shelf out of spare wood, a tire swing out of an old tire. Or even using worn out bicycle parts to make a garden sculpture if you have a budding artist.

This is the era of green, and they are the green generation. To be able to see materials for their value as raw ingredients in something new is such a valuable resourcefulness. It also enhances creativity, problem solving skills, and boosts confidence.

In fact, you can use this Halloween to start a monthly do-it-yourself project for your teen, and pay them for it. Have them choose a project needed to be done in the house and let them try to do it themselves. It’s best if they think of the project, but that may take a while. Jumpstart them with the first few ideas. Once they start repairing or improving something on their own, they’ll think of other things.

Cleaning out and organizing places, like garages or attics, can work as a do-it-yourself project. You can also allow them to keep raw materials, if you have the space, that they think would be good for other projects. Maybe get them a toolset for Christmas.

In the meantime, for the Halloween project: Gather old clothes from closets and attics, for costume materials, to cut and adorn. Any old clothes you have left over they can either stockpile for future costumes, or donate to Goodwill.

Price what their costume would have cost in a costume shop. Give them the difference.

I’m very interested in do-it-yourself projects that teens accomplish. And if they build something interesting, send a photo too!

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I’m always alarmed when students tell me how much they’re expected to pay for a single new textbook, even though I know all too well how much they cost.

At $100 a pop in some cases, this is such a serious expense, especially for students paying their own way. The fact that textbooks are now tax deductible under the Recovery and Reinvestment Act only helps a bit.

What really helps is to pay less to begin with.

The good news is that if college students don’t wait until the last minute, often that $100 text can be had for $5 on eBay, or Craig’s List, or used textbook sites that are popping up from demand.

The trick is for college students to start shopping for the textbooks the moment they register for Spring semester 2010.

When I asked one of my students why he paid $100 for a textbook that was available on eBay, or even Amazon for a discount under used books, he could only say: “I was in a hurry.” He waited until the semester began, so even if he could find the textbook he needed online–which he probably couldn’t, because they were all snatched up–he would have missed assignments and gotten behind if he had to wait for the book to ship.

The domino effect of poor planning, or no planning, is my favorite part because it’s such a multi-faceted money lesson for students.

So, here’s the path for college students to take for cheaper textbooks.

Get your college students to go to their advisors right now to decide on next semester’s classes. Register for classes the first day they can. (For incoming freshman this is of course the first step.) It’s past mid-term time now, so that day is upon us, or is coming very soon. Early registration is key.

After registering, go online and start comparison shopping: Amazon, eBay, Craig’s List, used textbook sites. Make sure to have your kids do due diligence on any textbook site they shop at. There should be a phone number to call if there’s a problem, or don’t let them shop there.

Buy the textbooks online ASAP. Sometimes used textbooks can be more damaged than anticipated when you buy them online for $1, so you want there to be ample time to return it, and try again.

Have college kids total the amount they spent for textbooks this time around, versus this present semester. If it’s your money they saved, and you can afford it, it might be nice to deposit the amount saved in their 529 college fund or savings account.

A bonus idea for enterprising college students: Once college students get the hang of comparison shopping textbooks, they could start a side business. They can tell their friends how much they saved registering early and shopping online. They can offer to comparison shop and purchase textbooks for fellow students in exchange for a set fee or a percentage of the money they save people.

They could even advertise this service on their Facebook pages.

I’m very curious to see if any students turn this into a side business. And of course I’d like to know how much money students are saving by buying used textbooks.

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We’ve talked about getting teens involved in fundraising as a summer job or internship when other jobs aren’t available, or if the lesson of raising public funds is of particular interest.

But if fundraising doesn’t appeal in a long term way, there is a one-time opportunity coming up sometime in the next month in most schools that would be good to get your teen involved in. And that means acting now.

Pretty much every school has annual fundraisers around the holidays—auctions, phone-a-thons, dances. The planning is already underway and these committees always need help. Have your teen sign up to volunteer in a substantial way.

Substantial means: Not just volunteering for setup or cleanup, but attending the event and volunteering during it. Or, if the school will allow, your teen should volunteer for actual soliciting of funds, maybe by way of a phone-a-thon, if there is one. In any case, your teen should attend the event.

There are many benefits for your teen. First of all, it’s fascinating to see how as we near the holiday season, people’s spending habits change. You’d think people would be more resistant spending on charity events before they have to spend on expensive holidays. We just saw a clear glimpse of how expensive in the holiday comparison shopping post.

But schools plan these fundraisers now for a reason. People are more generous as the year starts to wind down. Your teen can learn how adults budget for charity events and then for the holidays themselves. Share with them information about any donations you make.

They can also learn that donating time and goods—clothing, food, old toys, their time— can be a great substitute if the family is strapped for cash this holiday season. Being part of a fundraiser can create good charitable habits.

The main thing they’ll learn is just how much goes into planning a fundraiser, and the delicate touch it takes to get people to donate money to a cause. These sales skills are applicable to all endeavors, even your teen’s own financial planning.

Best of all: Being part of a fundraiser looks fantastic on a college application. Very mature and worldly.

And if your teens are slow getting into the school year, now that we’re more than one month in, this will help them engage and become more devoted. Raising awareness about how the school operates, why it raises funds, and how much effort faculty and school staff put into the educational experience will help your teen develop respect for their school.

I’m curious how involved different schools allow teens to be. Please share any stories.

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When I was at the high school yesterday for a Board meeting, I literally ran into one of the seniors when she plowed into my back, her nose in her cell phone, madly texting.

I should have known better than to think she was merely chatting with a friend, even though she was late for class. This senior is one of those enterprising ones, the sort who makes me remember my incredibly lazy high school days with embarrassment.

“Do you use an online travel agent?” she asked.

First of all, I can’t remember the last time I could afford to go anywhere. Second, what’s an online travel agent?

“I’ve used Expedia,” I said.

She wasn’t impressed. She was trying to comparison shop airline tickets to have her favorite aunt come for Thanksgiving, an aunt who said she couldn’t afford to fly across the country from California to New York this year.

“Even Travelocity is better than Expedia. We’re still more than 30 days out, best price so far is $267 if she leaves the Saturday before. I’ll ask for donations from every family member. Can’t be that much each. I have a big family.”

She ran off to Calculus and I stood there, thoroughly impressed by her planning skills and strategy. And, of course, it then occurred to me to turn this one-month-in-advance sweet spot in time into a money lesson for teens that aren’t so enterprising without a little nudge.

What all teens are good at is online comparison shopping, if you put it to them the correct way, as in: Pretend you’re buying something for yourself, and you desperately want it, but have a limited budget. They instantly become Google Jedis.

So, here’s the holiday money lesson to hand your teenagers this weekend, while there’s still 30 days before Thanksgiving. It may save you a bundle, while showing them how expensive holidays can be:

1. If your family is traveling somewhere, have them do a cost analysis of the trip, by creating a ledger of line item expenses. Before you tell them which line items to include, see what they come up with on their own. It’s interesting to see which expenses they’re aware of, and which ones don’t come across their radar.

Ultimately, the line items for travel should include Travel, Lodging, Daily Expenses.

First, will there be air travel for the family (or cost of car travel). Air travel means asking if there are frequent flier miles available for any or all of the family, and then seeing if they’re worth using, or if the flights are cheap enough that the miles should be saved for another time. It also means comparing flight routes and possible days of departure.

Car travel means calculating gas and parking costs. Maybe train travel is another option. Have them look into all transportation options.

Then they should include whether the family is staying at a relative’s house, or at a hotel. If a hotel, have them comparison shop hotel prices online. Also include rental car, parking, and gas costs if they apply.

2. If you are staying home this Thanksgiving, let your teens do the grocery shopping, and any other related expenses. If your family is entertaining this Thanksgiving, expenses add up quickly.

First of all, you buy a lot more food and possibly wine. If you host guests, there may be outings that are costly. Have your teen create a ledger of line item expenses for all these costs.

The ledger should include: Consulting about the size of the turkey (or whatever your traditions are) and then comparison shopping the best place to get what you’re looking for. Many people order turkeys now or pretty soon. Then: other food, comparison shopping the price of any wine or beer online or on the phone (naturally you can’t send them out to get these items). I include the liquor not to invite aghast emails, but because it’s a considerable expense that we end up paying. Then other expenses, such as an ice skating or movie outings for the extended family.

When it comes to activities, have the teens brainstorm what would be fun and at what cost.

If it’s possible, compare what costs your teens come up with to what you spent last year. Really go to some effort to look up last year because it will be very satisfying to the kids to know.

I’m curious if they save you money. My bet is they will, simply by creating awareness early and then planning. We’re all so busy we tend to shop last minute (I’m the absolute worst when it comes to that). Last minute shopping is always expensive. To have everything mapped out in advance is a great lesson in planning, too. Maybe it will spill over onto their schoolwork. Hey, I can dream, can’t I?

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Our teenagers should understand that by the time they’re teens, just starting up that hill to adulthood as we reach down from the top to give them a hand, their grandparents are starting their descent down. And we have to keep a watchful eye on their grandparents, our parents, so they don’t trip and fall on the way down the hill. Sometimes we have to run down, help them walk along, and then run back up to keep an eye on our teens’ ascent, all in the same moment.

As parents of teens, we are collectively the age where we must parent both our kids and our parents. This isn’t a new phenomenon, but boy does this economy make it tough, especially in a country as spread out as ours.

We live in a huge country, and it’s common that a family of origin is spread out: I live in New York, my mother lives in Washington, D.C., my brother in Los Angeles. Teens don’t learn about generational hand-me-downs like they do in other cultures, in smaller countries where grandparents, adult children, and kids are born and raised and still live in the same town.

By the way, there is a lot of intimacy lost in our spread out existence, as well as additional expenses for us adults with both teenagers to raise and parents to care for. (I was teasing my husband that in a pack of gorillas I think they call the adults with both elders and offspring to care for “mature males.” What do you know about that? Inevitable maturity for gorillas, but not necessarily for humans.)

Okay, so here’s a way to foster a connection between the young and old generation that may be lost in your family, especially if you don’t live near your parents and your teens only see grandma and grandpa on holidays.

Put your teens in charge of comparison shopping something in your parents lives: If they are local, it could be grocery shopping. Have your teen do the shopping. They have the energy to go to different stores for better prices, or even just carry cheaper bulk quantities of things they love, like seltzer or tonic water. Or, as we discovered in the Turn Trash into Cash post, there are so many things that can be purchased in bulk.

Your teen can also help organize bulk purchases for their grandparents,by cleaning out storage space in the garage, basement, or attic for bulk items, and bringing them out as needed.

The grocery shopping challenge for your teen also means they’ll see their grandparents at least once a week. What could be a better benefit than that? And helping their grandparents will feel so good to them.

Put the money they save on weekly grocery shopping–or any other comparison shopping ideas we’ll list here in a moment–into a 529 College Savings Account for your teen. Think of it as a living inheritance. That way, it’s not paying them to care for the grandparents, which has negative connotations. Having the grandparents contribute to a college fund in an indirect way will make everyone in the family feel good. And of course your parents are of the age and generation that will be proud to see their grandkids earning their college education.

Here are some other ideas for comparison shopping, some of which are easily done long distance. Do have your teen keep a monthly ledger of how much they’ve saved. It can be an online one that they even mail to their grandparents. Have them chart the expense, and then the reduction in expense, per month, for one year. If they enjoy the project, they don’t ever have to stop. It can be something they do for their grandparents from college, from 20something adulthood wherever they are.

Ideas that can be accomplished long distance, by having grandparents send the bills for these things. Teens can research better deals online, and by calling customer service departments.
1. Phone service, both landline and cell phone.
2. Car insurance.
3. Cable TV or satellite TV service.

One more idea for teens if grandparents are local: Have your teen go through their grandparents house and see what needs to be repaired or maintained. If the teen can do the repair him or herself–such as painting a room–then have them do that, for a small monetary reward that goes into the college fund. If it’s a repair that requires some kind of contractor, let your teen do the research, set up appointments, and choose a contractor for their grandparents.

Please share any experiences with teens taking care of grandparents in this way. And any thoughts from grandparents on how they feel about the experience would be more than welcome.

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I must say I’m liking these carbon footprint money lessons. You can jump right in without any preamble because teen awareness about the effects of consumption and wastefulness is already being raised at school, and among their peers. Because teens are so aware, monetizing conservation has a better chance of sticking with them than many other money lessons.

So let’s keep these ideas rolling like a trash can on wheels. If you have carbon footprint money lessons, games, or policies at your house, share them!

Trash and recycling. These are now your teen’s domain. Taking out the trash is a time honored job for teens, so it’s about time it had an upgrade. When I say teens can “take out” the trash, I mean get rid of as much trash production as possible.

The number one point of this trash challenge is for your household to stop producing so much trash per week. My husband is shrinking over there on the sofa as I write this. I honestly have no idea how one man can produce so much waste. When we started this challenge at my house, we had the carbon footprint of King Kong.

Explain to your teen–and it won’t be the first time they’ve heard it–that it’s not enough to put a plastic water bottle into the recycle bin. You have to stop buying and using so many plastic bottles. Go ahead and Google photos of landfills and recycling plants if you need the point to hit home.

What I love most about this conservation concept is what a perfect analogy it is for saving money. Spend less, have more. Simple. Learn to live within your means from day one, you’ll always have money. As my father used to say: If you don’t live within your means when you make $30,000, you won’t live within your means when you make $100,000.

So here’s the teen trash and recycle challenge:

1. Have them count how many trash bags are taken out of the house and into the outside trash bin for weekly collection. They need a beginning one-week measure of trash. Have them start a graph chart. Week 1, Week 2, Week 3, etc. across the top, and then # of trash bags running in a vertical column. Each week they find a point on their graph: How many bags of trash. This beginning measure is Week 1.

The graph chart is important here because they need to see progress, which direction they’e moving.

2. Week 2: At the beginning of Week 2, when they have that beginning measure in mind–say 4 bags of trash per week–have them write down three trash saving ideas for the family to do for Week 2.

(Do start the Week on the day of trash pickup so you’ve got an empty trash bin outside your house. Once you start reducing trash, it will be gratifying to see that bin less full.

Some examples of trash saving ideas: Don’t use sandwich bags in lunch boxes, use reusable containers. (Have you teens save their lunch trash, by the way, and bring it home, to show how much they’re really wasting. They’ll hate this idea at first, but just tell them to shove the trash in their backpacks. It’s part of the challenge, and there will be a monetary reward at the end of the challenge.) Instead of buying canned dog food, you can buy some meat and a big bag of the dry dog kibble and cook for the dog. Buying low grade ground beef in bulk amounts is cheaper anyway. Dog food costs add up and often the cans aren’t recyclable.

The great thing about trash conservation ideas is that they’re often money saving ideas. If you use tupperware for school lunches instead of going through hundreds of plastic baggies, you’ll spend less. It’s a also return on investment lesson. You buy the tupperware once at a certain price; say $4 for a container that holds a sandwich. Check the price of a box of sandwich baggies. By the time you have saved X number of sandwich baggies that equals $4, you’ve made the return on your investment. After that moment–if they haven’t lost the tupperware top at school or melted it in the dishwasher–the use of that tupperware is all profit.

3. For recycling, tell them to make another chart. Call it Trash 2, because they should still think of something they throw out, even if it’s reused in some way, as producing waste. This has the same Week 1, Week 2, etc. across the top of the chart, and # of recycled items running vertically. Of course they’ll need room on this chart for those numbers to go much higher. With trash bags, you probably won’t run more than 10 in your vertical column, but with the # of recycled items, who knows how high you’ll go.

Have them count the # of recycled items thrown out in Week 1, use that number as a baseline again. The challenge in Week 2 is to reduce the # of recycled items in the bin.

4. At the beginning of Week 2, have your teen think of two recycling reduction ideas for the family to follow. One easy example is plastic water bottles or soda cans. Get a reusable water bottle and fill it up. Buy large soda jugs instead of cans. Buy big tubs of yogurt instead of the individual serving size. In fact, if your teens aren’t aware of the bulk section at your grocery store, show it to them. Definitely bring your teen grocery shopping with the idea of researching trash reduction. Or if your grocery store doesn’t have a bulk section, go to one that does. You can buy so many things in bulk, and keep everything fresh–food items like nuts, cereal, rice, pasta–in airtight containers.

5. For every bag of trash they save per week, give teens a dollar amount to put into savings. Do the same for the # of recycled items they reduce per week (smaller amount of course, to make it relative).

I say savings here instead of spending money because it’s such a great metaphor for conservation, who can resist? Besides, let them see how savings add up when you save. It’s the corollary to witnessing how much less waste your family will produce. You could even start a carbon footprint savings account for your teen, and in a year, see how much money they’ve saved from this trash challenge, or the gas and electric challenge.

Keep up this challenge for as long as you can. After a certain point, there may be weeks, or months, that go by without much reduction. But to maintain focus on conservation, and always hold out the possibility for reward, will eventually inspire new ideas. And it’s so great for them to keep a long-term chart. It will only take them a minute each week.

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My students get very self righteous about the fact that our generation destroyed the planet for them. Hmm, I seem to recall that once upon a time I was young enough to blame my parents for the same thing.

Never mind that. I feel old enough today not to go there. The point is that I’m sick of hearing it and being the blame magnet, so, let them walk the talk.

Gas. Electric. I hope they like to mantra, because these are your teen’s new responsibility, their new best friend, their milieu for showing up us old wasteful folk. They’ll see it’s hard to be green, but you save money if you are. And you know they’ll teach us a thing or two. I can handle that, as long as they’re suffering, too.

Four steps to this money-saving utilities project:

1. Give your teen the gas and electric bill for the last year. They need a whole year because they need to see how different seasons affect consumption. For instance, in our house, the heat is gas, so winter is more expensive.

2. Have them divide usage by quarter, or season. Have them make a chart for how much money was spent on gas and how much on electric during the Fall, Winter, Spring, and Summer. I start with Fall only because it’s Fall now. You can start any time.

3. Then put them to the task of being the consumption police for this season. See if they can save money. They’ll remember to turn lights off, research new bulbs that run more efficiently, and turn down the heat if everyone is away at school and work during the day. If they save money, give them a prize, like the amount they saved, for their savings account, or investment account.

4. Also, ask them if they’ll take on another project. One suggestion: investigating what sort of changes can be made in the home that can be both green and save money–insulation, new bulbs, transforming heating systems. Ask them how long it would take to get a return on investment.

That’s a great concept for them to learn. Since they know how much utilities cost, they’re ready to apply this knowledge. Explain that when you buy something, like a new heating system, the length of time it takes for that new system to pay for itself is the return on investment, or ROI.

So, if a heating system costs $1,000 but saves $50 per month in heating bills, and you heat the house six months out of the year, how long until that system pays for itself? Don’t answer it for them! Also critical for them to factor in is how long the system is expected to last. If it’s less than the length of time it takes to pay for itself, that’s not a viable return on investment.

Next time we’ll set up a trash and recycle program and let them tackle that.

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I’ve decided I’m going to invent a board game. Forget Monopoly, let’s play Bankruptcy. Actually, the game is called DEBT. My husband says Bankruptcy is too harsh.

We can teach kids about budgets and keeping records and drafting ledgers, but unless we put into practice paying off debt when there’s no money left at the end of the month, we’ve fallen short.

The whole point about crushing debt is that there is no money to pay it off. Yet we have to, or we’re trapped for life. Could there be a more perfect time for this game? They can see the micro in their own homes, the macro in our economy.

So here we go, a game to teach them about paying off debt. And hopefully, when they see how hard it is, they’ll be more mindful about living within their means to begin with.

When I talk to my students about living within your means, I always start by saying that when I learned about money management and buying a house, the popular thinking of the day, way back at the dawn of time, was that your monthly nut for your mortgage shouldn’t be more than 20 percent of your income.

Ha. That percentage inched its way up to 50 percent (and sometime more!) by the time the mortgage crisis exploded last year. An impossible situation.

The game:
Rule 1. Create a fake ledger with these variables of monthly expenses:

• Rent
• Food
• Car insurance
• Health insurance
• Utilities–gas, electricity, landline phone, water, cable/satellite TV
• Transportation
• Cell phone
• Clothing
• Entertainment
• Savings

Rule 2. Estimate monthly costs for each: Break them down very granularly, with dollar amounts assigned to line items, such as gas money under transportation. (You’ll see in a moment that by doing this, teens see what they might have to give up in order to pay off debt. They may have to lower that whole category cost by taking the bus instead of driving a car). Have your teen or college student do this. It’s interesting to see what prices they come up with. They can research online, too.

Rule 3. Whatever the total of all monthly costs equals, tell your teen that’s their monthly revenue. The point is, all the money that comes in is devoted to one of the 10 items above.

Rule 4. Now tell them to add a separate category called DEBT. Tell them this is credit card debt. Make the amount equal to their yearly salary, in this example. Tell them that every month, they’re going to need to pay some of this debt off. I use credit card debt because it’s the most popular debt in America, and I personally believe that revolving credit is one of the worst fiscal habits humans have.

Also credit card debt is dangerous and they should know that. Nothing ruins your credit rating worse than bad credit card debt, or even carrying too big a balance for too long. These days, a big balance that affects your credit rating is $1,000. Not too long ago, it was $10,000. Talk about a barometer of the economy and how risk averse lenders are.

Rule 5. Have them roll a die, a regular die with numbers up to six. If they roll a one, they have to pay toward credit card debt from one of the categories above, and they have to pay at least $1. So, for example, your teen rolls a 1. They may choose to take $1 from the Savings category, and send it off to pay the credit card debt. They keep score by subtracting from the debt total. So, say their total debt is $5,000. Now they owe $4,999. You can have as many players as you want, and first one to pay off their debt wins.

Another example for clarity sake: If they roll a 2, then they have to take at least $1 from two categories, so maybe Savings and Entertainment. And so on for rolling a 3, 4, 5, 6. They can choose to pay more than $1 any time they want. That’s part of the strategy. Now, they have to still pay rent, and insurance, so they’ll quickly learn where they can and cannot cut corners.

Rule 6. Another variable in the game is that players can “get a side job.” Once players have paid at least $100 toward their credit card debt, they make take a turn by getting a job instead of rolling the die. The job pays twice as much as the debt they’ve paid at that point. So, for starters, their monthly salary is $200.

This is a strategy point as well. Some kids will start the game off by being reluctant to take money away from their fun categories, peeling off only a dollar at a time, minimum requirement. But some kids will quickly learn that if they drain all savings and entertainment for just one month, they’ll get a job and pay off their debt faster, which in turn ultimately gives them more money to spend and save from that point on.

Rule 7. To lower expenses: Earlier I used the example of gas money becoming unaffordable as you pay off debt. Driving a car affects two expenses: gas and car insurance. So, for ambitious players who want to pay off all debt faster and win, they may say they’ll give up driving for a while and take the bus. They need to calculate what that tradeoff will cost, and on their turn, wait to roll a 2 and give all the gas and car insurance money toward paying off the credit car. Later in the game, if they have a job and all is rolling along, they may decide to reinstate their car.

You might be surprised how this can mimic real life.

Please try this game at home, and I encourage adults to play with your teens. Let me know how it goes.

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I’m becoming one of those people. It’s not even Halloween and I’m already thinking about Christmas shopping. I used to be the person who lectured about how pre-marketing makes us spend more money, no matter how much we convince ourselves that planning ahead reduces stress and can save money because you have time to comparison shop.

But now I’m sitting here telling myself that nothing is on sale right before Christmas, but it is now as every retailer in America tries to boost pre winter earnings. Besides, it’s a tough year, and if I don’t start thinking about it now, I won’t be able to afford Christmas.

A-ha! And that’s where the thought crept in: I could create a family challenge game for the kids: Whoever saves the biggest percentage of their earnings for Christmas by December 15th wins. The percentage levels the playing field if you have kids of significantly different ages and revenue streams. An allowance-only 13 year old doesn’t stand a chance against a babysitting 17-year-old if they go dollar to dollar in a competition.

The prize is to have those savings matched. And your teens, or college students, get to keep the prize money. The savings they actually save goes to either buying presents for the family, or, depending on your family traditions, to a charity.

The game will teach them about the stock market and pacing themselves.

Now, here’s the interesting part of the game: Understanding what a fiscal quarter is. As you teach kids about the economy and investing, this concept needs to be clear. There is a lot of expectation in the real world for companies to produce on quarterly basis, and report on a quarterly basis. It helps people keep track, keeps people honest.

It’s a good habit to put fiscal quarter thinking into your kids’ lives. And this is a great quarter to do it. If you’ve been following our posts on investing in the stock market, you may know that the end of September (end of the 3rd quarter) and the beginning of October (start of the 4th quarter) are very important times in the stock market. After 3rd quarter earnings reports–what corporations have actually earned, versus what they predicted they’d earn–the stock market traditionally rises in October. Those reports are happening right now. Turn on the financial news and let your kids watch the stock market reaction.

The reason the 3rd quarter earnings are so significant is that economists begin to see what the entire year will look like. After all, there’s only one quarter left. Kids tend to think of the year in school year terms, and understanding how the calendar year is broken up will help them understand investing.

Now, they do have a natural, built-in basis for understanding fiscal quarters: seasons. Fall is the season for back-to-school, getting down to business. Same is true in the business world. So it should be a great time for savings.

To track their savings, and show them how to make most of the fiscal quarter, have them do the following three steps.

1. Keep a monthly ledger of income and expenses and savings).

2. Have them evaluate how much they’ve saved at the end of October, and come up with ideas how to save more. Another odd job? Less spending?

3. At the end of November, have them compare their saving performance from month one to month two. Then have them set an accelerated goal for the last two weeks.

4. Have them compare their last two weeks to the rest of their fiscal quarter. Did they save more at the end than at any other time? Chances are yes, and you can explain that businesses tend to have the same patterns toward the end of a quarter, often because they’ve spent their budgets. Or, because they want to make their numbers look good.

The point of this exercise is like the point of sports team drills: how pacing yourself, and then examining performance, can actually enhance performance. Fiscal quarter thinking can translate to a lot of life issues.

They can play this game with school work, for instance. If they take their worst subject, say math, and decide they’re going to make an effort to improve their performance in one fiscal quarter, what would they do? Spend an extra hour a week working on it? Getting a tutor? Joining a study group? Going to teachers’ office hours?

They can try something for the first month, see if the grades they’re getting improve. The next month, they can add more effort, see what the yield is. Like long distance running, at first it’s pacing, and by the end it’s pulling out all the stops and going for whatever your goal is.

Most teens procrastinate and then cram. That would be like doing nothing to boost earnings–or savings–until December 1, and then gunning for the last two weeks.

That’s what I did in school, and many adults have those habits. If kids think like businesses have to, they will plan their time better for everything in their lives.

I would love to hear back in December if anyone tries this Q4 Savings Plan.

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