I know I’ve hit a good topic when my husband starts squirming on the sofa. Maybe it’s the new year, but I’m in the mood for handing out good doses of reality to the kids in my life.

I can make up all sorts of games for my students to learn about paying bills. Or, for a change, just let them do it. If you use online bill pay, put your teen in charge of this duty for the next month, and without saying a word more, see what the experience inspires. What will they have to say after paying bills for a month? Please write in and tell me, I’m dying to know.

Okay, here’s what to do:

1. Your teen is responsible for getting and sorting the mail. You can choose whether they pay each bill as it comes, or if they pay all the monthly bills on a certain day. You don’t have to give them a reason for which way you want to do it, if say, you don’t want to reveal that you need to wait for checks each week.

2. To pay the bill, the teen looks at the bill, makes sure it’s okay. They may need to ask you whether it looks correct. If it is correct, they log on online, pay it. If it’s not correct, they’ll need to call customer service for, say, the phone company, and say there’s a mistake. Stay on another phone extension the first few times they do this. Great lesson.

3. Then the teen needs to create a filing system for the hard copies. Let them invent their own. The whole idea is to see what they’ll do. Give them a filing cabinet–or box–and some folders to label. Tell them that each bill should have the date it was paid written on it, and any other pertinent information.

4. Then they should log the payment information in Quick Books or whatever other accounting system you use, so they can see weekly and monthly expense totals.

Every teen will learn many valuable lessons from this exercise. If they like it, have them keep doing it. Most fascinating is the questions they’ll come up with, or ideas for cutting expenses. Do try and implement their ideas when they have them.

I think this is a great job to pay a teen for, in the form of allowance. Especially if they have to deal with customer service departments!

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