Money Still Doesn't Grow on Trees: A Parent's Guide to Raising Financially Responsible Teenagers and Young Adults

by Neale S. Godfrey, Tad Richards

A Teenager and His Money Will Soon Be Parted Unless ...

Now you can do the seemingly impossible: transform your spendthrift teenagers into financially responsible young adults.

With Neale S. Godfrey's fresh, practical, inspiring advice, you'll discover:

- How to help your teen choose his first car, the right bank, a safe credit card, a clothing budget, or a great summer job
- How much your child should work during high school and college
- Where, when, and how to leave a proper tip, find bargains, dress properly for an interview, and more
- PLUS: fun quizzes and step-by-step worksheets for you and your teen to plan and create a stable financial future

336 pages, Paperback

First published December 31, 2003

About the author

Neale started her career at The Chase Manhattan Bank, in 1972 and became one of the first female bankers in the industry. She than became President of The First Women’s Bank. While there, she noticed that her own small children thought “money grew on trees” and she then looked for books to teach them about money. There were none. So, Neale opened up a real bank for kids at FAO Schwarz in New York City and worked as a founding member to open up the Institute for Youth Entrepreneurship, in Harlem teaching underserved kids how to start a business. Both were a huge success.

The next step was to start writing books for kids and their parents to teach them to become money savvy. But since it wasn’t a topic that existed, the publishing companies were not willing to take a risk. So, Neale marshaled a leverage buy-out of a publishing company under the proviso that they would publish her first book. They did (of course, she was Chairman of the Board, so it wasn’t a stretch!). Neale created the Green$treets kids cartoon characters in order to entertain and educate kids. That first book, The Kids’ Money Book, was a success and that paved the way for Simon & Schuster to sign her up for her first adult book. With help from Oprah (Neale has appeared 13 times on Oprah), Money Doesn’t Grow On Trees: A Parent’s Guide To Raising Financially Responsible Children, soared to #1 on The New York Times, Best Seller’s List.

Today Neale has 26 books and financial literacy and ecological lessons for pre-school through high school. Neale reaches app. 2,000,000 parents and their kids via her programs. She is proud to be working with about 200,000 youth of military personnel, 110,000 youth of the National Urban League, 25,000 youth in the YWCA, and countless others. Neale also has STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Math) programs via the ECO-Effect™: The Greening of Money, book and web site. Visit www.ECO-Effect.net to teach your kids to save money and resources…and plant trees!!

Neale sits on the Board of the US Committee for UN Women. She has been honored with such awards as: “Woman of the Year”, “Banker of the Year”, “Child Advocate of the Year”, 50 Best Women in Business. She is also proud to assist our Wounded Warriors and their families and Vets, who have served our country through: EBV – Entrepreneurial Bootcamp for Veterans with Disabilities, V-Wise – Veteran Women Igniting the Spirit of Entrepreneurship, Give-An-Hour and the Community Blueprint. She is a member of YPO/WPO and is the proud mother of two amazing children and 2 even more amazing grandchildren.

Reviews

[Christine · Rating 4 out of 5]

I checked this book out to get some ideas for helping a teenager friend of ours learn how to budget. But it's a really great read - mistakes parents fall into ("my child deserves the best!") in teaching their children about money, how to give your kid a reality check about how much it costs to live in the real world (great for our friend who thinks he's going to be a construction worker and buy a corvette...) and what kind of peer pressure teenagers face with money (like the *need* to buy fancy presents for you and your girlfriend's 2 month anniversary...)

Besides being really practical, it's an easy and fun read. Even though I've got the information I was looking for, and I'm not worried about my 3-yr old's spending habits, I'm still reading it!

[Brenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

I borrowed this book from the library for some examples while working on a personal financial literacy curriculum this summer because when I was a little kid I liked to read my mom's copy of "Money Doesn't Grow on Trees: A Parent's Guide to Raising Financially Responsible Children." Yes I liked to read the parent's guide as a kid, I was a weird child like that. I originally was going to look for that book at the library knowing that it would be a bit dated since it was from the 1990s, but I was pleasantly surprised to find out there was a more recent version meant for providing teens with lessons in money management (2004 is still dated, but not as much as the other would have been, and nearly everything in terms of teaching money management still applies here). So after reading the chapter that I wanted to look at for work, I ended up reading the entire book just because I find personal financial literacy interesting (and a bit for nostalgia purposes).

[Kathrynn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a neat book with ideas on teaching children the responsbility of money and its value. I haven't read my copy in a very long time, but kept it!