Teach Your Teens About Money by Linda DiProperzio We.Tv

 Teach Your Teens About Money 

We.TV 

By Linda DiProperzio 

November 19, 2012 

 

If our current economy proves anything, it’s that the sooner you start teaching your teens about the value of a dollar, the better. “The rate of personal saving in the United States has been low for years—and it has declined even further as the slow economic recovery continues to put pressure on family budgets,” said Annette D. Szygiel, executive vice president and chief experience officer at Univest Corporation. “The U.S. Department of Commerce recently reported that Americans’ personal saving rate was under four percent in May. Now more than ever, parents must do everything possible to encourage their children to develop strong money-saving habits.” 

 

In fact, research shows that 86 percent of teens learn about money management from their parents. Make sure you put your teen on the road to financial success with these tips. 

 

Show them the ropes. The cost of running your household should not be a secret, says Tiffany “The Budgetnista” Aliche, who bought her first home at 25. “One of the reasons many teens don’t have respect for money, is because they don’t see how it directly affects their lives outside of purchasing things that they want. Change that perception by showing your teen the bills and highlighting how much they cost each month.” 

 

Take them children shopping. According to Szygiel, the grocery store is a great place to show kids how to compare prices (the price per ounce, for example). “Show them that just because something is on sale doesn’t mean it’s the best value.” 

 

Don’t be an ATM. Teaching teens about money starts by giving them the opportunity to manage it, says Jennifer Calonia, a personal finance expert and editor for Go Banking Rates. “Providing a small weekly allowance is a good way to start ($20 per week, for example). Then, lay down strict rules that they need to keep their daily wants/needs within their allowance budget because you’re not going to supply them with more cash.” 

 

Use the “three envelope” method. Have your teen separate his money into three categories: spend, save and give, says Kat Hnatyshyn, a Community America Savin Maven and branch manager. “This will teach them the importance of not just spending, but saving and giving back. In addition, explain the concept of interest and give them an example of how their money can add up over time if they choose to save some of it. If they can learn from an earlier age to save, spend and give smartly, they are more likely to carry these lessons with them throughout life.” 

 

Save cash gifts. “While it’s important to give teens a chance at handling cash and balancing expenses, it’s equally important to teach them how to save money,” says Calonia. “Encourage them to deposit 60 percent of all cash gifts from birthdays, Christmas, graduations, etc. into a high-yield savings account. Then establish a timeframe when your teen is allowed to withdraw the funds (e.g. at the end of each year or upon reaching 18 years of age).” 

 

Allow your teen to make money mistakes. It’s time to withdraw those funds and your teen decides to blow it all on a pair of trendy sneakers. While it might not be the wisest decision, let her do what she wants with that money, says Szygiel. “Whether the decisions are good or bad, they will learn from their spending choices.” 

 

Make it visual. Take a cue from those charts that schools use to showcase their fundraising efforts and have your teen create one for their savings, says Aliche. “Help them choose a specific financial goal and its corresponding reward (i.e. $6,000 for a car). Then create a chart where they track their progress. Put the chart somewhere they will see it each day. Teens are very visual and are stimulated when they can make clear connections between their behavior and rewards. You can also up ante by promising to match their savings up to a certain amount.” 

 

Distinguish between “wants” and “needs.” The next time you’re out shopping and they want to spend away, try this: Tell them that instead of buying the item then and there, you’re both going to leave the store and they can think about the purchase for a day, suggests Allyson Austin, finance writer at Grandparents.com. “If after a day, they still want it, it’s theirs. More often than not, they’ll change their minds. Like with so many adults, being in a store can make their eyes larger than their pockets, blurring the line between something they have their heart set on and an impulse buy.” 

Moon Investments

From The New York Times:

For a time Mr. Moon lived in an 18-acre compound in Irvington, N.Y., which Ms. Hong described as having a ballroom, two dining rooms (one with a pond and waterfall), a kitchen with six pizza ovens and a bowling alley upstairs. The church owned another estate, Belvedere, in nearby Tarrytown. Farther north along the Hudson River, the church founded the Unification Theological Seminary in Barrytown, N.Y. On its Web site, it sometimes is referred to as “U.T.S.: The Interfaith Seminary.” Mr. Moon’s business ventures in South Korea at one time or another included construction, hospitals, schools, ski resorts, newspapers, auto parts, pharmaceuticals, beverages and a professional soccer team. He also had commercial interests in Japan, where right-wing nationalist donors were said to be one source of financing.

In the United States, Mr. Moon had interests in commercial fishing, jewelry, fur products, construction and real estate. He bought many properties in the New York area, including the New Yorker Hotel in Midtown Manhattan and the Manhattan Center nearby.

At one time or another he controlled newspapers including Noticias del Mundo and The New York City Tribune; four publications in South Korea; a newspaper in Japan, The Sekai Nippo; The Middle East Times in Greece; Tiempos del Mundo in Argentina; and Últimas Noticias in Uruguay. In 2000, a church affiliate bought what was left of United Press International.

The extent of his holdings was somewhat of a mystery, but one figure gives a clue: Mr. Moon acknowledged that in the two decades since the founding of The Washington Times in 1982, he pumped in more than $1 billion in subsidies to keep it going.

The church said its various operations earned tens of millions of dollars a year worldwide.

In their book “Cults and New Religions” (2006), Mr. Bromley and Douglas E. Cowan wrote that according to church doctrine, a member “recognizes Moon’s messianic status, agrees to contribute to the payment of personal indemnity for human sinfulness, and looks forward to receiving the marital Blessing and building a restored world of sinless families.”

Self-Proclaimed Messiah

Sun Myung Moon was born on Jan. 6, 1920, in a small rural town in what is now North Korea, according to his official biography. When he was 10, his family joined the Presbyterian Church. When he was a teenager, around Easter 1935, according to Unification Church lore, Jesus appeared to him and anointed him God’s choice to establish the kingdom of heaven on earth.

A secular education beckoned, and in 1941 Mr. Moon entered Waseda University in Japan, where he studied electrical engineering. Two years later he returned to Korea and married Sun Kil Choi, who bore him a son. In 1946, leaving them behind, he moved to Pyongyang, now the capital of North Korea, to found the Kwang-Ya Church, a predecessor of the Unification Church. He was imprisoned by the Communist authorities, and later said that they had tortured him.

He was freed in 1950 — by United Nations forces, his official biography says — and was said to have walked 320 miles to Pusan, on the southern tip of the Korean Peninsula. There, as the account goes, he built a church with United States Army ration boxes and lived in a mountainside shack.

Despite the centrality of marriage in his developing theology, Mr. Moon divorced Ms. Choi in 1952 (something that was glossed over in the official biography) and the following year moved to Seoul, where he founded the Unification Church in 1954. Within a year, about 30 church centers had sprung up.

Before the decade was out, he published “The Divine Principle,” a dense exposition of his theology that has been revised several times; in her book, Ms. Hong, his daughter-in-law, said it was written by an early disciple based on Mr. Moon’s notes and conversation. He sent his first church emissaries to Japan, the source of early growth, and the United States, and began building his Korean business empire.

Rumors of sexual relations with disciples, which the church denied, dogged the young evangelist, and he fathered a child in 1954. In 1960, Mr. Moon married the 17-year-old Hak Ja Han, who would bear him 13 children and be anointed “true parent.”

He embarked on world tours over the next decade and in 1972 settled in the United States, seeing it as the promised land for church growth. “I came to America primarily to declare the New Age and new truth,” he is quoted as saying in the book “Sun Myung Moon and the Unification Church.”

He took an interest in politics, urging that President Richard M. Nixon be forgiven for his role in the Watergate crisis. Church leaders plotted a strategy to defend the president and held rallies in support of Nixon that drew thousands to Yankee Stadium, Madison Square Garden and the National Mall.

Mr. Moon’s interests expanded into film when a church-linked company backed the 1982 movie “Inchon,” a $42 million Korean War epic notable for bad reviews and the casting of Laurence Olivier as Gen. Douglas MacArthur.

A Litany of Scandals

In the late 1970s, Mr. Moon came under the scrutiny of federal authorities, mainly over allegations that he was involved in efforts by the South Korean government to bribe members of Congress to support President Park Chung-hee. A Congressional subcommittee said there was evidence of ties between Mr. Moon and Korean intelligence, and that the church had raised money and moved it across borders in violation of immigration and local charity laws.

Then, in October 1981, Mr. Moon was named in a 12-count federal indictment. He was accused of failing to report $150,000 in income from 1973 to 1975, a sum consisting of interest from $1.6 million that he had deposited in New York bank accounts in his own name, according to the indictment.

“I would not be standing here today if my skin were white and my religion were Presbyterian,” Mr. Moon said after the charges were announced. “I am here today only because my skin is yellow and my religion is Unification Church.”

He called the case a government conspiracy to force him out of the country.

Mr. Moon was convicted the next year of tax fraud and conspiracy to obstruct justice and sentenced to 18 months in prison. He was assigned to kitchen duty.

As his church’s fortunes declined in the United States, Mr. Moon revised his pro-American views. In a 1997 speech, he said America had “persecuted” him. He also attacked homosexuals and American women.

Mr. Moon and his church largely dropped from public view in the late ’90s and 2000s, but once in a while they attracted attention. In 2001, a Roman Catholic archbishop from Zambia, Emmanuel Milingo, married a Korean woman in a multiple wedding performed by Mr. Moon. The archbishop then renounced the union.

One of the more bizarre moments in Mr. Moon’s later years came on March 23, 2004, at what was described as a peace awards banquet, held at the Dirksen Senate Office Building in Washington. Members of Congress were among the guests. At one point Representative Danny K. Davis, an Illinois Democrat, wearing white gloves, carried in on a pillow one of two gold crowns that were placed on Mr. Moon and his wife.

Some of the members of Congress said they had no idea that Mr. Moon was to be involved in the banquet, though it was hosted by the Interreligious and International Federation for World Peace, a foundation affiliated with the Unification Church.

At the banquet, Mr. Moon said emperors, kings and presidents had “declared to all heaven and earth that Reverend Sun Myung Moon is none other than humanity’s savior, messiah, returning lord and true parent.”

He added that the founders of the world’s great religions, along with figures like Marx, Lenin, Hitler and Stalin, had “found strength in my teachings, mended their ways and been reborn as new persons.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2012/09/03/world/asia/rev-sun-myung-moon-founder-of-unification-church-dies-at-92.html

The Juice Cleanse by Caity | March 6, 2012

 

The Juice Cleanse 

Moi Contre La Vie

by Caity

March 6th, 2012 

 

MOI CONTRE LA VIE

An ongoing love affair with all things fashionable, tasty and fun 

http://moicontrelavie.com

 

 

Yes, you read that right. I - the woman who can’t live without hummus, quinoa or red wine - drank nothing but juice for three days. Ok wait, let me start from the beginning. 

I blame Groupon. 100%. 

First there was a Groupon, then there was a brilliant health-oriented plan between friends, then there was juice. Alright, you’re all caught up now. 

Let me preface this by saying, I love green juice. LOVE IT. I have a juicer and I’ve been happily chugging fruits and vegetables for over a year now – celery, cucumber, spinach, carrots, kale, strawberries, apples, beets…

Beets are my favorite. That alone should tell you how much I love me some fresh green juice. That being said, I love to eat. Whether I’m hungry or not – which, to be honest, I usually am – I love the act of eating. I love cooking and grocery shopping and preparing my food. And eating. Getting my drift? 

So we signed ourselves up to receive 18 “tonics” over the course of three days from My Celebrity Chef - a San Francisco based company which boasts local, sustainable, organic products. 

My goal for this “cleanse” is just to reset my body after a few weekends of unnecessary excess. January & February had lots of great weekends and celebrations, but between anniversaries, birthdays, Valentine’s Day and CrossFit competitions, there’s been too much wine, too much eating out, too much processed food and way too much Diet Coke. I want to get back to my primarily fresh fruit & vegetable-based diet and I thought that this cleanse would be a good way to jumpstart that change. 

My friend Arianna and I both opted to skip the recommended nutritionist consultation (the location is really, really far away and neither of us has a car) so as a result we had virtually no guidance on how to proceed. In addition to gulping tons of water, I decided that I was going to allow myself coconut water, kombucha and the occasional sip of soda if I needed some carbonation to ease a queasy stomach. 

Luckily I found this ridiculously funny juice cleanse review from Nicole Is Better which helped amp me up and gave me an idea of what I was in for, no sugar-coating. 

Day One: 

The first day was all about familiarizing myself with the juices and getting used to not reaching for snacks. I didn’t realize how much of my daily munching is automatic, I kept unconsciously reaching for nuts, mini Raw Revolution bars and other goodies. This was actually pretty educational as it made me realize that a lot of what I’m putting in my body isn’t necessary, hopefully after the cleanse I can maintain a more conscious approach to snacking. 

#1 Green Machine – Tasty green juice, nothing too harsh or flavorful (i.e. no kale) with a little bit of pulp at the bottom. 

#2 “Bright Eyes” – This one was a carrot ginger juice, HEAVY on the ginger. Pretty yummy when I ate it as a slushy. 

#3 Apple Tonic – An apple celery juice that wasn’t terribly sweet, more celery-tasting than fruit juice. 

#4 The final juice was the one that I was least looking forward to so I procrastinated until the evening - Avocado Dream. It turned out to be heavy on the lemon so it wasn’t too avocado-y, but I decided to dress it up a little to make it more palatable. 

During parts of the day I was a little dizzy and light-headed, but strangely enough not hungry. I should note that I cheated a bit and had some raw almonds in the morning and again at night when I took my back medication (which can’t be taken on an empty stomach). 

Day Two: 

I slept like a ROCK the first night! I was exhausted, I fell asleep incredibly quickly and slept through the night – both of which are unusual for me. TMI ALERT - Don’t keep reading unless you want to hear/read personal details. So, the biggest difference that I noticed during day two was that my stomach was really settled and all of my IBS symptoms went away. I’ve been dealing with a flare up the last two weeks and as of Day #2 the pain was 100% gone. I’m going to keep this in mind and potentially do juice cleanses whenever I start suffering from painful symptoms. 

However, by the evening of day two I was pretty bored with the whole thing. Luckily we had planned for this in advance and Arianna came over for a movie night. 

Let’s be honest, what can’t Liam Neelson, Patrick Wilson & Bradley Cooper not fix? 

So we had a much-needed catch up session, drank our juice and stayed up late (for me) watching the boys kick the CIA’s booty (which sounds unpatriotic, but is really anything but!) 

Day Three: 

By the final day I had gotten the hang of drinking the juices and not mindlessly snacking, I wasn’t getting light-headed anymore and I was full for the entire day. I was even looking forward to certain juices and counting the minutes until they were up, and I got some tricks down for slugging back the ones that I enjoyed less. Like freezing them slightly so they were like a slushy. 

What did I think of the cleanse? 

Pros: I was alert, sleeping really well and not hungry during the day. 

Cons: I’m not going to lie, I MISSED EATING!!! Drinking fluids allllll day was oddly tiring, I missed chewing and most of all I missed variety! 

I’m glad that I did it because it was a great way to clean out my system and jump-start a healthy mindset, and it was educational. I’d read about them for years so I’m glad that I’ve had the experience. Would I do it again?

Absolutely! But it would have to be the right program. I like the idea of fresh juice a couple of times a day, rather than receiving them all in advance. If there was a way to juice my own juice or a program that delivered daily so there was more nutrients in the juice, I’d definitely try it again. 

So tell me, have you ever done a juice cleanse?