Girl-Child Lesson #1: Don't get stuck without savings!

My daughter will be 15 soon. And so it begins...

Already she's dropping hints about driving (BOOO!)

She's mentioned getting a job next summer (YAY!)

She's also under the mistaken impression that once she is making her own money (via the aforementioned summer job), she will be free to get her ear cartilage pierced (ouch!) and accumulate clothing in various styles that are more "her taste". (Ahhh… the insane chutzpah of youth! Sweet thoughts, but not it in THIS lifetime, honey).

The one thing that I will be stressing, as she takes her first babysteps out into the real world, is the importance of SAVING.

As a woman of the married variety, some people find it strange that I keep my own personal account, separate from my joint account with my hubs. Is it strange? Hell to the naw!! It's something the women in my family have always stressed..."Every woman needs to have her own money! You never know when some fool of a man is going to run off, go crazy or drop dead." Okay, so my family is not the most eloquent (or subtle) of clans, but they do have a point.

Even if it's only ten bucks a week. Put it aside and don't touch it! Hell, that's $520 a year… and that's nothing to sneeze at. Gail Marks Jarvis goes even further with the math in one of her recent columns in the Chicago Tribune.

"A person who saves $5 a week and invests it in CDs at a bank could have about $8,800 if they earn 5 percent on average over 20 years. A person who saves a little over $12 a week, or $50 a month, can accumulate roughly $20,400."

She goes on to tell us that in households headed by women "only 33 percent of the women said they save regularly, compared with 41 percent of all households. Just half of women who were divorced or separated had some savings, and among women who never married, 47 percent had savings." That's a little scary.

It's vital that when our girl children do enter the workforce, they begin to understand what they're facing. Women, on average, are still making less than men and tend to know less about handling money. Compound that with no savings to fall back on during tough times (like right now!) and you've got yourself a recipe for credit card debt, bad last minute loans, and scrimping to make ends meet. It's not pretty.

But at the same time, I know some women who are very good with their money. I could personally stand to be better. I'm more of a standard saving account /occasional CD girl. I could definitely benefit from learning more about other ways of savings that are safe and guaranteed, even in this economy. I think I'll take my own advice and have a chat with some of the more saving-savvy mamas I know so I can pass the advice on to my girl-child.

Anyone with any good saving advice to share?

LAST-MINUTE EXTRAS!!
And almost as if we were in some sort of crazy-Mama mind sync, Amy over at Shaping Youth has just finished a 2-part series that focuses on money management for kids. It features tons of links to cool money management tools and smart advice for kids and adults! Check it out!