Simple Ways to Help Your Kids Become Dollar-Smart [Paperback]

Elizabeth Lewin (Author), Bernard Ryan Jr. (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The authors, a certified financial planner and a writer on parenting issues, give parents 125 clever and innovative ways to teach children the value of money and how to use it wisely. They show how to develop savings and spending plans linked to the stages of a child's financial maturity. Organizing their material around the concepts of money coming in, money going out, borrowing money, and saving money, Lewin and Ryan clearly describe a variety of techniques to help parents cope with an issue of ever-increasing importance as businesses target children as consumers. An additional chapter describes handling money at college. Public libraries will want to consider.
- Vincent P. Schmidt, SWL Inc., Santa Barbara, Cal.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product Details

• Paperback: 92 pages
• Publisher: Walker & Company (March 1994)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802774296
• ISBN-13: 978-0802774293
• Product Dimensions: 8.2 x 5.5 x 0.4 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.1 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 2.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,631,478 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2.0 out of 5 stars Some good tips delivered in an agonizing format and tone, July 6, 2010

By 

Theo - See all my reviews

This review is from: Simple Ways to Help Your Kids Become Dollar-Smart (Paperback)

I read about 1/3 of the book and frankly that was all I could stand of the format and tone of the book. While some of the tips are good, others just sound preachy. They are written in a very absolutist way without a detailed explanation of the author's viewpoint. While it might seem helpful to offer short, easily digestible tips, when you offer 125 of them they become pretty useless. For the number of tips, the author would have been better just to write in a normal book format and spend more time both filling in the blanks of why she believes in the recommended approaches and tying the tips together into broader themes and an overall strategy.

There are some good morsels in the book, but the format and tone are too obnoxious for me to handle.

2.0 out of 5 stars Some good tips delivered in an agonizing format and tone, July 6, 2010

A Kid's Review

This review is from: Simple Ways to Help Your Kids Become Dollar-Smart (Paperback)

I read about 1/3 of the book and frankly that was all I could stand of the format and tone of the book. While some of the tips are good, others just sound preachy. They are written in a very absolutist way without a detailed explanation of the author's viewpoint. While it might seem helpful to offer short, easily digestible tips, when you offer 125 of them they become pretty useless. For the number of tips, the author would have been better just to write in a normal book format and spend more time both filling in the blanks of why she believes in the recommended approaches and tying the tips together into broader themes and an overall strategy.

There are some good morsels in the book, but the format and tone are too obnoxious for me to handle.

4.0 out of 5 stars Useful and easy to read, July 30, 2009

By 

P. Walsh (Bloomington, IN USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Simple Ways to Help Your Kids Become Dollar-Smart (Paperback)

While this book does have some information that seems strange (software recommendations for computers that aren't even made anymore, for example), the financial advice is sound. What's great about it is that each item is short and easy to read. I kept it on the kitchen table and just digested it in little bits, between children needing one thing or another. Also, any tips that might be controversial (don't tie allowance to chores, for example) goes through the authors' thinking on the matter.

You may have to take a few of their investment projections with a grain of salt, though. Realistically, whoever thought interest rates would be what they are today? The only other thing I would complain about is the advice to start planning for college money no later than junior year of high school. I guess if your kids have been learning about money their whole lives that might not be terrible advice, but I think you need to start planning a little earlier. But when it comes to young children, their observations are spot-on.