Finances

The Cost of Raising a Child

This graph indicates that the cost to raise a child is most expensive from 0-4 and 18-21. I guess I’m even more excited that my little one turned 5 last month.
FYI: The Euro is $0.75 to the US $1.00.

cost-of-raising-child-calculator-infographic

The Fiscal Cliff: Why You Should Care

Repost from Mocha Mom Mondays:

Now that the presidential election is over, you’ve been hearing stories on the news about the so-called fiscal cliff, a series of tax increases and deep spending cuts that will begin on January 1, 2013, barring any Congressional action. It’s a term that Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke first used to describe a group of monetary policy actions in Congressional testimony earlier this year. The fiscal cliff would mean two things: 1) the end of the tax breaks passed in 2001 and 2003 plus the end of more recent tax changes that specifically benefit working families such as the child tax credit, the earned income tax credit, and the payroll tax cut and other important policies and 2) automatic spending cuts to a wide variety of children’s programs and other functions of the government Congress set in motion in the middle of 2011.1 President Obama wants the Bush era tax cuts to expire at the end of the year for the wealthiest two percent of the nation’s households, but Republicans oppose it.

As stay at home mothers of color and an organization of mostly middle class families, many who are small business owners, it’s important that we all understand the fiscal cliff. I had the pleasure of visiting the White House last week with presidents from the 18 other collaborating organizations of

The Black Women’s Agenda, a group with a reach of more than 4 million Black women. The urgent topic at hand was the fiscal cliff, what it is and what it means to Black women and their families.

Here is what we know so far, and why YOU should care:

Click Here to read more

Will You Raise a Millionaire?

 

Jemal Webb writes a series of articles for parents encouraging us to get our heads out of the sand and stop thinking of our children’s future in the abstract. Raising/Creating millionaires has a lot less to do with the choices that they will make for themselves but the legacy that we will leave our children.

Most millionaires under 30 have gained their wealth the old fashioned way – they inherited it. We have an obligation to leave a legacy for our children and to couple that with a strong education, entrepreneurial spirit and financial acumen.

I am not a financial advisor and I have not checked his numbers or verified the compound interest rate but his basic premise is this…

If you contribute:
$5,000 a year  (which is really…)
$96.15 a week (which is really…)
$13.74 a day
to a Roth IRA in your child’s name from the time they start working at the age of 12 through college AND LEAVE IT THERE; your child will have $6.1 million dollars when he or she retires at age 65 (assuming 10% annual growth). BELIEVE IT. Here’s how to make your child rich:

Open a Roth IRA for your kid as soon as they start working. They must have some type of income to open a Roth IRA. Allowance, birthday money and savings accounts don’t count.

Make a commitment today to building a legacy for your children. It will make a significant difference for generations.

To read more from Jemal click here…