How can I teach my children to invest money?

Host: How can I teach my children to invest money?

Janet Bodnar: Well, I think it helps to teach your children to invest money. If you are an investor yourself, do not hesitate to talk about it with your kids. Show them what you are doing. If you are following the stock price, show them what you are doing. If the market is going up and down wildly, talk about what is happening in the stock market and talk about what it means to own a share of stock. Owning a share of stock is really nothing more than owning a share of a particular company. So, you can often pick the interest of kids by buying them shares of stock in a company that makes products that they use or a store where they shop. A share of McDonald's is a classic or Wendy's or any fast food place or Pepsi or Coke or Disney or any of those places, Nike. Companies that again, make products that the kids use or run places that the kids frequent, stores and things like that.

Certainly, you can do this as a holiday gift or a birthday gift for the kids. That is really a good way to get them interested so that they actually become an owner of this company. But the thing to do is do not think that it is so complicated that they cannot understand it because certainly, middle school kids can understand the idea of being a part owner of a company and that is really all you need to tell them. You need to be just very simple about it. Keep it very simple and basic and there are ways that you can buy shares of stock without getting too complicated and without getting too expensive and I think that just having the kids be a share owner on their own and then showing them how to follow the shares and stock online everyday to see where the company is going is really an interesting thing and to learn a little bit about that particular company.