One of the challenges for people coming out of a third world country like Cambodia is financial literacy or more precisely, the lack off. I remembered speaking to a taxi driver who could not tell me his monthly takings but only what he made for the day. Who knows what tomorrow holds? In their experience and history, there may very well not be a tomorrow and so this day to day existence is fully understandable.
For our 8 Teens, we want to help them learn the basics of personal finance. Each of them is given $25 a week. This is to help them be independent when it comes to meals etc. They have to make choices as to what they like to eat and how much they are prepared to spend for it. Also, the experience of handling money and change in a foreign currency.
At the end of their stint, whatever money they save will be converted to US$ which they can bring back so that seems to be a real incentive for them to save. RM, one of the boys, got hit for a $4 lunch at the hospital on his first day, and he said today, he is going to just order vegetables with rice to save more! V, another guy was very sweet in that he wanted to save transport money for his host parent by getting up early to hitch a ride from my wife to work.
I have challenged them to think about giving away some of this money to bless others and lets see how this pans out.
Seems like these kids are making really good progress in the area of cents and sensibility. And I'm very heartened so far...
For our 8 Teens, we want to help them learn the basics of personal finance. Each of them is given $25 a week. This is to help them be independent when it comes to meals etc. They have to make choices as to what they like to eat and how much they are prepared to spend for it. Also, the experience of handling money and change in a foreign currency.
At the end of their stint, whatever money they save will be converted to US$ which they can bring back so that seems to be a real incentive for them to save. RM, one of the boys, got hit for a $4 lunch at the hospital on his first day, and he said today, he is going to just order vegetables with rice to save more! V, another guy was very sweet in that he wanted to save transport money for his host parent by getting up early to hitch a ride from my wife to work.
I have challenged them to think about giving away some of this money to bless others and lets see how this pans out.
Seems like these kids are making really good progress in the area of cents and sensibility. And I'm very heartened so far...
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