How to teach personal reconciliation and book balancing
"If you are wanting to teach your kids basic accounting principles there is some good stuff on Khan Academy. However most of the stuff takes practice to really make it hit home and its kinda boring (Especially to kids who may or may not care about it). Maybe if you help them set up an account on Mint so that they are at least aware of their finances. Think it also has a heap of videos you can watch that teaches basic personal finance. If you actually want them to understand the techniques and methods behind creating & maintaining a personal ledger/journal and reconciling it against a bank account you are getting into what undergraduates study and there are plenty of first year textbooks around. Look around for a second hand one that is a few revisions old and they are usually dirt cheap (I scored one for only a dollar not that long ago). I feel like the mindset is what matters most. Journals and all that jazz are easy if you have the right mindset. That is something that you really have to demonstrate to your children rather than teach. Meaning you yourself keeping your finances in order and showing them how you organise and file your bills/ credit cards etc. (So they learn the importance of keeping financial records; meaning in the future when its talked about it doesn't fall on deaf ears) Emphasize the whole ""living within your means"" because even if they don't understand bookkeeping or learn anything else at least their finances won't turn out too bad."
"Your debits and credits are perfect. Now, it comes down to a choice of how you want your accounts organized, financially speaking. In terms of taxes, it's recommended you keep a separate set of books just like a corporation and account for them strictly according to law. It's best not to credit phone expenses since it will no longer show on your net reports.  A better alternative would be ""Phone reimbursement"".  With that, you can not only see if you've been compensated but also how much you're personally managing these expenses by checking the annual ""Phone expense"" account. This is all up to personal preference, but so long as you're properly balancing your accounts, you can introduce any level of resolution you wish.  I prefer total resolution when it comes to financial accounting. Also, it is not good practice to debit away ""Salary"".  The net of this account will be lower and distorted.  An expense reimbursement is not salary anyways, so the proper bookings will follow below. Finally, if GnuCash is calling ""Salary"" an income account, this is unfortunate.  The proper label would be ""revenue"" since ""income"" is a net account of expenses from revenue in the income identity. Entries With this, your books will become clearer: your cash assets will remain as clear as you had organized them, but now your income statement will provide higher resolution." You'll be fine, fella. An AAT qualification is always useful. Should be able to do it quite easily, and understanding how books can be fiddled is a good idea.  There was a book on it: accounting for growth.  Don't knock accounting, you need to know how a balance sheet and p&amp;l can be frigged. AAT (accounting technician) gives you that with a couple of months study.  There is a huge amount of cock waving and testosterone around. They play very hard and work to death. We used to make two-way prices on how long a trader's marriage would last; probably a bit more tame now. "This Stack Exchange site is a nice place to find answers and ask questions. Good start! Moving away from the recursive answer... Simply distilling personal finance down to ""I have money, I'll need money in the future, what do I do"", an easily digestible book with how-to, multi-step guidelines is ""I Will Teach You To Be Rich"". The author talks about setting up the accounts you should have, making sure all your bills are paid automatically, saving on the big things and tips to increase your take home pay. That link goes to a compilation page on the blog with many of the most fundamental articles. However, ""The World’s Easiest Guide To Understanding Retirement Accounts"" is a particularly key article. While all the information is on the free blog, the book is well organized and concise.  The Simple Dollar is a nice blog with frugal living tips, lifestyle assessments, financial thoughts and reader questions. The author also reviews about a book a week. Investing - hoping to get better returns than savings can provide while minimizing risk. This thread is an excellent list of books to learn about investing. I highly recommend ""The Bogleheads' Guide to Investing"" and ""The Only Investment Guide You'll Ever Need"". The world of investment vehicles is huge but it doesn't have to be complicated once you ignore all the fads and risky stuff. Index mutual funds are the place to start (and maybe end). Asset allocation and diversification are themes to guide you. The books on that list will teach you." "This is the best tl;dr I could make, [original](https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/6/7/15753510/kansas-brownback-tax-reform) reduced by 94%. (I'm a bot) ***** &gt; Kansas is struggling to balance its budget Moderate Republican lawmakers in Kansas are now in open rebellion, scrambling to find ways to roll back the tax cuts as the state looks for ways to balance its budget.  &gt; Republicans have signaled that they plan to pass tax reform through the budget reconciliation process, which means the tax cuts can&amp;#039;t add to the deficit after 10 years.  &gt; Both were the architects of the Kansas tax experiment, and both helped Trump craft the tax plan he touted during his campaign.   ***** [**Extended Summary**](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/6gadek/httpswwwvoxcompolicyandpolitics20176715753510kansa/) | [FAQ](http://np.reddit.com/r/autotldr/comments/31b9fm/faq_autotldr_bot/ ""Version 1.65, ~140377 tl;drs so far."") | [Feedback](http://np.reddit.com/message/compose?to=%23autotldr ""PM's and comments are monitored, constructive feedback is welcome."") | *Top* *keywords*: **tax**^#1 **cut**^#2 **taxes**^#3 **state**^#4 **Brownback**^#5" Thanks for the support.  I think you're right with taking on one chapter at a time and doing the practice questions.  As on now, my midterm is on chapters 1-7 and our test just passed was 1-4.  I figure read the new stuff before the old and always do the practice tests. This would be better posted in /r/personalfinance. But since I'm here, you need to seriously consider selling anything you can possibly part with and pick up a second and/or third job. I hope you didn't charge that whiteboard purchase. "First and foremost you must remember that they are people (something I don't think you have trouble with, but others might). When dealing with increasingly desperate financial struggles, it's not uncommon to allow financial trouble to define you, or for others to see you only as ""poor"". Money is a human creation. It's not real, like fire or water, and ""money problems"" is a misnomer. Whatever problems they have, money is only one symptom. Often, dealing with those deeper human problems, such as lack of confidence, depression, fear or behavioral issues, is the key to correcting ""downstream"" problems like poor money management. Not that learning how to manage money isn't important, but it doesn't sound like that is the primary issue in this case. Westerners tend to view money trouble as distinct from other problems. The answer to money troubles is often understood to be ""more money"" or ""smarter money"" - earn more or spend better. It helps to step back and look beyond finances. What's going in their lives? How does that make them feel? Do they feel unimportant or valueless? How's their family life? Do they have good emotional support, or are they running ""on empty"", trying to fill the emptiness with other things (like games, for example). (Simply telling them to stop purchasing games, for example, without finding a better replacement just perpetuates the feelings of shame, valuelessness and emptiness.) Discovering the deeper elements of your friends' situation is much more complicated than giving them money or paying for a financial counselor (neither of which are bad things), but it may make a tremendous difference not just in your friends' bank account, but in their lives as well. My wife and I have experienced all of this first-hand, so I know the predicament you are in. We've even had people in tough financial situations live in our home with us. In all the situations in which we've been close enough to understand context, money wasn't the primary issue. It's always been something else, more often than not family, but not always. I've found the book When Helping Hurts helpful for gaining some perspective, though it's not a perfect match (since it deals more with poverty on a grand scale). You may still find it helpful in terms of general principles, but, ultimately, each situation is going to be unique and no one-size-fits-all strategy exists to solve all problems. In the end, building a deeper relationship is the best path toward finding a long-term solution." Thank you for replying. I assumed since I’m the one asking for advice from him I should be leading the conversation with questions mostly. Wondering if you have an examples of what questions. I have some prepared but any extra insight is helpful.