As I recommended to you in part I, make sure statements are mailed to your grandchildren so they can stare at the changes in value of their accounts every month. Watching it go down from time to time is preferable. That way they’ll build two invaluable skillsets.
The first is persistence. When I was a kid, my grandmother would come over every Monday for dinner. “Guess how many clambake tickets I sold this week?” she would ask. This wasn’t just a summer thing for her to raise money for her church. It was a year round personal challenge to see if she could beat last year’s total. And she did this all through her early eighties reaching 300 one year.
The payoff for my grandmother’s persistence was more than the ticket sale itself. It was the connections she made and built upon year after year. She knew more about the people in her church than the minister because she talked to all of them. It’s why he honored her every year with a special ovation at the clambake.
Your grandchild should be persistent about adding money to his account. The habit of saving money is a lesson in persistence. The stock market should not be viewed as a way of making money. Working is how money is made—saving and investing is how it’s kept. The payoff will be your relationship with your grandchildren and how when they’re older they’ll tell a loved one how they learned the essence of investing. To be continued…
