Parents weren’t totally clueless – over 80 percent knew that paying bills late or paying a mortgage late could dint their scores, and seven in 10 correctly named “exceeding a credit limit” as a bad idea. But keeping a small credit card balance and closing old accounts largely flew under the radar.
Parents also tended to incorrectly think that recommended behaviors, such as checking their credit scores and accessing their credit reports, would hurt their scores. But those are just the steps parents – and all consumers – should be taking to make sure their reports are error-free. After all, those credit reports and scores determine how expensive it is to take out loans.
ING Direct says parents have an extra responsibility to educate themselves, since they’re setting an example for their children. The bank recommends teaching kids about money as soon as they start asking you to buy things for them. One tip? “Show them your credit card statement and explain that credit cards are not 'free money.' Talk to them about interest rates and why paying off your balance in full is important.”
Parents, how do you teach your kids about money?
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It's easy to get sucked into buying a product based on what its label says -- after all, that's what the label is designed to do. And some of those label claims are regulated.
Some though, have almost no meaning -- they're simply a marketplace come-on, and empty claims like "Made with Natural Goodness," "Kid Approved" and "Doctor Recommended" have become as common as those with legal definitions. Today, even regulated terms like "Healthy" and "Contains Antioxidants" have become muddied.
One labeling trend is the claim that a product can strengthen your immune system. All of these claims imply that eating the product will help ward off diseases -- and all of them are false. Eating vegetables and drinking cranberry juice are healthy, but they are no more likely to ward off disease than any other healthy food.
Another badly abused phrase: "made with whole grains." You see that more often too, since the Government recommended consuming whole grains. People have been encouraged to eat grains rich in whole wheat, and some companies have given lip service to that public health advice by adding small doses of whole grains to their product.
The real standards come from Ottawa and the fake ones come from anywhere and everywhere. Few consumers could reasonably memorize and sort through the real and the meaningless.