Be Teachers at home

Teachers are important in your child's life...I should know...I am a teacher.

However, what most parents often forget is that YOU are your children's first teacher. As a teacher I see there are some things I wish parents would teach their children. I plan to continue this as a blog series here.

Parents forget that children watch everything you do AND they mimic it outside of the house.

Here are some things I wish parents would teach their kids.

1. Say Please and Thank You- I, the teacher am not your slave, I am not Staples Office Store, I do not have an endless supply of pens, pencils and papers. If I do please remind your children that I spent my own money to buy this and that it should not be taken for granted. If I do give you something please appreciate it. Amazon has awesome supply packs for all ages and they are no expensive. 

School Supplies

2. Take care of the equipment school gives you- My students are issued their own laptops and Ipads. You should see how my students take this for granted, Ipads are broken, Laptops are lost and broken. They are taken for granted, please remind your child that there are kids in third world countries that have NOTHING.

3. Do not use foul language around your kids- They see you do it and then they do it in school..trust me even if you think your child doesn't they still do. It doesn't sound cool it is nasty and rude.

4. Please acknowledge that there is a possibility your child may behave different with us than with you..just please acknowledge it, address your concerns and move on.

5. Communicate with us..We like it trust me. Use e-mail, phone.

6. Make sure your children do their homework..its important..it reinforces what they learned in school. Please ask them.

7. Tell your children you love them. If they feel loved, it will translate into their school work.

8. Take time to teach your children at home. Reinforce the skills they learn in school. Trust me it will help them in the long run.  See the link below

Products for teaching at home

9. Read to your kids..You have no idea how much this helps and shows in their school work.

I hope you are enjoying my blog posts!

xoxo
-M

Cool way to invest without even knowing!

Hello Smarty Pants Mommies!!

So one cool App I have been using lately is called "Acorns". This app is available on Smartphones. What this app does it invests your spare change. You do have to connect it and link it to your bank account. In my case I am often weary of this but nevertheless I decided to give it a try. So I linked it and in less than one month I have invested $75.44. This is pretty awesome because what they do is they take "Round Ups" from your everyday purchases and then each time you get to $5.00 they invest it in stocks.

Now the cool part is that you choose how they invest your money. You can choose from one of 5 categories, which are: Conservative, Moderately Conservative, Moderate, Moderately Aggressive and Agressive.

I chose to go with moderately Agressive. Acorns invests your money in the following categories and in the following ways if you choose to go with moderately aggressive.

Large Company Stocks- 0.13 cents of every dollar purchases the Vanguard S&P 500 ETF (VOO)
Small Company Stocks- 0.25 cents of every dollar purchase the Vanguard Small Cap ETF (VB)
Emerging Market Stocks- 0.14 cents of every dollar will purchase the Vanguard ETF (VWO)
Real Estate Stocks- 0.22 cents of every dollar will purchase Vanguard REIT (VNQ)
Corporate Bonds- 0.21 cents of every dollar invested will purchase PIMCO investment Grade Corp Bd Index ETF (CORP)
Government Bonds- 0.05 cents of every dollar will purchase the iShares 1-3 Treasury Bond ETF (SHY)

I will update you guys on my progress monthly.

So this is in no way a way to get rich BUT it is a way to get your foot in the door of investing especially if you are just starting out like me.

I am just writing this independently, I am in no way being paid by Acorns. Also I am not responsible for any monetary loss you may have by using this app.