New IRS regulations now allow enrollees to change their investment strategies twice a year. Have you taken advantage of this change in light of the financial crisis? If you have not, you should!

Unfortunately, many 529 Plan enrollees have suffered significant investment losses because they, or their advisors, did not know what the enrollees owned. They violated a golden rule of investing.

Age-based portfolios are NOT labeled in terms of their risk tolerance (conservative, moderate risk, aggressive, etc.). While all age-based portfolios reduce risk by automatically shifting a higher percentage of assets from stocks into bonds and cash as the student beneficiary nears college age, there can be significant differences among portfolios in their equity allocation at a given age. The age-based portfolios with relatively high equity allocations underperformed, significantly in some cases, during this financial crisis.

Also consider the investors in the Oppenheimer Core Bond Fund (see OppenheimerFunds Probed by States on 529 Plan Losses). State of Oregon officials said “Oppenheimer Core Bond Fund was supposed to be a conservative investment, designed for students in college or planning to go to college within one to three years. Instead, OppenheimerFunds put the money into a hedge- fund-like investment fund that took extreme risks in a search for speculative large returns”.

What should investors do now? Investors should optimize and rebalance your portfolio consistent with your time horizon (i.e., when you need the funds) and your risk tolerance (i.e., conservative, moderate risk, etc.). Above all else, know what you own!

If you need professional, independent advice, try www.401kid.com which investors like you use to obtain optimized, unbiased investment advice.

Please let us know what you would like to see from 401kid!

Making your education dreams come true,

Bob Lally
401kid, Inc. COO
(father of a current college student + a recent college graduate)

401kid is an unbiased, independent internet SEC Registered Investment Advisor where families and advisors can optimally fund education dreams at www.401kid.com with its superior a) conflict free asset allocation and financial aid advice; b) a comprehensive ’supermarket’ of education savings investment options; c) savings discipline for clients; and d) value added content with social networking.

It’s a 401(k) for Kids:

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Times are tight. How are we Americans to deal with the recent loss of savings and rising cost of living, on top of the already-challenging demands of every day life? Whatever, your situation, being organized and intelligent about your personal family finances is essential. Are you currently using Quicken or Microsoft Money to do so? How often do you balance your checkbook? If you are using software tools consistently, excellent – that means you are committed to organizing your finances. I have something even better for you though. I recently signed up with Mint.com, a free web-based money management tool. There are a few other similar programs, including Wesabe, Geezeo, and Dimetracker.com, which I haven’t used, so I cannot speak for them. After 16 weeks of use, I am a huge fan of Mint, and here is why.

1. Ease of Use: Within 10 minutes, I setup my Mint account, and added several bank, loan and investment accounts, including a business expense account. I’ve written another entry in the Blueliner Marketing blog about how Mint.com defines the best of web 2.0.

2. Intelligent Categorization: Mint automatically categorizes your transactions pretty accurately. In another 30 minutes, I was able to customize categories and reassign vendors to new categories. The ability to add tags and rules on any expense is fantastic, empowering Mint to better recognize and bucket expenses properly in the future.

3. Simple Budgeting & Spending Trends: Using Mint’s Trend Charts, I was amazed by how much money I spent “eating out” at restaurants! I was also able to see how my spending in certain categories compared to others in New York, where I work. Within 10 minutes, I setup monthly budgets on specific categories, like eating out, groceries and transportation. At any point throughout the month, when I login, my Mint Dashboard shows me if I’m on or ahead of pace on my budgets, which helps me make adjustments. Where do you think you may be spending beyond your means? Have you ever broken out the interest portion of your credit payments to see what they’re really charging? Mint can help you do that. Whether you are experiencing hard financial times or not, tracking budgets and viewing your spending trends will help you make good decisions.

4. Aggregating Accounts: I know that this may not be a time that you want to look at your investment accounts, but one thing is for sure – having all of your accounts aggregated in one interface has never been this easy. If you are using 401kid’s ESP Wizard to get advice on the best 529 Plans and Coverdell ESAs, now you can add those accounts to your Mint dashboard to track them.

So how does this apply to parenting and your children’s future? Well, Mint could be an extremely useful tool for educating teens on money management. I would even argue that kids should be exposed to real world numbers as early as 9 or 10 years old. You could add your children’s debit cards and college savings accounts to your Dashboard and tag expenses related to education or your kids. For example, tags like “video games”, “soccer team”, “books” and “school supplies” will give you a good indication of how much you are investing in these areas. Mint’s blog publishes an interesting article about family budgeting.

Further, by setting budgets with your kids, encouraging them to use pre-paid debit cards and saving receipts from cash spending, you will achieve invaluable benefits, including:

1. Facilitating the financial education of your kids, something that they won’t learn in school – not even in college! Why K-12 and college education do not teach more practical life skills like personal finance is a whole other matter, which we will address another time.
2. Monitoring their spending, which is much easier through Mint than online banking or reviewing paper bank statements.
3. Developing the qualities of self-sufficiency and responsibility, by having them track their own budgets, from whatever they ‘earn’ through work or allowance. They will learn the true value of the dollar when the see how easily it flows out – for example “wow, we spent $1,500 on video games and toys last year?” Also, to see how their own credit accounts charge interest can be a painful and useful lesson – the earlier learned, the better.
4. Sharpening their real world math skills. Now you have an answer to the age-old question of young students in Algebra classes – ‘how am I ever going to use this stuff in the real world?’

I can think of 100 good reasons why you should use Mint or one of the other noted web-based money management soultions, to not only organize the family finances but also to provide what is probably the third most important area of non-formal education that is essential for your children’s development – behind 1) character education and 2) health education.

So what are you waiting for? Get on Mint and report back. I’d like to hear from parents and teens who are using Mint particularly as a mechanism to educate kids on money management.

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TV rots the senses in the head!
It kills the imagination dead!
It clogs and clutters up the mind!
It makes a child so dull and blind.
He can no longer understand a fantasy,
A fairyland!
His brain becomes as soft as cheese!
His powers of thinking rust and freeze!
An excerpt from Charlie and the Chocolate Factory,
By Roald Dahl, 1964

In last week’s blog entry, titled Education Starts and Ends at Home, I posed a list of ten thought-provoking questions for parents, which relate directly to how their children are educated or influenced at home. We addressed question 1, about health and fitness, an issue which we all know plagues American kids and families. Today, we will deal with a directly correlated issue – that of watching television – because naturally, in the course of any given day, with limited time at hand, the more kids watch TV, the lower the chances of them being physically active and healthy. Here is the question which was posed, that I address in this post:

2. How many hours per week do your children watch TV?

One billion television sets have been sold worldwide since the first ones appeared in the 1920s. Aside from the obvious corrupting forces that children can be exposed to – drug use; emotional, psychological and physical abuse – television is the most destructive force on a child’s mind. The same could be said for people of all ages, but this statement holds true especially for children, who are very delicate and impressionable. This is a strong statement but one that is correct. Of course, television has many potential benefits, including:
Educational purposes – learning about the world, science and current events; moral lessons portrayed through quality programming.
Entertainment – making us laugh, cry and experience other emotions, while identifying with characters from our favorite shows.

Of course, there are two important caveats to the general statement that “TV is bad” -
1. It depends what you watch. Watching quality programming and watching attentively makes a difference. The explosion of choice in television programming over the recent two decades is a double-edged sword; at least, kids can be exposed to quality educational content through the available choices.
2. It depends how much you watch. If watching is limited, non-addictive and prioritized after the achievement of other important activities, negative impacts are neutralized. What the proper limits of television watching for your children is depends. I would put the range at 5-15 hours per week, with variance depending upon other responsibilities and competing activities in a given week.

However, the list of ills that result from television viewing is much longer than the potential benefits, including but not limited to:
* Passive Activity – Watching television can hardly be considered an activity since most TV programming requires zero effort, of concentration, interaction or of any kind. This breeds laziness and mind-wandering
* TV as Babysitter – Depriving children of human interaction.
* Impact on Cognitive Development – According to John Tirman, Executive Director of MIT’s Center for International Studies, “Heavy TV watching leads viewers (even among high educational/high income groups) to have more homogeneous or convergent opinions than light viewers, who tend to have more heterogeneous or divergent opinions.” For more interesting research, cited by Tirman, check out his website.
* Hypnotic Impact – Captivates children, fantasies and illusions, disconnecting them from reality.
Consumerism – Programs children into good little consumers, building voracious appetites for toys, games, junk food and other possessions.
Media Sensationalism and Negativity – Breeds fear and unrealistic view of the world, making kids and parents believe that the world and people are more dangerous than they really are.
Radiation – In 1968, the Radiation Control Act passed, setting limits on radiation emitted from televisions to 0.5 milliroentgen of radiation per hour – a level considered safe at the time the standards were drafted. However, recent findings by scientists in the Department of Health, Education and Welfare (HEW) indicate that X-ray emissions below the 0.5 level and on down to zero penetrate body tissues with subtle but harmful effect. For more information on this controversial topic, read this article from Operation Awakening blog.

System for Monitoring TV & Video Games

There is really no magic behind creating a system for monitoring television watching. It’s really pretty simple. You have to ask yourself whether you agree or not with what is being said here and elsewhere about the negative impacts of TV on your kids. If you agree, and don’t feel like you have a good system in place, then it makes sense either to consider what is prescribed herein or investigate other alternatives. What I propose is to set hourly budgets or limits on particular free-time activities, including watching TV and playing video games, whether at home or elsewhere. For example, here is a sample Time Budget chart for the week.

TV: 8 Hours
Internet & Video Games: 8 Hours

Create a chart that gets posted by the TV and Computer, where your kids log their time. If they don’t do so, you can log it yourself as you discuss their day with them. If they go over-budget one week, you can use your discretion to reduce hours from the following week’s budget. If they go under budget, then you can possibly let them carry over time from week to week.

Behavioral issues are inevitable, especially in this day and age. If there have not been rules set forth in the past around these topics, your kids will naturally be resistant to rules. That is OK. If you are serious about it and enforce the rules well, your kids will benefit in spite of their resistance. The best way to approach it, in my view, is to lay down the guidelines and then give them flexibility in how they utilize their ‘free time’. You should be prepared to negotiate with your kids to a degree, but be firm on the limits, even if they do not like the rules and throw a tantrum.

Of course, the hardest part of limiting television watching is that it requires parents to spend more time with their children or at least more time monitoring their activities. You may feel that you don’t have the time, due to your own busy schedule and desire to have your own free time, which of course, you are entitled to. Evidence suggests that if you make the time to put a well-defined system in place, once children start to understand the rules and develop good habits, not as much effort is required over time to maintain the system. It does require a high-level of dedication though from parents, there is no denying that. The benefits will be undeniable. I would love to hear from you parents out there, on how many hours per week on average your children watch.

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I am concerned about parenting in America. While I am not a parent yet, and do not therefore write from direct parental experience, I can see from those around me what the challenges are. I have also coached, taught, mentored, babysat and taken care of enough children to get a sense for the tremendous challenge of parenting. As a result, I have the utmost respect for all of you parents out there, especially the ones who take the role on diligently, with the highest sense of responsibility. It is clearly not an easy role. I also reflect back to my own childhood from a different, young adult perspective now. The general challenges of living are escalating, with increasing financial pressure on nearly everyone, and society’s support structures seem non-existent to most. Even if you are handling your family life well and staying on top of your affairs, you can just feel it getting worse overall in our society, can’t you? Who is to blame? More importantly, what is within your grasp as a parent when it comes to your children’s education?

In the previous post – Fixing and Funding Education in the U.S. – I discussed five key non-formal education categories, that are supplemented by the formal educational system (schools). To rehash those briefly -

1. education at home – from parents and family;
2. education from media – which reflects influences from TV, Internet, video games, newspapers, advertising, politicians and businesses;
3. extracurricular education – from coaches and non-formal teachers, such as a piano teacher, religion teacher or camp counselor;
4. education from social influences – friends, activities with friends, and members of one’s surrounding community; and last but not least,
5. self-education – interests which one chooses to pursue as a result of their own inclinations and/or influences from any of the categories above.

Today, I want to focus on #1 from this list – Education at Home, which begins with parenting and also includes influences from siblings. Education at home drives and shapes all of the subsequent non-formal education areas, such as education from media and extracurricular activities. So let’s start with a list of thought-provoking questions, that are directly correlated to how kids develop their minds, bodies and life skills. The questions are mostly related to how you and your children spend time and energy in a typical week. If your kids are still too young for some of the items, this can be a great opportunity for you to contemplate what your approach might be to these issues.

1. What is your kids’ level of physical health and fitness?
2. How many hours per week do your children watch TV?
3. How many hours per week are the kids playing video games or chatting/playing on the computer?
4. How much time each week, on average does the whole family spend together?
- Just the family unit, without friends?
- Just the family unit, talking or interacting, without the TV on, video games or other technology involved?
5. How much one-on-one time does each child typically spend with one or both parents each week?
6. How much time do your children spend reading (or have a parent or sibling read to and with them) each week?
7. How much time do your children spend studying each week? Do you check or help them with homework?
8. How often do your children meditate, pray or have any kind of moral, spiritual or religious rituals?
9. What kinds of chores and responsibilities do your kids have in the home?
10. Money & Allowance: What is your philosophy towards money when it comes to your kids?
- Do they receive a set allowance?
- If so, how much do they get?
- From what age did allowance start and how has the amount changed over the years?
- Are there any rules or restrictions on the allowance?
- Do you encourage your kids that are of age to work?

1. What is your kids’ level of health and fitness?
This is not a Yes/No question. Think objectively, which I know may be difficult for parents, about the level of where your kids stand in terms of physical health. If they participate in anything less than five different occasions of physical activity of at least 30-minutes per session, fitness is likely below par. And playing Nintendo Wii doesn’t count! Obesity, a rampant problem as we all know, is another key indicator of your children’s health in an area directly related to parenting. Hopefully, they are getting at least two home-cooked meals per day, with the possibility of a third, if lunch is prepared at home and brought to school. Snacking and eating between meals is fine, as long as it is monitored to some degree. What your kids eat, as well as how much, makes all the difference. Remember, generally speaking, they eat what is in the household. So if your kids eat a lot of junk food, then the question is who bought it, and why do they have free reign on the cookie jar? Shopping consciously and wisely, and bringing home fresh, healthy food, is one of the most important responsibilities for that parents have. Don’t short change it!

The key message that you need to take home from this item, which also holds true for most of the subsequent questions, is that kids will “do what you do, not what you say”. So don’t be a liability in your children’s education process! If you are drinking, smoking, over-eating, or not exercising regularly, there is a very high likelihood that they will end up doing the same exact thing, either now or when they get older. Even if you expose them to other good influences, such as great sports coaches and a positive school environment, children always revert back to what they see at home as their primary source of education.

One of the keys, in my humble opinion, after setting a good example through your own behavior, is to have reasonable rules in place, and to monitor your children well. I would advise not to monitor too rigidly, but do so routinely, especially during the pre-teen years. Make sure that your children are exposed to these rules, verbally as well as in written form. Consistency is important, as opposed to the typical scenario, where parents take advantage of their authority by judging things arbitrarily based on their own moods, current energy levels and personal interests. You have to be fair. Of course, parents reserve the right to “amend” the family rules, but it still makes sense to have somethings clearly articulated, which children can learn about and abide by. As it relates to health and fitness, several key rules of thumb should help keep everyone in the family, including parents, on track.
1. 5+ sessions of physical activity per week, which could be soccer practice, playing in the backyard, riding a bike, or wrestling with dad.
2. At least 2 servings of fruit and 2 servings of vegetables per day.
3. At least 10 home-cooked meals per week (which allows for eating out and ordering in several times per week).
4. Limitations on candy and snacking (to be determined by parents, and individual cases).
5. Portion control and management (to be determined by parents on a case by case basis; although some level of consistency is important). Learning and teaching how not to eat until one is full is critical. Over-indulgence leads to obesity, if not as a child, then as an adult.

That is a lot to digest (no pun intended), I know! I hope that you are not reeling too much, or running to the cookie jar, from all of these questions. While I won’t go into depth on the rest of them today, I promise that we will get to each point, as well as many others, over the coming months. I encourage you to stay with me, share your experiences by commenting to the posts or better yet, by participating in the 401kid Forums.

Remember, without a high-level of physical health and the positive energy that result from it, everything else in life becomes less important and potentially more problematic, including all of the other aspects of education that we discuss. The path which your children take when it comes to health and physical activity will follow very closely behind what you set forth as an example, in terms of your own life and habits, and a framework of household rules. So live well and so will your kids!

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The purpose of 401kid.com and this blog is to raise awareness on issues, engage with people of all races and classes around the world, and provide useful solutions in the area of education. A major focus is put on America because well, this is where I was born and raised; as my home country, America is my backyard, and therefore I feel obligated to address problems at home as a top priority. With my business having offices in the U.S. and Asia, and my family from the Middle East and now dispersed through Europe and Canada, I have global connections as well. We are all global citizens first and foremost, which unfortunately our country’s “leaders” and many other world leaders, seem to forget. A good analogy is to think about our country as our home, and other countries as our neighbors. Or our country being equivalent to the individual – you – and others making up the members of your family – brothers, sisters, cousins, etc. We are all related. So while we must take care of ourselves and our homes as a primary responsibility, seeking and providing help to others, and sharing our experiences and best practices, is essential for solving the world’s problems, including education.

How the U.S. goes about fixing its deplorable educational system is, along with healthcare and energy, one of the major challenges of our time. I don’t think we can sit back and depend upon government solutions, although we must pay attention to whose in charge and encourage appropriate investments into formal and supplemental education programs. After all, it is the people’s hard-earned tax dollars at hand, which should be redistributed in service of we the people. Isn’t that the American promise and way the system should work?

Politics aside, by “education”, I am referring to more than just formal education received in schools, although of course that is of central importance. We also consider the following forms of education to be pivotal in shaping the lives of children and influencing their futures:
1. education at home – from parents and family;
2. education from media - which reflects influences from TV, Internet, video games, newspapers, advertising, politicians and businesses;
3. extracurricular education – from coaches and non-formal teachers, such as a piano teacher, religion teacher or camp counselor;
4. education from social influences – friends, activities with friends, and members of one’s surrounding community; and last but not least,
5. self-education – interests which one chooses to pursue as a result of their own inclinations and/or influences from any of the categories above. For example, say your daughter takes a liking to animals, and decides to pick up a book on “Cats & Dogs”. That becomes an important part of her self-education.

There are many ways to slice these non-formal education categories, and there is significant overlap and interplay between these five. For example, media influences can be highly controlled by parents, in terms of what the household rules are for video games, Internet and TV, which may differ from what the rules are in the homes of your children’s friends. Further, you may notice that these five non-formal education categories are less tied into government funding and support, which puts the onus more on parents, communities and children themselves. That’s right, you – young men and women of the world – must take on some of the responsibility for properly educating yourselves, by choosing good influences and activities, and utilizing the modern world’s technology for your own benefit. I can hardly imagine how much smarter I could have been as a child if I had Wikipedia and Google at my fingertips! On the flip side, I could have been that much more distracted and pulled away from playing sports and being a physically active child.

To date, since launching in 2000, 401kid has been focused primarily on providing formal education funding advice through the development of ESP Wizard. The software is excellent and along with the associated calculators, provides a good starting point for a family’s education financial planning.

However, we have always known and I sense now more than ever, that education funding through 529 plans, other savings vehicles and financial aid optimization, barely addresses the education problems faced by most Americans. While continuing to provide sound financial planning advice through 401kid software, we have to expand the scope of our discussion to include other solutions, such as distance learning, studying abroad and other forms of formal higher as well as primary and secondary school education. Let’s start talking more seriously about these non-formal education categories, and how they are significant components of education.

For example, who should be responsible for the state of our youth’s health and rampant obesity and diabetes in the U.S.? It can’t be put squarely on schools and the formal education process, although of course, they must be part of the solution. Remember, it all starts at home, and kids follow what they see, more so than what they hear, from parents. Therefore, we must take the conversation beyond education of kids to education of all members of our society. All of life is an opportunity for us to raise our level of awareness and to better ourselves internally, morally and in practical ways that benefit our families and society at large. Individually, we must take our own education into our own hands, rather than waiting for the government to facilitate our development. Absolutely, we must be aware of political issues and try to elect the most suitable candidate for President – the one who will do their part to address social issues and various aspects of the education problems; honestly, I’m not sure which candidate will actually do a better job, if elected, although Obama seems a lot more sincere and ethical given what I have learned. Let’s see what happens during the debates, but not put all our stock in who wins this election because either way, you have to get up and go to work the next day, take responsibility for your own life and provide the best education – formal and non-formal – to your children.

If the state of education does not improve in the U.S. through drastic policy change, which is possible, we are in for greater financial challenges, that must be met admirably through our own creative solutions at the community and family level. More will be said on this topic over the coming months. For now, the main message that I want to convey is the following. We must take matters into our own hands, in terms of both non-formal and formal education. As a proactive parent, you can educate your child, manage what influences they have, and be involved in what they’re learning at school. If the teachers are no good, encourage them to learn more actively from their books, online research and current events. If college seems too expensive, consider local colleges, technical schools or study abroad programs. In this competitive global economy, the value of a traditional four-year higher education programs is coming under question; so if the expenses are out of budget, consider alternatives which may actually teach your children useful trade skills that manifest in technical job opportunities, either here or abroad. We have to start thinking out of the box a little bit more, and coming to terms with the fact that there are many aspects of education, and ways for young individuals to develop important life and career skills.

As always, I invite your comments and feedback.

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