When your children are a little older, financial responsibility is a little different than when they were younger. When they are teenagers, you need to start talking to them and teaching them financial responsibility before they go to college, before they go away. How do you teach a young, up-and-coming adult, how to become financially responsible? First of all, get them a checkbook and get them a credit card. In most states, they are not legally going to be able to go out and get their own checkbook, because they can't sign on a legal document. You get one, allow them to sign on it, and give them a stack of checks. What are they going to do with the checkbook? They are going to pay a bill. What bill are they going to pay? Every kid today has a cell phone. Let them pay the cell phone bill. You are giving them an allowance. Let them pay a bill, so they can start to see what they do comes out on a bill. If they are texting or talking to much and they have these overcharges on the bill, why are you paying their $150 charges, and yelling at them. Let them pay the bill. Also the same thing with a credit card. That's the time, when they are 16 or 17 and they get a vehicle or a car. Our deal was always, you can have the use of a car, but you have to pay for the gas. So they had to get a job, because allowance was not enough to pay for gas. Then they have to pay for gas. We got them a credit card, and I was a co-signer on it, but they used it to pay for gas. They had a checkbook, and they paid the credit card. That's the way to teach these up-and-coming adults financial responsibility.