kids

"My friend Mark at school has a mobile phone," my grade one son said last week. For a moment I felt a surprising sense of shock and panic. Had my seven-year old baby boy grown to be a phone-carrying young man already? And should I be giving him a phone ... More

Tutoring was once for kids who struggled to keep up with the class but it is so much more now. Parents who can afford tutoring - and believe it will give their kids an edge - are signing them up for a whole raft of reasons. They do it to help them through ... More

Bringing new life into the world is an exciting time for any mum, let alone a novice, and it comes rife with an unfamiliar set of financial considerations. For those worried about managing expenses on a single income, or solely on government benefits ... More

Q. My daughter is 17, in her final year at school and works part-time (about 12 hours a week). To date she has savings of about $2500 parked in a bank account and she would like to plan for her future by investing her savings somewhere other than in ... More

When your kids come up with an idea, be sure to listen carefully because you never know where it will lead. Take the American eight-year-old Abbey Fleck, who was cooking bacon in the microwave with her dad, Jon. They were running out of paper towels ... More

What do women really want when it comes to money? To borrow some lyrics from the Spice Girls: "I'll tell you what you want, what you really, really, want." It's lifestyle, security and peace. For more than a decade, I've been delivering professional ... More

When you make the monumental decision to have a baby, you want your pregnancy to go ahead as planned. But one in six Australian couples has fertility issues, according to the Fertility Society of Australia (FSA), which points out that infertility is ... More

My daughter was 18 on February 1. We pride ourselves on our birthday cards in the Padley family - we like to pass on deep messages of truth and love. And so it was that her birthday card from her dad went something along these lines. "At last. At last ... More

For those well in the throes of the financial fast that is Frugal February , anxiety levels may be creeping up at a very commercial date in the calendar: Valentine's Day. On every street corner, glittery signs are trying to lure us in with love-laced ... More

Many schools are ditching the Commonwealth Bank Dollarmites banking scheme without having a replacement program. If this will affect your family, don't worry because there is a do-it-yourself model you can put in place. It works with all banks and relies ... More