Episode 4: Turn Off the Lights and Other Ways to Stop Burning Money

MAK: Hi, I’m Mak.

GRANT: And I’m G.

BOTH: And you’re here for money with Mack and G.

MAK: The only show that teaches you about finance.

GRANT: Business.

MAK: And accounting from a kid’s perspective

MAK: We are on a mission to demystify money to help you and your family be financially secure.

GRANT: Welcome to Educounting where my dad is passionate about financial education. This is finance for kids. And today’s video is called burning money.

DAD: Hey, it’s dad here. I have a question for you. Is it easier to make $1 Or keep $1? I hope he said it’s easier to keep it because earning $1 takes time and effort, while holding on to $1 is as simple as making the decision to not spend it. Well. That’s really what we’re talking about here making better decisions to save the money we’ve already earned. Sometimes we do things that aren’t smart. And if we make better decisions, we can have more money to use on the things we need or are important to us.

GRANT: Nobody would ever burn money on purpose. It’d be really dumb. As money pays for everything we need. If you burn it, you can’t use it.

DAD: We’ve already spoken about how it costs money to make money. Remember that government orders dollar bills and other coins and has to pay for the money being made. Well, there is actually a law against burning money. If you do it, you could actually go to prison for 10 years. So I don’t recommend it. Even though it does happen. It’s against the law.

MAK: So when you do something, I use his money, and it’s really dumb. My parents ask, are you burning money?

DAD: Parents can also do things that aren’t smart too, like paying too much on bank fees because that’s taking money right out of your pocket. In a recent report banks collected over $40 billion in fees. Ouch! If you had to spend a billion dollars, you’d have to spend over $100,000 a day for 25 years. That’s about 2000 Video games a day. 300 bikes day 100 expensive iPhones a day you get the picture. That’s a lot.

GRANT: When my sister and I left the house we forgot to do a couple of things that drove my dad crazy.

DAD: Wasting money does make me crazy. Google Google. Just like having your dog eat your favorite dog video game iPad shoes or whatever.

GRANT: I left the door open. Makenna forgot to turn off the lights upstairs, and neither was shut off the water after washing our hands.

DAD: Hey, I have to pay for the electricity when the lights are left on. Did you know that before light bulbs people burned oil and lamp in Chicago, supposedly Mrs. O’Leary’s cow knocked over one of these lamps and started a fire that was so big, it burned down 17,000 buildings and 100,000 people were left homeless. Chicago has a couple nicknames and one is Second City, which sometimes refers to building a whole new or second city over the first one due to the fire. Anyway, do you know what caused the most energy to run in your house? That’s the furnace for heat and the air conditioner for cooling.

GRANT: We were gone for two days. Since it was cold. The furnace worked hard to keep the house warm because it uses gas. We wish lots of money

DAD: Heating and cooling the house is about half the energy used in the home. It’s around $2,000 per year. And if you’ve ever been to Florida in order to visit Mickey Mouse, you’ll understand how hard to get air conditioning wasn’t created for humans. But it was invented to make it easier for a business to print newspapers by taking the water or humidity out of the air. However, it made it much easier to live in Florida. Before air conditioning a little more than two and a half million people live there. 20 years later, with air conditioning, the population exploded by seven times to around 19 million

GRANT: Since the lights run the whole time that electricity we didn’t need to use and so we wasted more money.

DAD: Thomas Edison invented the light bulb but it took him 3000 different times and he could only get it to work for about 40 hours. He was an entrepreneur with True Grit. Well hello there partner I want to tell you about these light bulbs. Now light bulbs lasts for up to 2000 hours. But special light bulbs called LEDs lasts up to 50,000 hours and use less energy. If you save $6 per light bulb every year. How much could you save if you replaced every light bulb in your house.

GRANT: And the water was on the entire time so it was like pouring money down the drain since it wasn’t used? That’s pretty dumb.

DAD: Plumbing is the system used in your home to move water through pipes so you can take a shower, wash your hands or get a glass of water to drink you 1000s of years ago, the Romans figured out how to move water around through pipes. Most people didn’t have a bath or shower in their home. So they went to public baths where lots of people came and got clean in large areas like a swimming pool. They also figured out how to make sure that dirty water never got mixed with the clean drinking water.

GRANT: That’s when my dad asked if we like to burn money, which meant we did something that wasn’t smart that wasted money.

DAD: Australian bank notes, which are like our US Dollars are actually made out of something called a polymer. It feels waxy and is said to be similar to plastic. Australia was the first country to make these types of bills. They’re completely waterproof, resistant to moisture and dirt. And that makes it much cleaner than our money. Paper money in the US is made out of cotton fibers. The $10 bill here lasts about four and a half years, but the Australian notes will last nine to 13 years. They’re also very colorful, and their new bill when moved in the light moves the wings on a bird which makes it look like it’s flying, calm, calm. In addition, they also put a tactile feature on the bill. This means you can touch the bill without looking and know which Bill it is. It was done to help those who are blind or can’t see very well. It’s a little bump in the bill like a small sprinkle off a doughnut. Funny enough, a blind teenage boy named Connor received money for Christmas. But he had to keep asking his mom how much he received because he couldn’t see it. He had an idea then to petition the government to make it easy for someone like him to be able to know which Bill it was at all times. So he went out and got 56,000 people to sign a document to get the government to make it happen. And he did. That’s awesome. But I have to say that the bills still do burn when lit.

GRANT: Each mistake caused my mom and dad money that could have been spent better on a new bike saving for the future. Georgia other things. If you want to have enough money for everything you need, don’t waste your money is easier. I’ll help you reach your goals.

DAD: We definitely don’t want to waste our money. But sometimes we do lose our money by mistake. In 2016, the federal government said that $62 million worth of pennies are lost each year. The penny actually cost one and one half cents to make. And when there are so many pennies being lost, we might want to ask ourselves why we even make them anymore. Okay, kids, this part is for the parents and it might get a little boring, but make sure they listen. The biggest expense for a family is your home. And whenever we think about controlling expenses, you want to start with the biggest, there is a saying that shavings make a pile. That means every little bit helps and it really adds up.

So let’s put a focus on keeping your utilities down. Otherwise it can be a big drain on your finances. Not only is this excellent advice, it plays into watching the other little expenses we need to pay attention to while investing. first winter is coming and so winterize your home seal those cracks and leaks. And since heating and cooling is almost half of the energy in your home, start there. Go buy a pack of socket sealers. Now these are small pieces of insulation that go around your electrical sockets. They cut down the airflow in and out of your house when placed on the outside wall of your home. They are quick, easy and very inexpensive. I had Mak and G helped me when I replaced them. They held the outer plate when I took it off and the little screw as well as the actual socket sealers. So we did it together. The attic is also a big one and maybe the biggest one. Did you know that sealing the entry in your attic was simple weather stripping and some insulation is the biggest waste, hey, I’m not good with my hands. But I watched a couple of videos and spent $20. And in an hour I was done. A friend of mine took a thermal picture before and after. And it was a big win and very simple.

So I challenge you and your family to do a little winterizing this month, turn the heat down or the air conditioning up one degree from normal and adjust your hot water heater to not burn as hot. Hey, challenge your kids to turn off the lights in their rooms every day. And if they do it for a week, give them $1 Or two. If you get them in the habit, you’ll earn your money back tenfold and that is great investment advice. Plus, they start to put together that turning off the lights and saving money go hand in hand. As we get into investing, I found that most people don’t understand some of the unforeseen costs that are hidden in their investments or in their investment account. We’ll talk about how money is taken out of your pocket just like energy that sneaks out of your home. This is a great concept to learn and embrace shavings make a pile and by paying a bit more attention, we can make a huge difference and reduce those costs. Okay, before I go call your energy company, they’re giving away energy saving kits and they’re doing that at makindye school. Yes If I did say that they are giving away energy saving kits to MaK and G at their school, so they’re probably doing the same thing near you. We can all be a bit better about using energy and you win by saving some extra money. That’s my quick two cents. Thanks for being here, where it’s fun to talk about money and learn things on money with Mak and G.

MAK: We hope you liked this episode. Now it’s time to grab your mom.

GRANT: Or grab your dad.

MAK: Because it’s now time for you to talk to your parents about what we’ve discussed. Join us on our next episode on allowance. Thanks for joining us. If you haven’t yet, be sure to subscribe, rate and review this podcast.

GRANT: We want to help you succeed.

MAK: And if you have more insights on financial education, check out www.moneywithmakandg.com for lots of extra stuff which is growing all the time. Thanks for listening.

DAD: Bye!