reston Davis has strong feelings about sharing his money.
“It’s good karma,” he said.
Preston made his comments last week during a presentation to his class in the Marysville Cooperative Education Program at Quil Ceda Elementary School.
He told his fellow classmates about how he once found a nickel and placed it in a collection jar.
“Then I found $47 on the floor of the supermarket, and then the owner came around and she gave us a dollar,” he said.
Preston’s story was one of several told by the students of Karen Rochon’s third-grade class last week as they got a lesson on money from Fred Sirianni, a vice president of investments at Piper Jaffray &Co. of Everett.
Sirianni, using a program his company developed for Teach Children to Save Day, talked with the 8- and 9-year-olds about the three things you can do with money: spend it, save it and share it.
Unlike the old days, when learning in school how to make change was a big deal, the students seemed ready for more sophisticated issues, such as making investments.
“The kids aren’t unfamiliar with money,” Rochon said. “They’re interested in money and what allowances can do for you.”
Sirianni said kids develop attitudes about money at an early age.
“They’re just like adults,” he said. “They’re all different. I have two children, and one is a spender and one is a hoarder.”
In Rochon’s class, Sirriani asked the kids what they’d do if they won $300 in a magazine contest.
“I would do two things with it,” said Courtney Miller. “I would spend half of it and I would put half in the bank.”
Others talked about how their family gives money to the less fortunate, such as the victims of the recent tsunami in south Asia.
“We give to the food bank at the Girl Scouts,” said Annamarie Ivey.
Sirriani also talked a little about loaning money and purchasing bonds to receive interest payments.
And he introduced the students to the Rule of 72, a method of learning how many years it will take you to double your money by dividing 72 by the rate of interest. For example, an investment receiving 8 percent interest annually would double in 9 years.
China Zugish said she sometimes tapped her “so-called piggy bank,” which was really “just a bag of money,” to make a loan to her parents, for which she charged 10 percent interest a year.
“I don’t know how to add interest onto cents,” she said. “I just know how to do dollar bills.”
Sirriani promised to answer her question after the presentation.
To introduce the idea of investing in stocks, Sirriani made up a company called Corey’s Cookies. He asked the students how the company’s fortunes might change based on news events such as skyrocketing sugar prices, price cuts by competing companies or interest by McDonald’s in selling the cookies.
Stock investments, he noted after the exercise, can be risky.
“Smart people put their eggs into different baskets,” he said.
He also asked the students if they knew the difference between buying things with cash or with a credit card.
“With cash, you just give them the money right then,” said Sarah Larson. “With a credit card, you have to pay off a credit card.”
Sirriani closed his lesson by giving the students a bank with three money slots, one for spending, one for saving and one for sharing.
“Something magical happens when we give money away,” he said.
“It’s karma,” Preston added.
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