Top Tips for Parents :
Top Budgeting Tools :
AUTISM NEWS
When the student challenges himself / herself the following week and finally saves enough money for that fun activity , then the student has experienced a gain .
Below , you will find tips for parents and a few of the successful tools we have used with our students .
Top Tips for Parents :
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Allow your son or daughter to fail
It isn ’ t easy to see a child fail , but this will make the learning process much easier for the child and the advisor .
2 .
Don ’ t replenish his / her bank account on command
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Let your son or daughter figure this out with the support team . The student will need to budget better next time .
Trust in the process
Results will come . Be patient . Real life learning takes time .
Let go of worst case scenarios
Let the experts coach and challenge your son or daughter with finances . That ’ s why they are experts .
Show your support
Allow for this transition to occur in your mind and demonstrate with your actions . Your child is going from childhood to adulthood . You are providing for him / her financially now , but the goal is that the student will eventually become self-supporting .
Top Budgeting Tools :
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Mint
Students who use this website and mobile app do really well because the website categorizes all expenses for them . It does require some manual input , but not much . Students who are tech savvy do well with this app .
Everydollar . com
This is a fee-based subscription website , but we mainly use the free version with our students . It is a manual online budget tracker that provides charts with debits and credits .
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Excel spreadsheet
Students have used this standard budgeting tracker or have created their own to visually track their expenses by using their bank transactions history and receipts .
Envelope system
Keep cash for specific expenses in separate envelopes ( e . g ., groceries , entertainment , bills ). This has been very successful with students who tend to use their debit cards too often and may experience overdrafts . This is great for students who have only used their debit cards and have a limited concept of money .
Bank budgeting tool
Some banks have built-in budgeting tools that are very helpful because they use the information they already have from current bank transactions and break it down into categories .
Click here for an example of a budgeting sheet used at CIP Long Beach . Click here to download the template .
Rosa Portillo is a student advisor at CIP Long Beach . She graduated from California State University , Long Beach in 2015 with a bachelor ’ s degree in psychology and is currently applying to graduate programs for social work . Website : cipworldwide . org
Autism Parenting Magazine | Issue 71 | 65