Break out your picnic baskets and blankets! We’re only two days away from July 4. If you don’t have plans already, consider attending Family Fun Fest in Fort Smith for fireworks and more. Festivities begin with a unique car show at Pendergraft Park (3^rd and Garrison) at 2 p.m. This show will display a Segway and an electric car from Oklahoma Gas & Electric, so be sure to come take a look at the future of automotives.

Family Fun Fest will begin at 5 p.m. in River Park Glass Pavilion and Compass Park on the Arkansas River. The Great American Race will begin at 5:45 p.m. and the first car will cross the finish line at approximately 6 p.m. The cars in the race will be on display until 8:30 p.m. at 2^nd & Garrison and, if you’re lucky, you may meet a few of the drivers!

At 7 p.m. the Mayor’s 4^th of July celebration will begin at Harry E. Kelly Park, hosted by Mayor Ray Baker. Mr. Cabbage Head and the Screaming Radishes, a local musical favorite, will perform. At 7:30 p.m. the Border Town Legends will perform a Wild West shootout reenactment. Later, at 8 p.m. there will be an awards presentation to the winner of the Great American Race followed by a performance by the River Valley Community Band.

The main event (and everyone’s favorite), the fireworks show, will begin at 9 p.m. with fireworks being set off from a barge on the Arkansas River. This show will be able to be seen from the Oklahoma side of the river and even in nearby Van Buren, AR.

This festival will benefit many local charities. The 4^th annual Family Fun Fest aims to help fight hunger, so if you live nearby, come celebrate Independence Day in style, with all proceeds going to a worthy cause. 

1 – Don’t close credit card accounts

If you quickly close your open credit card accounts, your credit score will plummet. Though you might not think this is the case, credit scores aren’t built around common sense and nixing unused lines of credit isn’t the best option, though it seems practical. When you close an account, you lose that addition to your total amount of available credit. Lowering the credit available without changing your level of debt skews the ratio of debt-to-available-credit. For those with very low balances, closing newer credit accounts slowly can make sense, particularly if high interest rates or annual fees accompany the cards. Having too much credit, however, will rarely be a problem. It is true, however, that mortgage lenders may assess the amount of credit available to consumers who take out a home loan and take this credit into consideration when evaluating their trustworthiness.

2 – Don’t let credit cards collect dust

Consumers shouldn’t jump to close credit accounts, but letting cards sit idle by keeping them in a shoebox for an emergencies only or burying them in the backyards could potentially backfire. Lately creditors have been in a “use it or lose it” attitude with a heavy emphasis on the “lose it.” If your open accounts are unused for long enough, the company can stop reporting it to the credit bureaus altogether. If the account goes unreported, it won’t be contributing to your available credit, which will affect your credit utilization ratio.

3 – Don’t run up high balances

The only worse alternative to using too little credit is using too much credit. Gail Cunningham, spokeswoman for the National Foundation for Credit Counseling in Silver Spring, MD says the Fico score in particular favors lots of credit that is not utilized too much or too little. 30% of the FICO score concerns the amount borrowers owe and then compares it to the amount of credit they have available. This utilization ratio is negatively skewed when you owe upwards of 30% of your available credit, especially if one card is at or near it’s limit. Contrary to popular belief, it is not only irresponsible or desperate spenders who have hurt their scores because of large balances relative to their limits. This unfortunate circumstance can happen to anyone who carries a balance if a lender decides to cut your credit limit, for instance, in response to market conditions. To prospective lenders who will look at your credit report, it looks like you maxed out your credit cards instead of keeping a previously low balance relative to the limit.

4 – Don’t apply for new credit repeatedly

A lot of consumers think new credit is simply a shiny new credit card in your wallet. New credit is actually, however, a dent to your credit score – at least in the short run. New credit accounts undoubtedly lower the average age of your credit history. If you’ve had one card for 20 years and then five others that you just got because you went to five different stores during the holidays and were offered rebates upon signing up your credit score is going to take the account you’ve had for 20 years (240 months) and the five accounts you’ve had for one year. This means the five accounts times 12 months would be averaged with your previous card, and it would only look like you’ve had credit for four years. Applying for a credit card causes a hard inquiry on your credit report. The alternative, a soft inquiry, happens when you pull your credit report, Inquiries aren’t extremely damaging to your score, but multiple hard inquiries within a short period of time are a red flag to lenders because of the desperation factor or the possibility of illegal activity. Most credit card companies and banks try to steer clear of consumers in these scenarios.

5 – Pay fines and non-credit card bills

Seemingly meaningless hassles, like avoiding overdue book fines at the library and outstanding parking tickets, can negatively impact your credit score. Public institutions and municipalities nowadays are using credit to get people to pay up. If someone has an old library fine that remains unpaid, it could be damaging their credit score without the consumer even knowing. This is exactly why it is essential to repeatedly check your credit score. Other business relationships that don’t normally report good payments might turn around and hurt you if you decide to lag on your payments. Any business, ranging from cell phone companies to garbage collection companies, can turn on you when it comes to collecting what’s owed – which means sending your account to collections.

6 – Don’t ignore mistakes on your credit report

Though credit bureaus are sometimes shady, when it comes to disputing inaccuracies on your credit report, they don’t cause much trouble. Granted they might not fix them right away and it could be next to impossible to get anything but a recording on the phone. Sometimes (and probably more often than not), disputing your report is easy and worthwhile. Before disputing, consumers must obviously check their own credit report. Now this process is easier than ever, so consumers have unlimited access to their own information, which is huge since previous methods of obtaining a credit report (namely in times before the Internet) were time-consuming and tedious. Mistakes on your credit report can nowadays be remedied easily and quickly, unlike other issues that hurt your credit scores, so you should definitely monitor your own credit report.

7 – Don’t skip or make late payments

This is the most obvious of the ways to keep a healthy credit score. Paying late and missing payments can be hugely detrimental to your credit score. Fortunately, however, not all missed and late payments are counted equally in credit score calculation. MyFICO.com’s Paperno says the FICO score judges missed and late payments by many different criteria including how severely late the payment was, how recently it occurred, and the frequency of late or missed payments. The recentness of the incident is the most substantial to the FICO score. Mistakes of the far past have less impact than recent ones. Obviously, consumers with fewer mistakes will have better scores. Once mistakes are several years old, however, they might not affect your credit score at all.

It’s that time of year again! The 19^th annual Riverfront Blues Festival is slated for June 26-27 at Fort Smith’s Harry E. Kelley Riverfront Park. Admission is $5 per day and kids under 12 get in free with an adult.

According to the Riverfront Blues Fest website, the Fort Smith Riverfront Blues Society was organized in 1993 by local blues fans. Their mission is to support the American form of music known as Blues, and also the redevelopment of downtown Fort Smith. Funding for such activities is provided through society membership dues, donations (both corporate and private), as well as fundraising.

Blues Fest is not the society’s only fundraiser; the group holds many fundraisers to support the festival and also maintains the Barry Ratliff Memorial fund that enables young musicians to obtain annual college scholarship. Also, the Fort Smith Riverfront Blues Society provides the “Blues in the Schools” educational program to area schools.

The lineup for the 19^th annual Riverfront Blues Festival is as follows:

The Robert Cray Band

Jackie Greene

Grace Potter & the Nocturnals

Roomful of Blues

Curtis Salgado

Eric Lindell

The Soul of John Black

Smilin’ Bob & the Bushwhackers

If you’re planning on attending Blues Fest, don’t forget your blankets and lawn chairs for seating. Your driver’s license is required to purchase alcoholic beverages, which will be on sale at the venue. The Blues Festival does not allow camping, pets, coolers, camcorders, or other recording devices. Also, the Blues Festival will not allow swimming or wading in the Arkansas River or access to the festival by boat. The show will continue on stage despite inclement weather, unless there are severely heavy rains, dangerous conditions, high winds or lightning. The show may pause and resume in response to certain weather conditions, but no alternate location will be used and the festival will not be rescheduled. There is a free paved bike parking lot near the entrance gate which will be available on a first come first served basis.

More information about the Riverfront Blues Society and the Riverfront Blues Festival can be found here. 

Last Friday’s severe weather might have left you with quite a bit of storm debris, but don’t worry – the Fort Smith Sanitation Department has scheduled a tree debris collection service that runs through July 17. To schedule a pickup, call (479) 784-2350.

To be eligible for pickup, your tree debris need to be unbundled and less than 6 feet in length. Tree trunks and larger tree debris will need to be assessed before they can be collected by the Sanitation Department. After you have scheduled a pickup, place your tree debris curbside and away from cars, water meters, fire hydrants, mailboxes, and overhead power lines to prevent damage to any of these structures.

Customers in the Altes Sanitation Service area (most areas south of Zero Street) should prepare their tree debris for normal yard waste collection. To make a special debris collection request with the Altes Sanitation Service, call (479) 646-3890. 

With the prevalence of personal compute use and gadgets like cell phones and PDAs with internet access, it’s no surprise that many real estate websites have come up with helpful tools for homebuyers. CNN Money has compiled five helpful tools that can help you find a home fast.

For iPhone users, you can get information about houses you see for sale through the use of an app. Rather than having to write down a broker’s information after seeing it on a for sale sign, you can enter it directly into an iPhone app from Zillow.com. Zillow released the free app last month in order to help consumers find information on over 88 million homes – and not just the ones for sale. The Zillow.com app is GPS-powered so the map moves with you as you house hunt while providing price estimate pop-ups along the way. If you enter information from a for sale sign, you can view pricing, number of bedrooms and baths, square footage, and more. Zillow’s CEO Rich Barton said, “House-hunting is, inherently, a mobile experience,” when he announced the app’s launch.

If you are looking for profitable investment tools, there is an website on the internet that could be extremely helpful in your search. Home prices are more affordable now than they have been in a while, and there are many bargains to be had. Investors can visit InvestorLoft.com’s PropScout tool to find great deals on investment properties. The PropScout tool offers several search filters that go beyond location and price. The Estimated Equity filter narrows your search by showing homes with big differences between listing price and estimated value, and the Cash Flow filter ranks homes by profits they produce. Also, the Cap Rate filter ranks properties by the percentage of profit on investment. This online tool includes listings in roughly 20 states and CEO Walter Charnoff expects it to cover all 50 by 2010. When using this tool, you can search by city, zip code, or property ID.

Trulia.com recently launched a nationwide filter that allows homebuyers to browse 3.2 million listings for price reductions. It’s as easy as entering your town or zip code and then viewing the reduced-price homes that pop up. Trulia also displays details such as the number of times the price has dropped, the dates, and by how much as well as the percentage of reduction. This information is very helpful since it can show that the seller is becoming anxious about making a sale and homebuyers can adjust their offers and maximize their buying power accordingly. If a certain property has gone through price cuts at regular intervals and is due for another soon, buyers might want to wait a few days or weeks to make an offer. Trulia also offers a new comparison feature that lets consumers view four listings at a time, making it easier to compare the features of each home. Trulia’s head of communications Ken Shuman says, “The tools can be used to take the pulse of the market today.”

More and more real estate agencies are turning to websites like YouTube to upload videos about specific listings and also testimonials from clients that have used their brokers in buying a home. King Realty Group has utilized this tool and has over 50 testimonial, listing, and informational videos uploaded on their YouTube channel. Visit the KRG YouTube channel here. 

Potential homebuyers who are curious about the future of their investments can obtain market reports at Cyberhomes. This service costs $9.95 and provides projections about specific neighborhoods in addition to a 12- and 24-month price-change forecast. It also reports the number of REO, foreclosure, and distressed properties within a given zip code and offers comparisons of these properties to the rest of the metro area and the state. Also, Cyberhomes estimates the strength of the local market and how the volume of sales will change over the next year. This site offers a logical look at a transaction that’s often laden with emotion. Homebuyers often jump to purchase homes they like, which can lead to overpaying. If the market report you get from Cyberhomes reveals that prices might fall sharply and that more homes will soon be available, homebuyers might slow down and make a better offer. If the report shows the market is going to bounce back, however, homebuyers might act on their decision and snag a better deal. Jay Gaskill, president of Cyberhomes, says, “In today’s market, an understanding of the future direction of property values and inventory levels are key factors.” 

According to a Times Record article published in today's issue, the U.S. Marshals Museum and William J. Clinton Presidential Library have collaborated to provide toolkits with Marshals Service-related materials to teachers in the Little Rock and Fort Smith school districts as well as the Hope and Helena/West Helena education cooperatives. Jessica Hayes, Marshals Museum Coordinator, says she and Clinton Library and Museum education specialist Kathleen Pate are planning to build kits containing around 40 reproductions of documents, editorial cartoons and newspaper articles, some that date back to the time of George Washington's presidency. George Washington is responsible for establishing the Marshals Service in 1860. The toolkits will be distributed to teachers in time for the 2009-10 school year, said Hayes. Pate and Hayes hope to distribute the kits statewide in time for the 2010-11 school year and to eventually distribute nationwide. 

The education department of the Clinton Presidential Library aims to advance the understanding of the role of the office of the presidency and the American political system, according to the mission of the library's website. It publishes a newsletter, and provides teacher advisory groups, classroom materials and lesson plans, and is currently developing a classroom outreach program. 

The pilot project for Fort Smith and Little Rock regions is funded through a 3-1 matching grant from the Arkansas Humanities council. Hayes said the council provided $6,972 for the project and the organizers provide the three-times-in-kind match, predominately through labor. Hayes says, "It's a big project."

Throughout the summer, organizers of the projects will be holding workshops with teachers to determine what is needed and desired in the toolkits. Hayes said, "What we're doing is meeting topics teachers are already teaching in the classroom and supplementing them with materials focusing on the Marshals and president's roles." 

Hayes believes the materials will be adaptable for use in subjects beyond history, such as supplements to a geography lesson by having students use prisoner transfer documents to track where a marshal or deputy marshal traveled in history. In a lesson such as this, students could discuss what the marshals might have experienced during their journeys or learn how many marshals were involved in the westward expansion of America and in the number of states achieving statehood. 

Kathleen Cates, professional development director of Fort Smith Schools, says the Fort Smith Schools district readily agreed to participate in this pilot program. All Fort Smith public schools from kindergarten through ninth grade have Arkansas history lessons to some extent, and the district is always looking for ways to revamp and supplement the program. This program was perfect for local schools since there is no cost for the school district. Cates said, "It's amazing to see how much our local area has contributed that affects the entire nation." 

Between 20-25 Fort Smith teachers will participate in the project during the 2009-10 school year, according to Cates. The following year, Cates expects expansion to more teachers in Fort Smith schools, based on pilot teachers' feedback and evaluations. Also, when the planned Marshals Museum is built, field trips could be incorporated into lesson plans. 

According to Hayes, each teacher will receive a CD containing reproductions of documents and materials as well as a supplemental guide for what state standard each aspect fulfills. Some planned materials are the 1789 U.S. Constitution, Judiciary Act, Washington's District Attorney and marshal appointments, photos of original U.S. marshals, newspaper articles pertaining to U.S. marshal activity, and other various documents.  

Home prices are expected to keep falling in a lot of areas this year and to flat line for several years to come, so you might want to rethink the merits of home ownership for the time being. As a renter, you won’t spend money on eroding equity and the market for renters is pretty good right now – considering homeowners who can’t sell their homes are looking to rent out their space.

You’ll probably spend less money renting too. According to the U.S. Census Bureau and real estate research firm Property & Portfolio, U.S. Rents slumped in the fourth quarter of last year and they are projected to fall again this year.

Though renting is a short-term decision, it could be one that proves very helpful for your savings account. Home ownership is a better long-term decision since you will get to enjoy tax breaks, build equity, and have the pride of owning your own home. Renters also have to deal with the risk of faulty market timing. Experts don’t expect the real estate market to bounce back quickly, but if it does, prices could also bounce back before you buy a home. Keeping all of these things in mind, here are Money Magazine’s tips on how to decide whether renting is for you.

Calculate your Time Frame

If your current housing situation is in transition, you might consider renting. If you’re relocating for a new job, you can rent a home and “test” a new neighborhood and location. If you’ve already decided to sell and trade up, renting could also be your best option. Retirees who want to downsize, relocate, or both should also consider renting.

Price Out the Tradeoffs

It can be difficult to determine the real costs of owning a home vs. renting on the same size, style, location, etc. Property taxes and maintenance costs in addition to mortgage payments are a part of home ownership costs, but these also come with tax advantages. If you decide to rent a home for a while, you could have to pay a broker for this move and again when you decide to buy.

To calculate whether or not renting is a better value for you, you should investigate your area’s price-to-rent ratio, says Dean Baker of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. He says, to calculate this, divide the price of a home you’d buy by the annual rent you’d pay on a comparable home in the same location. If the ratio for your market is above 15, the historical average, Baker says renting is a better value.

Assess your Market

The longer the price-to-rent ratio stays in your favor, the better. Look at trends in foreclosure rates and home prices to see the direction in which your local market is headed. You can use the Stats & Trends tool on sites like Trulia.com to get average listing prices, median sales prices, and other zip code-specific information for a given area. Also, RealtyTrac.com has a tool that will help you find out how the rate of foreclosures is changing by county. Also, consider the local economy as a market indicator. If the major employer in your area has just announced mass job cuts, home prices in the area are probably going to slump for a while.

Weigh the Intangibles

Money isn’t the only factor that contributes to your decision to rent or buy. If you rent, you are at the mercy of a landlord for miscellaneous home improvements and new paint jobs. This tradeoff could be worth it, however, if renting will save you money and allow you to buy an even better home in the future. 

If you’re an Arkansas baseball fan and want to follow the Razorbacks to Omaha, Nebraska for the 2009 NCAA College World Series, you’re in luck! You can advance purchase a book of 10 general admission tickets for just $70 online. The College World Series will begin Saturday, June 13 and will last through June 23 or June 24.

The Razorbacks will play the winner of the Cal-State Fullerton Louisville Super Regional. Game dates and times will not be announced until the complete NCAA College World Series field is determined.

Keep in mind that Arkansas will receive a limited number of reserved tickets, so get yours as soon as possible. The Arkansas ticket office will begin contacting those on the ticket priority list Monday (June 8) starting with Broyles-Matthews baseball season ticket holders. The general admissions tickets are non-guaranteed seats in the right and left outfield bleachers at Johnny Rosenblatt Stadium. The estimated capacity is 5,400 for these aluminum, bench-style seats with seat backs. These tickets are not designated for a specific session or date but are rather available on a first-come, first-served basis. If the ticket holder arrives early enough to be seated, the tickets are good for all games, even Finals games. If the GA section is completely full, the gates will close and even ticketholders for the section will be denied entry. Gates may reopen after a few innings or ticketholders will be able to watch the game on a big screen TV in the plaza area.

GA tickets may be upgraded to reserved seats by paying the difference in price between a reserved and GA ticket. These upgrades will only be available at the Rosenblatt box office and go on sale at 10am for that day of games only (if there is a 6pm game only, the box office will not open until 12pm). Upgrades are also available on a first-come, first-served basis and the limit is six ticket upgrades for qualifying games and four for finals games.

Single GA tickets ($10 a piece) will go on sale at 10am the day of the game and will be available at the Rosenblatt Stadium box office only. These tickets are not sold in advance and will not be available via TicketMaster.

A limited number of general admission ticket books are available by calling the following locations:

Mid-America Center -- 712-323-0536 ext. 2323

Qwest Center -- 402-341-1500 and ask for CWS GA Ticket Sales.

Rosenblatt Stadium -- 402-734-2550 and ask for Kay or Lois.

Saving for retirement is harder now than ever given the current slumped economy. Even if you have been diligently putting portions of your paychecks aside for retirement for years now, one investment mistake could ruin your retirement plans. According to AOL’s Top 5ive Retirement Mistakes to Avoid, you should avoid each of the following:

Procrastination

It’s easy to push aside retirement if you’re only in your 20s because it seems like such a futuristic concept. According to the benefits consultant Hewitt Associates, slightly more than 50% 20-29-year-olds participated in a 401 (k) as of the end of 2008.

Most young adults are understandably more concerned about paying off things like student loans and credit cards they racked up in college and also about making ends meet right after college and into their late 20s. This generation is probably also nervous to invest for fear of a market crash in this sometimes-unpredictable economy. Neglecting to save for retirement during these early years of your life is a huge mistake. When you invest in a 401 (k), your earnings grow tax deferred. Thanks to the power of compounding interests, deposits made toward your retirement earlier on in your life will have a lot of time to increase.

For example, if a 25-year-old contributes $5,000 per year to a 401 (k) with a 7% annual rate will see just short of $1 million by the time they are 65. If they start putting in this same amount at age 45, however, they will only save $205,000 with the same rate.

Failure to Diversify

It is true that the markets and the economy have been slumping lately, but you shouldn’t react to these changes with extreme conservatism in your investments, says Benjamin Tobias, a certified financial planner from Plantation, Fla. You should be able to exercise your 401 (k) to the fullest of its potential, so make sure you have a variety of stocks and bonds.

Younger investors with plenty of time to regain losses before retirement should be riskier in their investments by approaching with a larger percentage of their money (usually 80% of their portfolio) in high-growth stocks, according to Tobias. Investors who are in their 50s should be more conservative in their approach by using more cash and bonds, but while keeping around 60% in equities.

Consider investing in a target-date fun if you feel uncomfortable choosing your own holdings. These mutual funds aim toward a specific age group and gradually become more conservative as its investors near retirement age.

Mismanagement of Your 401 (k)

Pamela Hess, director of retirement research at Hewitt Associate says you’re the one calling the shots with a 401 (k). She offers these tips to be a “good custodian” while you have time before retirement:

Get the company match: It is not uncommon for employers to pledge to match their employees’ contributions up to a certain percentage of their salaries. Typically this match is 50 cents for every dollar up to 6% of your paycheck, says Hewitt Associates. If you don’t contribute enough to meet the full match, you are conning yourself out of free money, and roughly 30% of workers make this mistake, says Hess.

Rolling over your 401 (k): If you change jobs, don’t forget to roll over your 401 (k) investments to your new provider. If you fail to do this and you’re younger than 59 ½, you will be cashed out of your 401 (k) only after your holdings get hit with the normal tax rate in addition to a 10% penalty.

Tapping your 401 (k) before retirement: According to Hess, only tap into your nest egg if you desperately need the cash. She says, “It needs to be a very last resort. That’s un-repairable damage.” And she warns to proceed with caution since you only have five years to repay money you withdraw. After this time period, the IRS will tax the distribution at normal levels (which can be as high as 35%) and invoke a 10% federal penalty on top of that.

Retiring Too Early

Hess says that, even during healthy market years, few people are fully prepared to retire early. With today’s economy, it’s even harder to be ready for early retirement. Hess says, “Most people are going to have to work longer to make up for what happened [to their portfolios].”

If your course of action involves withdrawing more than 4% of your retirement assets in the first year, for example, Hess advises to hold off a while. The first year of retirement sets the stage for how much you plan to take in future years, and it can be a really great indicator of the likelihood that your money will outlast your life.

Don’t forget to factor in health insurance costs. If you are younger than age 65, you’ll have to bridge the gap between when your employer’s health coverage benefits stop and when Medicare begins. Purchasing private health insurance can be quite costly, so don’t forget to keep this expense in mind.

Also remember Social Security. If you start receiving it at age 62, you will receive reduced benefits. If you wait until age 66, however, you will receive full benefits (currently $27,876 per person per year). The rule of thumb in regard to Social Security is to wait until full retirement age, but it might make more financial sense for you to receive Social Security checks at a younger age and thus leave your 401 (k) investments to grow tax deferred for additional years.

Not Investing During Retirement

Just because you have retired doesn’t mean you should stop investing and planning further for your retirement! This is a very common mistake made by retirees. Greg McBride, senior financial analyst at Bankrate.com says, “Even if you’re 60 years old, you could still have a 30-year time horizon to invest. You need to preserve that buying power.”

To do this, you should avoid overly conservative investments early on in your retirement, which could hurt your investments’ ability to recover from market losses and outpace inflation. McBride says that, if you plan to retire at age 65, at least 45% of your portfolio should be in equities. If you are planning to hold a part-time job during retirement, you might consider putting some of your paycheck in a Roth IRA, which offers tax-free growth and an estate-planning benefit. 

 It’s not uncommon for preteens and teenagers these days to have their own cell phones, iPods, laptops, TV’s in their bedrooms, and more luxuries that most adults weren’t able to afford until recently. Though these devices have become more affordable over the years, they are still an indicator that kids these days are more spoiled than ever. With the looming recession and failing markets at hand, if your kids are still living the life of luxury, it might be time to tune down their lifestyle.

Donna Kornegay, 41, a director of wellness at a law school in Durham, N.C. and mother to 14-year-old Dalyn Fountain, says, “We’d regularly give her money to go to the mall and keep up with the latest trends at Abercrombie and Aeropostle.” Recently, however, Dalyn’s shopping habits and spending routine have been cut. Donna and her husband Dexter (Dalyn’s stepfather) confess they have limited their daughter’s spending in addition to their own. “We’ve been extravagant with our kids and with ourselves, now we’re readjusting,” says Donna.

The Kornegay’s have stopped making frequently shopping trips and have started giving Dalyn a $20 weekly allowance and a $3 weekly allowance for her 6-year-old younger sister. The Kornegay’s confess that Dalyn has had trouble adjusting to her now-limited funding, but she understands that it is necessary.

In a recent survey, CNN Money reports 54% of parents admit their kids have too much stuff. Also, over 50% of participants in the survey say that, because of the economic crisis, they plan to spend less on their kids for years in the future. Turns out the stock market correction might lead to an additional correction in the financial values parents instill in their kids.

Nathan Dungan, financial coach and author of “Prodigal Sons and Material Girls,” says, “Parents are seeing the shortcomings of giving children everything they want.” He believes parents are now realizing how expensive it is to cater to their kids’ every desire, especially in today’s economy. By overindulging, you run the risk of raising children who don’t understand the value of a dollar or have necessary skills to handle themselves after they’re off your payroll. A bad habit this can lead to is credit card reliance.

According to CNN Money, here’s an age-specific way to help your kids’ financial futures:

Ages 5-9:

Make sure you give your kids simple chores that are their explicit responsibilities. Give them a weekly allowance and stick to it. Also, talk about money decisions and values with your children and introduce the idea of charity.

Ages 10-13:

Get each of your kids a saving account and offer extra chores and tasks around the house as a way to increase their weekly spending money. Consider raising their weekly allowance if you deem it necessary, and explain to them why or why not you think they deserve this increase.

Ages 14-18:

Open a checking account for each of your children and have them deposit their allowance into it. Introduce debit or prepaid credit cards but be sure to monitor the use. Encourage your kids, if they are over age 16, to get a part-time job and to deposit these funds into their checking or savings accounts too.

Ages 19-22:

Expand allowances to cover semester-long expenses if your kids are in college, and provide financial help only if it encourages your children to become more independent. Stress involvement in charity as an enriching opportunity for your children.