If there's anything the Great Recession has taught us, it's that fiscal responsibility needs to be learned early and needs to be learned well. Perhaps one of the best ways to teach your children fiscal responsibility is by giving them hands-on practice under a parent’s watchful eye. Many banks offer youth accounts, and it can be fun for your child to see their savings grow. You can even make a game out of how much interest their account will earn over a certain time period, and USAA has some great Youth Banking accounts to consider. While you have to be affiliated with the military to take advantage of USAA’s insurance products, their bank and investment products are available to the general public.

If your child is very young, you may want to start with only a Youth Savings account. You can open up an account for as little as $25, and there are no monthly fees and no minimum balance requirements. They can use any ATM in the country for free up to the first 10 transactions (up to $15 for other banks’ fees will be refunded each month). The account earns a tiered interest rate based on the amount of the deposit. You and your child can deposit checks with just a home computer and a scanner using USAA Deposit Home, and can access their account online or via mobile banking. However, perhaps the best benefit of this account is the parental controls. As a joint account holder, the parent will have full access to the child’s account, but the child can manage their own account with parent’s permission. The parent can also electronically transfer money from their account to their child’s as well.

If you want to help your child get used to debit and credit cards, you may want to check out the USAA Prepaid MasterCard as an alternative way to give your child his or her allowance. There is no set-up fee or annual fee for this card; you can set spending limits and allowance schedules, and view and track transactions online. You can also add more money instantly, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. When your child goes to a merchant, they will have the option of pressing “credit” and signing the receipt or pressing “debit” and entering a PIN.

The Teen Checking account comes with all of the benefits of the savings account and the Prepaid MasterCard, except they will also receive a free rewards debit card to earn cash back or points for things like IPods and DVD players. As a parent, you will still have full control over their account, but if you give them permission, they can manage their own account as well. By the time they’re ready to get their own individual accounts and cards, they’ll be experts.

If you are like many Americans, you have a large amount of student loans looming over your head like a black cloud. Student debt is not something that is uncommon in today’s world, but can it keep you from owning a home?

In order to understand the type of effect your student loan will have on your ability to get a mortgage, it is important to know the two basic types of debt that a mortgage lender looks at. The first type of debt is an installment loan. An installment loan is a debt that you must pay a fixed amount every month. Your student debt is considered an installment loan just like auto loans, mortgages, etc.

Installment loans, specifically student loans, have an impact on your lender’s decision on granting you a mortgage. While the impact of large installment loans can be adverse, it is unlikely to be as detrimental as large amounts of revolving credit (which ordinarily come from credit cards). In other words, student loan debt is more favorable than credit card debt so having a large amount of student loans is not going to look as bad on your credit score as having a couple maxed out credit cards.

However, if you have student loans and you do not take them seriously, you could adversely affect your credit a great deal. Many students use their student debt to begin building their credit history. If you default on your student loans, your credit score will be greatly affected. That is why it is so important to make payments on your student loans on time every month to avoid those dings on your credit history.

If you are planning on applying for a mortgage in the near future, it is important to start paying down your student loans. But it is more important to pay down your other debts as well. The federal government allows many forms of aid to help you repay your student loans. For instance, the normal repayment program allows you up to 25 years to pay off the loan in small monthly installments. There is a consolidation option which allows a borrower to combine several student loans into one easy to manage payment each month. This often results in a lower monthly payment and longer repayment terms. You can also choose to defer your loan payments for several years if you have a financial hardship.

With all of these options available to help you repay your student loans, defaulting on your payments is the worst option to take if you ever plan on having a mortgage. Keep your student loan payments up to date and they won’t have the horrible impact on your credit history that you may have originally thought.

Everyone knows how hard it is to get a decent rate in today’s market. Only a handful of banks offer savings rates greater than 1% APY and CD rates over 2%. So when you see a higher-than-average-rate, it's hard not to jump at the chance to get a good return for your money. After all, deposits are FDIC insured up to $250,000 so you won't lose your money even if the bank fails, as long as you deposit your money in a product that carries FDIC insurance like regular savings accounts and CDs. However, if the bank is in poor financial health, should you still deposit your money there?

The FDIC assures consumers that no depositor has ever lost a penny of insured deposits since the FDIC was created in 1933, so you can be sure that the money you invested in FDIC insured accounts will be protected. However, it may take a few days for you to get your money back.

Depending on how the FDIC chooses to resolve the bank failure, one of two things could happen. The preferred and most common method of resolution involves a healthy bank acquiring the failed bank. In this scenario, the insured deposits of the failed bank become deposits in the acquiring bank and your money is available immediately. When there is no bank acquirer for the deposits, the FDIC will pay the depositor directly by check up to the insured balance in each account. Federal law requires the FDIC to make payments of insured deposit “as soon as possible.” Most payments usually begin within a few days after the bank closing. While the FDIC notes that every bank failure is unique, they follow standard policies and procedures so that most deposit insurance payments are made within two business days of the bank failure.

The reality is that it is safe to deposit money in a bank which is at risk of failure as long as you stay well within FDIC coverage limits. It however is important for consumers to be aware of their bank’s financial health and to understand exactly what their FDIC insurance coverage is. For more information on matters related to holding deposits in a bank that faces possible FDIC seizure, please read this article.

For the best information on banks and to check the health of any financial institution, click here.