Money is such an important aspect of all of our lives, yet, unfortunately, how to manage money is not taught in most schools. Then it is on us, as parents or guardians, to teach our kids about money. And we need to start teaching them young!
There is a lot to teach our youngsters, so I have broken this in to a two part series to make it easier for you to digest and most importantly, to implement.
Why teach our kids about Money?
They form their money habits by the age of 7!!
Whether you realise it or not, research has shown that our kids are picking up feelings towards money from the way you talk about money. They are also forming behaviours about wanting things instantly verses being happy to wait. This means we, as parents, need to start talking to our kids about money now.
Their future financial well-being will be determined by the money habits they form.
Whilst we all want our kids to get good grades so they can earn money when they are adults, if they grow up forming poor money habits, it doesn’t matter how much they earn they could still struggle financially. There are plenty of people who earn over $100,000 who go into debt and financial stress due to poor money habits. There are also people who earn very little and manage their money well and are financially secure.
Learning about money has so many benefits.
It is well known that kids who learn about money grow up to be more confident and higher self-esteem. They also have less money worries and therefore are likely to avoid a number of mental health issues that come with financial stress.
So, they are the main reasons why we need to be teaching our kids about money from a young age.
The hard part now is, how do we teach our kids about money?
As most parents were never taught about money themselves, this can be a little difficult. You might be thinking, I’m struggling with money myself, so I don’t think I’m the best person to be talking to my kids about money.
The good news is that you don’t have to be an expert with money to help change your kids’ life for the better when it comes to their financial future. You just have to commit to two key points:
- Talk positively about money around your kids. Regardless of your personal thoughts and stresses about money, focus on the positives. If they grow up with a negative mindset towards money, they are much more likely to have negative experiences.
- Help them form the three essential money habits I set out below. As mentioned above, it’s their money habits that will determine their financial future. They don’t need to become financial gurus to be good with money. The most important thing is that they need to form a savings mindset, and this will come from them developing good money habits from a young age.
The 3 Uses of Money
Before I talk about the 3-money habit they should form, a key lesson that you need to teach your kids is the three uses of money.
These three uses are:
Spend it - they’ll pick this one up naturally, but we don’t want them to see this as the only use of money.
Save it - if they learn to save, then they are likely to avoid most financial mistakes.
Grow it - If you can teach them that money can make money, then you are giving them the secret sauce when it comes to money. Most people rely solely on their salary to earn money. If your kids can learn that by saving in a long-term savings account, or even better, investing, then they will slowly start earning more and more money whilst they sleep at night.
Here is a tip to help you teach your kids these different uses of money,
Get them to think of money as 'seeds'.
Kids will know straight away that seeds can be planted and grow into something. So, when they are given money, they will have to consider whether to give the seeds away (spend) or plant them (save).
The more they can visualise their money, the better chance they have of learning and retaining the message.
That's it for this episode, Part 2 will be out next week.
*Lynda Moore is a Money Mentalist coach and New Zealand’s only certified New Money Story® mentor. Lynda helps you understand why you do the things you do with your money, when we all know we should spend less than we earn. You can contact her here.
19 Comments
Norway runs current account surpluses something that NZ hasn't done for many decades and is unlikely to do for the foreseeable future. Our current account deficits of over $30 billion are a net loss of savings and bank lending cannot create household net savings either.
They are in our case as we run current account deficits. Sectoral balances were described by economist Wynne Godley who worked for the UK Treasury. There are three sectors to the economy, government, private and foreign and the financial flows between them must net to zero and this is displayed by the accounting identity (S-I) = (G-T) + (X-M) in its simplest form. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectoral_balances
Maybe teach them how 'money' is created and that the so called growing and storing of money in 'assets', not only removes it from flowing through the economy but requires more debt to be created. Maybe teach them how to reconcile money with the natural sharing and flow of energy and resources in Nature, designed to ensure the well-being of all rather than a few.
Maybe instead of programming our children into "the way we've always done it", we could nurture and encourage them to be the change the world requires.
One can see in the right environment children are more inclined to share, to co-operate and care about each other.
It is said that we don't inherit the Earth from our ancestors but borrow it from our children. Yet we've inherited a system and beliefs that does not value the well being of people or planet, and appears to worship 'money', scarcity and greed instead.
All very nice and touchy-feely, but not the real world. If you want to retire and have some assets, then you need to employ debt to your advantage.
One way is real estate, but it requires a bit of study and some risk. The richest people on the planet didn't get there with an ASB savings account.
They do not teach money in the school on purpose.
This is very sad really, I see so many people chained to their banks as slaves for life.
I am looking forward to more depth in part 2 of this article !
Something like Financial Peace University
There is an organisation called Banqer https://banqer.co/nz that works with schools to teach kids about money. This is currently up to schools to opt into, it would be incredible to see this get MOE support and adoption.
Personal finance might seem like a boring subject to most people, however personal finance skills are an essential life skill.
Many people are unaware that they lack these skills and face the consequences of the lack of personal finance skills as adults.
Many people grow up in families and cultures where the parents are financially illiterate. These people need to be aware and learn the subject for themselves. As a person who had financially illiterate parents, it is important these people learn these essential life skills to improve decision making that leads to better financial outcomes, and upward social mobility for many in lower socio-economic households.
Yes, agree completely. How many people shackle themselves to bad debt - car and personal finance for example where they're ripped off to the nth degree.
They teach maori language in schools which is completely useless, but ignore essential life skills like how to survive in the real world.
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