Article # 3 in CWB magazine : Make your children money-minded

After our articles published in the "Complete Well Being" magazine in their July 2014 and Sep 2014 editions, we got a stupendous response and the magazine wanted us to publish more articles for them. The below article then appeared in the November 2014 edition of the magazine, which also happens to be the 8th anniversary edition of the magazine.

Financial Wisdom for Youngsters

When it comes to teaching money management habits to our children, we either procrastinate the entire subject, or we feel it is not the right time to talk about money to our children. Unintentionally, we lose the most significant element that makes most people wealthy across the globe i.e. Time leverage.....read on..

What and when to teach Kids on Money Management

We saw in Part-I of this post that how important it is for all of us to teach our kids about money management. This time, we would cover on specific aspects of what they should be taught by what age so that they are ready to face the world with confidence by the time they start their jobs / own businesses.

Open their individual savings accounts

- By the age of 2 years, make sure that every kid has his or her own Savings account.

- These account(s) can be linked to your own savings account for monitoring and control.

- Make sure you are transferring some minimum fixed pocket money to the kids account every month. You can do this online as well or you can also opt for auto transfer of this pocket money.

- This sets up the base for all future education on money management that you going to impart to them.

Show them their account balance and interest credit every month

- By the age of 4 years, make sure that you have a regular habit of showing them their account balance every month.

- Show them the interest capitalised and credited to their account balance every month

- This would help them understand that savings grow to a healthy amount if you collate them and also that more the savings, more is the interest credited by the bank.

Tell them about the Amazing Power of Compounding

- By the time they go to proper school (5-6 years), teach them the concept of Compound Interest. They need not know any formulae as yet but they should realise that the money grows exponentially if allowed to grow in an undisturbed manner.

- Show them that the interest getting credited every month is also getting invested and that they earn interest on interest next month.

Let them take their own decisions wrt Saving vs Spending

- By the age of 7 years, make sure that they are making their own decisions wrt what part of pocket money they are spending and what part they are saving.

- By this time, they would already have realised that the more they save, the more the money would grow by itself. So, they would be able to take informed decisions in life on Spending Vs Saving. 

- This habit and decision making would go a long way in their lives to help them in money management.

Explain "Inflation" to them

- While they are 8 to 9 years old, tell them how the price of things keep increasing with time and that the value of money keeps going down.

- Explain them that they have got to beat inflation if they want to maintain their same life style and buying power with the money they have in their accounts.

Expose them to other forms of "investment"

- Before they reach the age of 10 years, they should understand all other forms of investments whether Fixed Deposits (FDs), Mutual Funds or Stocks.

- These will give them the options to beat inflation.

- They should also start investing some part of their money in FDs (which can also be done online). 

- Show them how a Fixed Deposit earns more interest than a savings account and helps them beat inflation (to an extent).

Well, if you have done this much, you have done what no school or college would ever do to their lives. You will start seeing sparkling results very soon. I have realised this with my 2 daughters. Today, they know much more about money management than any other grown up adults around them. They may not be earning money yet, but they exactly know how the money can be managed well.

When asked about what she wants to be when she grows up, my elder daughter, who is now 11 years old, snapped "I will see Dad !!, I know that i would be financially free by the time i start my job - so i have to really think - may be a Sea Animal Trainer". You are amazed !!, I am not... I know kids are great at learning and can outclass you. Trust them and give them the opportunity they deserve.

Happy money management !!

Cheers !!


Manoj Arora




Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/RatRaceToFinancialFreedom
Twitter : @manoj_216
Blog : http://ratrace2freedom.blogspot.in/

Teach your kids to manage money (Part-I)

Are Kids capable of managing money?

How many times have you been surprised by a certain response form a child? I am sure that there may have been numerous occasions when you might have experienced that children are much more smart and intelligent than most of us truest them to be. They can do unexpected things, and then can do them surprisingly well. Why? Because they have a mind which can think positive and does not carry any restrictions, fear or boundaries in their thinking process. These fears and boundaries constrain so many of us from achieving great results. 

Well, if that is the case, never ever think even for a moment that they cannot manage money better than what you do.

Why do we not allow Kids to manage money?

There are two major reasons that i see why we do not normally allow our kids to handle money:

1) In most parts of the world, and especially in India, we traditionally keep children and money apart from each other for the major part of their growing and learning years. Probably, because money has not been considered such a "good thing" by our parents. In one of my earlier posts - Yes, Money can buy happiness :) , i explained that how money is a dead element and is neither good or bad. It depends on the person who is possessing it. So, as long as, your children are brought up in a morally and ethically sound environment at home, be assured that they will make the best use of the money that you ask them to handle. 

2) Add to this, the second major reason for the kids not managing their money is the issue of money management or personal finance not being taught in our schools and colleges. While schools do teach the concepts like simple interest and compound interest, shares and dividends, they never go on to show the impact and importance of implementing these concepts in their own lives. 

Because of both these reasons, our children go on to start their jobs and families and lead their lives with only theoretical knowledge about money and no idea on how to leverage that knowledge. Nothing different happened in my life. Well, later on, i went on to acquire the practical aspects of implementation of this knowledge is a different story that you would read in ore detail in my book "From Rat Race to Financial Freedom". I was one of the rare fortunate human beings who accidentally got into experiencing, reading and writing a lot of stuff around dreams, financial freedom etc, but that is not going to happen for most of us and our kids. The only way this will work out with our kids is by giving them deliberate exposure to this knowledge.

What if i can leave a big chunk of money for my kids ?

Many of us work hard to earn money. When i asked some of my friends as to what will they do with so much money at the end of their lives, many of them had an expected answer : " We will leave this for our children so that they can enjoy their lives" after we have enjoyed ours. I can understand the love and affection for that the parents would typically have for their kids, but do you think that the children would be able to sustain this inherited wealth and put it to right use, unless they know how to invest, manage and grow their money? Almost all the studies conducted on this topic has shown that 95% of the inherited wealth is lost within 10 years of inheritance, and the biggest factor responsible for this has been that the inheritor had no idea how to manage the inherited money. In most such cases, the inherited money either got invested incorrectly, or was lost in lottery or spent on unwanted luxuries, or was plainly outnumbered by the inflation monster. So, more important then collecting money is an effort to learn money management and money investing

How can i help my kids learn money management ?

Years would just fly by before you know it. By the time you decide to be doing something with your life, your life would have reached to a point of no return. You may decide to be different but this happens to more than 90% of the people in this world. Do you think something different would happen with your kid's life, unless you teach them something about money which you were not taught at that age? No, their life would be the same as yours. It has been said very wisely "It is insane to keep doing the same thing and expect different results".

So, start teaching your kids some fundamentals about money, have them open their own independent bank accounts, tell them the concept of bank interest, savings account, fixed deposits, compound interest and its power, give them monthly pocket money and then let them decide what they want to do with their pocket money - how much they want to spend vs how much they want to save every month. Show them how their money is growing in the bank and show them specifically when bank credits them interest, and then what happens to the interest, and what can happen if it is allowed to grow with time leveraging. Now a days, it is so easy to show all these things online to them. 

You got to take these steps when your child is still at a very young age - much before they are burdened with the pressures and responsibilities of life. If you have not done some of these things and your child is more than 2 years old, you are already late. You are late, but not everything is lost. You can recover. You can take a decision to start doing something about teaching them basic money management.

I know that some people would like this post, some would feel happy about it, some would also share it with their friends but what next? I am not sure how many but i am sure some of you would act now !!. Because knowledge without implementation is as good or bad as having no knowledge at all. Don't just read and appreciate the post. Act today..time is running..

This was Part-I of the post. In the next part of the post (Part-II), i will share with you as to what all i feel you can teach your child at different age groups so that the child learns money management in a disciplined and incremental manner. All that will be based on my personal journey with my kids.

Don't just leave money for your Kids... Teach them how to manage money

Happy teaching !!


Cheers !!


Manoj Arora




Facebook : http://www.facebook.com/RatRaceToFinancialFreedom
Twitter : @manoj_216
Blog : http://ratrace2freedom.blogspot.in/