Kids and Money

Our culture still wants our kids to borrow money to exist. For generations now, it has been either subconsciously or consciously etched into our brains to borrow money in order to live a better life.

We don’t want our kids to buy into that and extend that thought process for another generation. We need to teach our kids that there is a better way. That better way is to pay cash.

Money is emotional. There is no getting around that fact. If we all made financial decisions based on pure logic there would be no debt. Creditors would go out of business because nobody gave them any business.

So, how do we accomplish teaching our kids to be financially healthy? What exactly does the term “financially healthy” even mean?

The term “financially healthy” in my mind would mean that there is a level of cash in their bank account that is controlled only by our kids. This is because they have developed a way to earn the money and have no obligations that demand any of that money.

When they want a car, or truck, they have an ultimate goal in mind and have learned to start small and develop big. They have learned to buy a vehicle that is running good but not as expensive to drive while they save up more money to upgrade.

Once they have put another amount of cash together, say $1500, they add that to the value of the vehicle they are driving and upgrade. This process can be repeated until they have the vehicle they truly want.

Of course, they can also get rides with friends or find other ways to have transportation. Ultimately, though, I would say that having their own transportation would be crucial to getting back and forth to work.  

The idea here is for our kids to maintain control of their money as they earn it. This is taught in the home since it will not be taught in our schools.  

Driving a stake in the ground, emotionally, is what we have to teach our kids. We need to teach that to them from a very early age. As they tell us things they want we need to ask them how they want to earn the money. Talk openly about earning and becoming creative so that the work they do is not a drudgery.

There are tons of ways we can teach our kids to write down their desires, start putting ideas on paper for earning the money, and start trying some of them each week.  

We need to help our kids find their creativity and come up with solutions to earn money. When they are kids we can help them some financially, but as they grow older we will need to push them harder to use their heads and pay for all of a purchase themselves.

We have to be on purpose about raising kids that understand what a trap debt can become.

Thanks for reading

Scott Moore