{"id":85423,"date":"2017-01-26T14:30:26","date_gmt":"2017-01-26T21:30:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/renewsblog\/?p=85423"},"modified":"2024-02-23T16:44:13","modified_gmt":"2024-02-23T23:44:13","slug":"teach-kids-money","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biggerpockets.com\/blog\/teach-kids-money","title":{"rendered":"How to Teach Your Kids All the Money Lessons They Won’t Learn in School"},"content":{"rendered":"

\u201cMy parents didn\u2019t teach me anything about money.”<\/span><\/p>\n

That was my first complaint when, as an adult, I finally started to learn\u00a0something about it. Since then, I\u2019ve overcome the \u201cblaming\u201d mentality; I took ownership and resolved to learn as much as I could.<\/span><\/p>\n

But it hasn\u2019t stopped me from feeling baffled\u00a0at\u00a0just how little useful information we learn about money growing up. It seems\u00a0the school system is somehow allergic to the topic. And the reality is that parents who don\u2019t know much about money themselves aren\u2019t able\u00a0to pass along many pearls of wisdom.<\/span><\/p>\n

Of course, we all absorb\u00a0something along the way. <\/span><\/p>\n

My parents taught me that you have to have\u00a0a job; nobody likes a freeloader. They also\u00a0taught me how to spend money as fast as I earn it. One\u00a0of these lessons has proven\u00a0more useful than the other.<\/span><\/p>\n

In university, I took a course entitled \u201cEngineering Economics.\u201d It was mostly about the time value of money with a few engineering-ish problems thrown in. I got an A+ but remained financially illiterate for many years.<\/span><\/p>\n

The job market of New York City taught me how to sell my skills and experience to the highest bidder.<\/span><\/p>\n

I read The Wealthy Barber<\/a><\/em>\u00a0by David Chilton. It is very well written, but contains mostly high level \u201cretail\u201d advice on money: Invest in mutual funds.<\/span><\/p>\n

Armed with this information, I charged into the world and made an absolute mess of my finances.<\/span><\/p>\n

Years later, in my late 30\u2019s, I finally started getting my head around my finances. And I vowed to do better for my kids.<\/span><\/p>\n

But how exactly do you go about doing that?<\/span><\/p>\n

Plan Ahead<\/h2>\n

In their book, Smart Money Smart Kids<\/a><\/em>, Dave Ramsey and his daughter, Rachel Cruze, discuss how personal finance guru Dave taught Rachel and her siblings about money. One of the key tactics they recommend is finding what they call \u201cteachable moments\u201d to pass along golden nuggets of financial wisdom. This makes sense — kids have a lot to learn and must absorb vast amounts of new information every day. And they have an aversion to lectures from parents. So finding key moments to crystallize life lessons is critical to success.<\/span><\/p>\n

But such moments appear and vanish again in the blink of an eye. To take advantage of them, you have to be well prepared. <\/span><\/p>\n

This means knowing what you want to teach and being ready to talk about it when the situation presents itself. But it also means building some of the lessons into everyday life so they can be absorbed without the need for a long lecture. You might\u00a0even manage to engineer a few teachable moments along the way.<\/span>
\n<\/em><\/p>\n

For us, the whole plan boils down to answering two questions: <\/span><\/p>\n