Do you ever wish you had learned more about money and entrepreneurship as a child? I know I did!
Looking back, my own teen years were a lot like Rich Dad, Poor Dad. But instead of two well-meaning father figures, I had divorced parents and split my time between summers and holidays with my entrepreneurial father, and the school year with my teacher mom.
Dad was broke in the beginning...but as the years went by his business grew and his time-commitments shrank.
Mom came from poverty. After my parents divorced she married a guy with "old money" so for a few years we had vacation homes, dance lessons, and I attended private schools...but after a few bad investments and her 2nd divorce that all disappeared.
I never once heard Dad say "we can't afford it". If I wanted something, he helped me figure out how to earn it, often by working for him or his business in some way.
Dad liked to talk about money.
He shared the success or failure of his latest investments, the current strategy behind his business, and whenever I visited he encouraged open dialogue about my own financial situation as I started my first side hustle.
Mom was the stark opposite. Money was a "dirty" topic in her house. I was made to feel ashamed if I brought it up, and even if directly asked she never answered my questions about how much money we had.
Rich people were "selfish", wanting things we couldn't afford was "greedy" and we never talked about retirement plans, investing, or how to earn money.
In school, I learned to calculate the correct angle of a tree in a forest...but not how to create a budget, estimate my future income taxes or understand compound interest.
It took DECADES and tens of thousands of dollars in coaching and spiritual counseling for me to overcome my false beliefs and start educating myself about money and investing.
So this week on Fierce Feminine Finance I'm sharing with you 5 things every woman should teach her kids about money and entrepreneurship.
So, as always, let’s pull this problem apart.
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If you are like most entrepreneurial women, you want the best possible financial future for your kids. And so in order to be truly financially educated, here are the top 5 things they need to know.
In this article, I will cover:
One of the skills I wish the most that I had learned as a child is healthy spending habits. To be fair, both of my parents attempted to teach me. What neither of them had was a budgeting method that was simple and workable for our modern world.
The best way to approach the topic is to engage your child in the pursuit of earning their own money. My dad was excellent at this. He had the means to buy whatever I asked for but instead of spoiling me by piling me with gifts, he gently guided me to find a way to earn it.
Another great way to encourage healthy spending habits is through play. Board games like Monopoly are great for this, and for younger children make-believe games like shopping for groceries can also help.
For teens, you can use apps such as Greenlight.
Greenlight is a family online banking app where you can teach your teen to earn, save, and invest. Over 6+million parents and kids use it!
I personally like it because you can transfer funds instantly to your teen's debit card in an emergency, and I also love the fact that I can assign different budget categories and prevent spending outside the category I chose.
It also has GPS tracking and push notifications for parents, so you always know where your child is spending their money.
Pros:
Cons:
I always cringe slightly when I see parents get angry at their child for trying to negotiate after hearing the word "no". (I'm not talking about the whining, but just a genuine attempt to change the answer through counter-proposal).
As a child, I was shamed, scolded or even smacked if I "talked back" for any reason.
And when I started my first business, this made learning to sell to customers a painful and often disheartening experience. The moment I heard anything that resembled "no" (an objection) I shut down emotionally and verbally.
Negotiating an investment deal was the same. In the early years, I wouldn't even dream of trying to! The very idea made me cringe. How could I counter-propose when doing so was "disrespectful" "rude" and likely to anger the person? (All limiting and false beliefs hammered in with the pain of being smacked around during childhood).
I was terrified of "talking back".
It took deep inner work with my sales coach to uncover the reason for it, but once we did I was able to scale my business to $6-figures!
If you want your child to be good at entrepreneurship or investing, you will have to tolerate their clumsy attempts to learn this VITAL financial skill.
Instead of crushing them for being clumsy in their negotiation attempts, teach them to do it smoothly so it doesn't annoy you; by using active listening, and the Win-Win Paradigm. Win-win means agreements or solutions that are mutually beneficial and satisfying. I teach these strategies inside The Passive Income Pathway.
Many of the struggles I see business women have in becoming financially independent come from ONE major false belief: that all debt is "bad".
...all of these prevent women from building wealth.
The best way to overcome that is to teach your kids the difference between leveraging other people's month to generate wealth, and living beyond your means.
"Good" Debt:
Leveraging other people's money (investors, loans, the bank, your credit card) to buy an asset that will generate wealth
"Bad" Debt:
Living beyond your means by running up a credit card or taking out a loan to buy a "nice-to-have" (2nd car, house, clothes, vacations) because you can't afford to pay cash (since you haven't actually earned it yet!).
Make sure your kids know the difference.
Probably the single most important thing to teach your child if you want them to stay out of debt OR learn to invest is what compound interest is and how to leverage it.
If you study the table below, you will see that the Rule of 72 states we can predict how many years it will take for our investment to double by dividing 72 by the annual rate of return.
Understanding this easy equation will give you the ability to calculate your potential return on any investment. This truly is the basis of all investing!
A great tool for teaching this concept is the Investment Calculator.
"Researchers are learning that a change in mindset has the power to alter neurochemistry. Belief and expectation - the key elements of hope - can block pain by releasing the brain's endorphins and enkephalins, mimicking the effect of morphine." - Dr. Jerome Groupman, Professor of Medicine at Harvard Medical School
One of the strongest yet often invisible forces that influence our ability to earn income, save, invest and stay away from unhealthy spending habits is our mindset and attitude toward money.
If you believe money is the root of all evil, that to desire or accumulate money is synonymous with greed, or that a "good" person does work without any expectation or hope of reciprocation (all false beliefs I was taught growing up)
...you may then struggle quite a bit when you step into the adult world!
A great way to help your child have a healthy relationship with money is to first demonstrate that yourself. And if you, like me, grew up in a family that was dysfunctional on the subject...let your child see your financial journey. Let them hear about your successes and see you acknowledge your failures.
Demonstrate healthy habits around budgeting, saving and investing that they can mimic and use in later years.
I hope you found this article helpful on the 5 most important things you can teach your children about money!
And if you are seeing a need to put a Financial Roadmap in place for your family, you will need a licensed financial advisor to help you design the best written plan for you, your family & your business.
I can help!
Sarah Nicole Nadler is an investor and licensed financial advisor on a mission to help Americans stop trading time for money. When she’s not serving her clients, she geeks out on board games, writes fantasy novels, and explores the great outdoors with her husband Ben.
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