Do you have kids? What are you doing to teach your kids about money? Adam Carroll joins us to talk about teaching your kids the value of a dollar.

Adam is one of our favorite guests here at LMM. We first met him to discuss student loan debt. Today he’s back to talk about teaching kids about money.

Under-Educated

More than anything, aside from health, money can make or break your life. Not in the sense that money buys happiness but that lack of money, or knowing how to handle the money you have, is a major source of stress. In 2014, 64% of American adults sited money worries as “a significant source of stress” making it number one on the list ahead of work, family, and health.

You would think that something so fundamental would be well covered in schools, from kindergarten all the way through high school. Well, it isn’t. Maybe because there are “legacy” subjects taught that leave little room for new ones. Maybe because so much hinges on standardized testing and those tests don’t include a personal finance sections. For us tin-foil hat wearers, maybe because the powers that be like the system just as it is. It makes for good consumers.

Whatever the reasons, kids aren’t learning even the basics of how to handle money. So it’s up to their families to instill the personal finance lessons that will carry them through life.

What Age To Start

Early, even earlier than you might think. By the time children are seven, their money habits are already formed. Age three is a good age to start money lessons. You’re not going to explain what a Roth IRA is to a toddler but even at this age kids can understand basic concepts.

Explain that you need money to buy things and you earn money by working. Teach them delayed gratification. You can’t have everything you want now. The Stanford Marshmallow Experiment showed the importance of delaying gratification. Children were given one marshmallow and told if they waited to eat it, a short wait of about 15 minutes, they could have a second marshmallow.

The study found that the children who waited had better life outcomes which were measured by things like SAT scores, educational attainment, and BMI’s. The children studied were between the ages of 7 and 9 so it seems to be true that your money habits are set by age 7.

Money Isn’t Real

How often do you use cash? Almost never for some of us. How often do your kids see you use cash? Maybe never. If your kid never sees cash, it’s hard to understand that you can’t just buy whatever you want because physical money is finite and a credit card is not.

Adam devised a clever way to teach his kids about real money. He gave his kids $10,000 in real money to see if it would change the way they played the board game Monopoly. It did. The kids were more careful with the real money.

By showing kids that money is a physical thing, you can teach them that once they spend it, it’s gone. Money is no different to cookies. If you have three cookies and you eat three cookies, the cookies are gone.

Don’t Raise “Wanting” Kids

Having kids is expensive. It costs $245,340 to raise a child to the age of 18. It costs more to raise “wanting” kids. You’ve seen them, the ones having a melt down in Target because they were told no when they asked for a toy. But the reason for the melt down isn’t just th...

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