Teaching the Younger Generation About Financial Responsibility

By: John Maman

With the school year starting, I thought it would be a good time to talk about financial responsibility, and specifically about how you can teach your kids about money. It’s never too early to start teaching kids about the importance of being responsible with money, and about what the word “finances” even means! We’ve all seen the memes that say we learned how to play hot cross buns on a recorder but have no idea how to do our taxes, and that’s true, it’s not something they always teach in school.

In fact, an index created by the TIAA Institute and the Global Finance Literacy Excellence Center (GFLEC) shows remarkably low levels of financial literacy across generations, including adults. As parents, we need to take an active role in teaching our kids basic money concepts, things like basic budgeting and saving. Older kids can even learn about investing and the importance of credit.

A few fun ways to teach kids about money are:

The "Money Tree" Myth:

Kids often believe that their parents have a magical money tree hidden somewhere, ready to provide for their every need. Explaining that money doesn't grow on trees can be an amusing conversation, but more importantly is a chance to explain where money comes from and ways to help money grow.

The "Impulse Purchase" Conundrum:

Kids have a knack for spotting the most tempting goodies when you're at the store, which can often be a frustrating ordeal. This is a terrific opportunity to teach them about thoughtful spending with their own budget (aka an earned allowance).

The "Financial Sleuths": 

Kids are naturally curious and tend to investigate everything, including where you hide your spare change. They have an uncanny ability to uncover secret stashes. This is a perfect segue to teach them about savings goals and how to build their own secret stash.

Family farms provide some easy ways to help kids learn about the importance of money.

Since many of our Nutrien employees are growers themselves, I also got a few ideas about teaching financial literacy from some of our Nutrien Financial Territory Managers. Here’s what they had to say about how they learned about finances or how they’re teaching their kids about them.

“Each of my kids opens a checking account as soon as they can drive. Our bank teaches them about debits, credits, and bank ledgers when they open the account. Then each one of my kids is responsible for logging their transactions and balancing their checkbooks each month. We invest in livestock, usually cattle, to teach our kids about money."

"Each child is given a heifer and they can choose to sell it and take the money or they can begin building their own cow/calf herd. We pay the feed bill and they do all the work on their own."

"We track expenses and talk about the markets. We help them determine a breakeven point and discuss what profitability means. Once their first calf crop is sold, they get a percentage of their income for fun money and the rest goes into savings for future livestock expenses.” -Hollie Rudy

“My dad talked to us about finances a lot when we were young. One big thing he repeated that stuck with me was that many people can make a dollar but very few can save one. He said it’s the very few who are able to save that get ahead in life. I continue to put this saying into practice in my everyday life and it helps me make decisions on what I really need versus what I want to purchase.” -Jacquelyn Fernandes

“Financial skills and knowledge are not part of the school curriculum, so laying that financial foundation is crucial to get young adults started on the right foot. My own kids are a little young for a checking account, so we find other ways to involve them in finances and we try to make it fun. One way we’ve done this is by giving them a budget to learn to make decisions on trade-offs and alternatives to get the best value while staying within a budget. For example, we might plan a vacation and give them a budget to help plan an itinerary and stay within that set budget.” -Scott Bame

“As a kid growing up on a farm, the books were always open to me. I knew our expenses and revenue and it made me feel more involved in the process and the results. My dad spent time explaining why he would take on a certain expense. He’d explain things like why we bred this bull or why we didn’t buy a supplement that everyone else was buying. It helped me see the reasons to invest in things.” -Hudson Badskey

While everyone can benefit from learning more about money management and finances, these lessons are perhaps even more important for kids who grow up on a family farm and hope to one day run that farm. If we teach our own kids about budgeting, saving, investing for the future and other basic money concepts, we will all be better off.

John Maman

John Maman Senior Director, Nutrien Financial Business Development

 

NEWSLETTER

Want to stay caught up in all things agriculture? Sign up for the newsletter and get all the latest news straight to your inbox.

Hubspot
close

Related Articles for Financing