Teaching Kids About Money: Pocket Money, Saving, and Raising Financially Confident Children

Want to raise kids who are smart with money? Not sure when—or how—to start teaching your child about saving, spending, or investing?

In this episode of Get Rich, host Molly Benjamin sits down with Ana Kresina—financial educator and author of Kids Ain’t Cheap—to unpack how to raise financially confident, capable kids. From toddler tantrums in the supermarket to teenagers navigating their first paychecks, we cover it all.

You’ll learn:
✔️ The #1 mistake most parents make when it comes to money
✔️ How to teach toddlers the difference between wants vs. needs
✔️ Pocket money tips (and how to avoid reinforcing the gender pay gap)
✔️ Easy ways to explain investing and taxes to teens
✔️ Why letting your kids make money mistakes is actually a good thing

💡 P.S. If you're interested in setting up an investment account for your kids, check out our earlier episode: “5 Ways to Invest for Your Kids and Avoid the Tax Traps with Daisy Magor” – it's a perfect companion to this one!

Whether you're a parent, guardian, aunty, uncle—or just want to break the cycle of generational money stress—this episode will give you the tools to start the conversation early and make it stick.

👉 Listen now and raise the next generation of money-savvy humans.

CHAPTERS

00:00 – Welcome to Get Rich & Molly’s money story
01:16 – Introducing today’s topic: Teaching kids about money
01:37 – Why it's important to start young + biggest parenting money mistakes
02:00 – Pocket money rules & avoiding the gender pay gap at home
02:42 – Linking with episode 12: “5 Ways to Invest for Your Kids”
03:02 – Guest welcome: Anna Kresina on raising financially confident kids
03:24 – The #1 mistake parents make with money
04:02 – When to start teaching kids about money
05:04 – Navigating tantrums and money lessons at the shops
06:19 – How to talk to kids about money: transparency, real-life examples, letting them fail
07:54 – Piggy bank system: Spend, save, give – and invest
08:52 – Practical lesson: Two icy poles or save one for next week?
09:31 – Creative money hacks: Holiday monopoly money & setting limits
10:15 – Lessons for younger kids: Needs vs wants, fiver parties, short vs long-term goals
11:18 – Teaching older kids: Compound interest, family budgets, money value
12:08 – Visuals matter: Savings trackers, vision boards, staying motivated
13:06 – Pocket money debate: Chores, values & the gender pay gap at home
14:48 – Earning extra money: Creative task-based pocket money systems
15:05 – Teaching investing to kids: McDonald’s example & dividends
16:31 – Helping teens understand super and the power of compounding
17:06 – Teaching tax early: Pocket money “family tax”
17:45 – Explaining super & tax to kids without fear
18:28 – Credit cards & BNPL: Teaching teens about the risks
19:57 – Breaking the family debt cycle
20:44 – Talking openly about money to avoid misinterpretation
21:27 – The hidden messages kids receive about money at home
22:17 – Why talking about spending is just as important as saving
23:26 – How parents can frame money positively even on tight budgets
24:15 – Funny “rich kid” perceptions: Ice dispensers & electric cars
24:53 – Where to find Anna & her book Kids Ain’t Cheap

LINKS AND RESOURCES FROM THE EPISODE

Book: Kids Ain’t Cheap: https://www.anakresina.com/kids-aint-cheap
Savings Tracker Templates & Vision Board Printables: https://www.ladiesfinanceclub.com/money
Money Smart Compound Interest Calculator: https://moneysmart.gov.au/budgeting/compound-interest-calculator

CONNECT WITH ANA KRESINA

Website: https://www.anakresina.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anakresina/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/anakresina
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/anamkresina
Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@anakresina
TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@anakresina
X: https://www.tiktok.com/@anakresina

CONNECT WITH LADIES FINANCE CLUB

Join our free Facebook group - Ladies Finance Club Money Chat
Website: https://www.ladiesfinanceclub.com/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ladiesfinanceclub/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/ladies-finance-club/

TAKEAWAYS

• The number one mistake parents make is not talking about money.
• Children can start learning about money as early as three or four years old.
• Using real-life situations to teach kids about money is effective.
• Visual aids like piggy banks help children understand financial concepts.
• Teaching kids about investing can start with simple concepts like dividends.
• Conversations about money should be ongoing and integrated into daily life.
• Letting children experience financial consequences in a safe environment is crucial.
• Understanding the difference between wants and needs is essential for kids.
• Parents should model positive money behaviors for their children.
• Discussing taxes and credit early can prepare kids for financial responsibilities.

SOUND BITES

"You can own some of this McDonald's."
"It's a slippery slope with credit cards."
"Keep talking about money regularly."

TRANSCRIPT

[00:00:00] Molly: Welcome to Get Rich, the podcast that helps you do just that. Get rich and stay rich. Hey, I'm Molly Benjamin. I'm the founder of Ladies Finance Club, one of Australia's largest financial education platforms for women. But before I started helping thousands of women take control with their money, I was a hot financial mess when it came to my own finances and not the fun kind of hot, more like crying in a supermarket, wondering where all my money went kind of hot.

[00:00:29] But here's the thing, if I can go from financial mess to owning a share portfolio, investing in property, and building wealth. Then you can too. My mission is simple to make women rich because when we have financial freedom, we have choices, confidence, and control over our future. Every week on Get Rich, I sit down with some of the best experts in the industry to break down how we can all start investing, growing our money, and creating long-term financial security without the jargon, boring bits or overwhelm.

[00:01:02] Because when women get rich, we don't just change our lives. We change the world. So if you're ready to start making some smart money moves, hit that subscribe button and let's get rich together.

[00:01:16] So you wanna raise kids who are good with money, but you might be wondering when and how to. Start teaching your child about money savings and investings. Well, it's all good because in this episode of Get Rich, I chat with Anna Krishna, financial educator and author of Kids Ain't Cheap about how to raise financially confident kids from a young age.

[00:01:37] So whether you are a parent, the Fun auntie, or maybe soon to be, this episode is packed with Practical Money Lessons. For kids of all ages, you'll learn the biggest mistakes parents make when it comes to money and how to teach toddlers about money needs, verse wants, and delayed gratification in a world where everything seems to be at our fingertips.

[00:02:00] And this was an interesting one. So we're gonna be talking about pocket money rules that work, but also how to avoid reinforcing gender pay gaps that might be unconsciously happening in your household. Plus I talk about an easy way to explain investing, and Anna has a great little way to teach your teens about taxes, whether you're setting up saving jars or tackling tantrums.

[00:02:21] This is a great episode to tune into. So if you're interested in setting up an investment account for your kids, check out this earlier episode. Five ways to invest for your kids and avoid Tax traps with daisy Mango. I'll put a link straight to it in the show notes so you can click straight onto it, but it's the perfect companion to this one.

[00:02:42] It was episode 12 because that is a really important one if you wanna invest for your kids to avoid some serious tax implications. All right, and if you are enjoying the Get Rich podcast, please hit that subscribe button. We appreciate it Oh so much. But let's dive into today's episode. Anna, welcome to the podcast.

[00:03:02] It's so nice to have you on. It's always great to connect with you, Molly. So as mentioned, we are talking all things money and kids. So I know you wrote a book called Kids Ain't Cheap. You talk a lot of, on this topic, you have a course coming out. So what is the biggest mistake that parents unintentionally make when it comes to teaching or not teaching kids about money?

[00:03:24] I think the number

[00:03:24] Ana: one mistake is just not talking about money. We all have internal feelings about money, whether they're positive or negative, and sometimes we unintentionally reflect that onto our kids. Mm-hmm. We might think, oh, they're too young so I don't wanna talk about money or, it, it was really stressful when I was growing up, so I'm not going to mention it until they're older and they have a grasp on it.

[00:03:44] Mm-hmm. But it is really important for us as parents or as aunts and uncles to, to talk about money. To kids because by the age of seven they already have a basic understanding around savings, budgeting, and delayed gratification. So it is never too early to start talking about money.

[00:04:00] Molly: Absolutely. And what do you think that, right?

[00:04:02] You say it's never too early, but what do you think the right age is and what should that first lesson be?

[00:04:07] Ana: Yeah. Well, I think with younger kids it's going to be just numbers, right? Like understanding numbers and math. So even at that age, that's kind of, you're already setting up the building blocks of teaching them about money.

[00:04:19] But if by the age of seven they already have an idea of savings and budgeting and delayed. Gratification. Talking about money, even at age three or four mm-hmm. Is a really great time to start talking about it. You can use examples. You can go to the shops and say, Hey, you know, we have to work in order to have money so that we can buy things.

[00:04:37] You can talk about why something might not be a priority in your house as opposed to say you can't afford it. So already having these ideas around. Money can be a tool to purchase things, but also we have to decide what is a priority for us as a family can be really important for kids to understand that, hey, we might be able to afford anything, but we can't have everything.

[00:05:00] So it's, it's important to have those conversations at any age and

[00:05:04] Molly: yeah. 'cause I know in my book I did, I interviewed a bunch of people about teaching kids. About money and you know, it, it was that, you know, if you're in the supermarket and they start having a tantrum, you know, explaining to them, but realistically, if you are in the supermarket, your kid starts having a tantrum because they can't have the thing they want.

[00:05:23] Like for someone who doesn't have kids like me, but eventually wants 'em in the future, like. Can you still teach kids the value of money in that moment? Or is it something that is just ongoing and you're like, look, that's not our priority right now. Like how? How do you do

[00:05:38] Ana: it? Sometimes mitigating the tantrum is the number one priority as opposed to teaching about money, but you can use it as a teaching opportunity.

[00:05:46] Often when I go to the shops with my child ahead of time, I'll have the conversation, Hey, listen, today we're purchasing X, Y, and Z. That means that we. We're not gonna get candies, we're not gonna get the little things in the gumball machines or whatever it might be. Having those conversations up front of what our priority is is.

[00:06:02] Helpful. But the thing is, it's a constant conversation. Yeah. So it's not just when you're at the shops, it's going to be when you potentially get some birthday money or Christmas money, it's going to be when you see a lemonade stand or a garage sale, talking about it consistently. Yeah. Is really important.

[00:06:19] So some of the things that I like to think about when you're talking about money to your kids is number one, doing it openly and transparently. So you can just talk about money constantly. It's not like a thing that you have to wait for Saturday at four o'clock you're gonna have a conversation about money.

[00:06:34] No, it's integrated into your every day being judgmental free. So not shaming them, not talking about money negatively, but just being able to have an open conversation with your kids about money doing it. In real life situations. So like I said, if you go past a garage sale, stop by, have, go look at things that are used.

[00:06:54] Why are they cheaper than than buying them at the shop? Well, because they've been used. What does that look like? Look on Facebook marketplace. Have those conversations regularly as well. Mm-hmm. And then. One of the last steps is letting your child fail. Letting them fail in a, in a safe place. So if they get a bunch of money and um, they're trying to prioritize what to buy, for example, they wanna spend all their money on candies and then they have nothing for the Lego set that they wanted to get.

[00:07:20] I. That is a learning experience for them. Yeah, and it's a really important one to have at a young age because you don't want them to be out of the house and getting into debt or blowing money on a whole bunch of different things. You want them to learn while they're at home with your guidance and your support.

[00:07:34] Molly: Yeah. No, I love that. And are you a fan of teaching people? I know Barefoot has it, other people have it, the kind of three piggy bank rule where when they get money they have to kind of split that up and sums for, I think, short term savings, sums for long term savings and sums for like charity. Are you a fan of that kind of method?

[00:07:54] Ana: Yeah, I think having visuals for kids is really important. So I love the three, three pig piggy banks. I like to add a fourth one, which is the investing one. Yeah. So, you know, growing long term, we're not gonna touch that. Uh, let's talk about compound interest. Depend. Obviously meeting kids where they're at, they might not understand compound interest at age five, but it's the idea of your money, growing money.

[00:08:16] So having those visuals is really important. And the thing is because. Kids see cash less, right? Yeah. We use a lot of tapping of the car, tapping of the phone. They don't see cash. Having that visual is really important for them to understand because we get a very visceral feeling when we spend money, right?

[00:08:33] Like when you're giving away, physically giving away dollars is. A hard thing to grapple with. Yeah. As an adult, but also as a child. So being able to do that is really great. I'll give you an example of this morning actually. Um, they have icy poll days on Mondays at school, which is a new thing for me 'cause now I have a school, school child starting out.

[00:08:52] And, um, we gave our kid $2 and the icy polls are $1. And we said, Hey, you can buy two today if you want, or you can buy one today and one next week. But we're not going to give you any money for next week. And we just had an open conversation about that. What do you wanna do? Oh, it would be really great to have two today, but then I wouldn't have one next week.

[00:09:14] Having those conversations, letting them choose is the best way that you can set your up, set your child up to be financially savvy in the future. I.

[00:09:22] Molly: Love that. I know what I would've done as a child. I'd be like two now please.

[00:09:26] Ana: That's okay. But then you learn your lesson for next week. Everyone else is having icy polls and uh, it's a

[00:09:31] Molly: way to learn.

[00:09:31] Right. Oh, I love it. Yeah, absolutely. Then I would've been like, to my sister, please. Can I have a bite of your icy bowl? Yeah. Love those different learnings and tactics and tools. Have you got any other ones that you've seen work? Well, I remember I had a lady reach out to me. And every time she goes on holiday with her kids, they get a set amount of monopoly money that they can exchange for real money.

[00:09:53] But once that monopoly money's gone, the money's gone. So, and I, I love that 'cause they got to have this money on them and decide, oh, do I wanna spend my money on this or do I not? And it kind of took away, 'cause she said she just got over her kids just being like, mom, can I have this? Can I have this? Can I have this?

[00:10:09] So she kind of put the power back on them, which I really liked. But are there any other good like little money hacks you've heard? Yeah,

[00:10:15] Ana: I love this. It's such a great way to think about money. It depends on, on the age of your child. So for example, if they're younger, let's say three to eight, having ideas of talking about wants versus needs.

[00:10:26] Um, being really open with that, using those jars to kind of set money aside, set long-term goals and talk about them holistically. Should we spend now or later. I know I've done some Fiverr parties, which is like a birthday party where everyone gets $5 instead of a present. And then it allows your kid to actually think about how am I gonna spend this money?

[00:10:46] Do I wanna buy something bigger? Do I wanna buy multiple small things? Those are some of the things that you can do at that younger age. You know, you, you're, you're gonna start at the basics. It's all about learning and understanding money. Right?

[00:10:58] Molly: Yeah. I love the five are present. That's so good. And then that takes the pressure off the parents as well.

[00:11:03] Ana: Oh my gosh, it's my favorite. I am, I'm a huge fan of these five parties, especially for a lot of people who go to a bunch of parties. It gets very expensive. So if you can teach your kids about money and make it cheaper for parents coming to your birthday party, why not big win-win? Love that. Love that.

[00:11:18] Yeah. So some things that you can do for older kids, so let's say nine to 14, you can actually talk to them about building interest or compound interest, and so you can do some kind of savings match if they save a certain amount of money. Can you match that? You can also set them up with like a family budget, and that family budget can be for groceries or let's say you're going on a holiday, give them a set amount.

[00:11:41] Say, how would you allocate this? What are we gonna do? Again, all these examples are kind of putting the onus back on the kids to think critically about what is valuable, how do you wanna spend money, and where do you wanna spend it on? Can you get better deals? Are you going to splurge on this? Because that's really the skillset we want to teach them as they get older.

[00:12:00] Yeah. A couple other things are. You know, a saving tracker as well, which I think us as adults, uh, don't mind doing as well when we're setting goals.

[00:12:08] Molly: I was gonna say, I love the saving trackers and we have some free resources on our website that you can download as well, but just the physical coloring in and going, okay, here's another $5, here's another $10.

[00:12:18] Coloring it in. I, I also like, I think you're ever too old, young, or old for a vision board. So even if it is the bike they're saving for, put a picture of that bike up, have the savings tracker next to it. And I think that also, again, this is coming from someone who doesn't have kids, but I don't know, Anna, does it make it easier when you go out to be like, Hey, remember we are, we're doing so well on the bike.

[00:12:39] Do you wanna take from that fund to buy these lollies right now?

[00:12:42] Ana: Exactly. You want to have those conversations and you want to have that visual representation to kind of ground them in what their goal is. Because how good does it feel when you finally buy that bike? You bought that bike by, you know, selling things, having garage sale lemonade stand, you bought that bike, that there is no better feeling for your kid to build confidence that they were able to achieve a goal.

[00:13:03] And we want to enable them to feel that. Right? Absolutely. And

[00:13:06] Molly: what's your take on pocket money? Yay or nay.

[00:13:10] Ana: Yeah. Yay. I think it depends on the family and the situation. There's a lot of controversy around whether you should do pocket money when it comes to chores, and the big thought process around that is doing chores for your household is a household job.

[00:13:24] Now you don't have to time money to chores specifically. Right? As we know as well, is that all often the gender gap discrepancy around money starts in the household. Again, looking at roles that. Or predominantly women do. Little girls do cleaning. Doing the dishes are often paid less than doing these jobs, such as mowing the lawn.

[00:13:44] So we wanna be cognizant of that as parents as well, to not kind of start falling into the gender pay gap. But if you're gonna pay your children to do things, it is a great way for them to get money, to have an idea of I do something, I receive compensation for it. Now, does it have to be chores? Doesn't have to be, but you can do it in different ways for your household.

[00:14:04] Molly: Yeah, I love that. So we as kids, what we had did in our household was we all had to contribute because that was just being a member of the family. So we'd do the dishwasher, empty the compost, which was never my favorite. It was always full of spider. That freaked me out. We were on property and then the third one was feed the dogs.

[00:14:21] And you would rotate that and it was kind of like you got benefits. So if you had to do converse, you got to at least sit in the front of the car and that was like the, the golden lining. And then do some walk plant watering. But they were just. I guess chores we had to do as part of being part of the family.

[00:14:37] And then on top of that we could do things like wash the car, mow the lawn, pick up horse manure. Again, it was a property, earn extra income that way, which was quite cool as well. I.

[00:14:48] Ana: Oh, I love that. And you can be super creative as a parent. There are some parents that want to incentivize reading for their kids, so they might pay their kid to read a book.

[00:14:57] So every time you have a book, you read a book, you get a dollar or, or whatever it might be, your household might be completely different. So find what works for you.

[00:15:05] Molly: Yeah. And so when the kids are getting a little bit older and we wanna start maybe teaching them some really important concepts of investing, where's a good place to start with that?

[00:15:16] I know I heard on a podcast once he took his daughter to McDonald's and was like. You can earn some of this McDonald's. See, you know, like, and this is how it works. And he gave a breakdown of like, you know, owning a share in a companys owning like a little bit of McDonald's. Every time you see all these people coming to McDonald's, they're buying, you see all the McDonald's popping up all over the country.

[00:15:36] That means that it's growing, it's making money, et cetera. But I guess, yeah. How do we explain that concept of investing for kids? Because if they can do it while they're young, oh my gosh, the compounding. Right. If

[00:15:48] Ana: only we all started investing Born. Finally. We started Born, yeah. Yeah. It's such a great way to do that.

[00:15:53] And I know Molly, both you and I, we advocate for ETFs where you can own multiple different companies, but if you want to teach your child about one company specific. Such as McDonald's or Disney or Bunnings. You can choose that specific company. You can invest in it and we can talk about it. Why did it spike?

[00:16:11] Why did it drop? What does that look like? But some of the most exciting things I think, for kids are, is to actually see dividends coming in. So if potentially you're investing in an ETF that is paying dividends, getting paid. For your money, your money is making money is one of the wildest, craziest concepts I think that kids learn to understand.

[00:16:31] So if you can kind of set them up with an investing account to start to just have that conversation is a really great one. If your kids are older, so let's say 15 to 18, they're starting their first job. Talk to them about their superannuation. It seems like a lifetime away, but it's such a great opportunity to sit down to talk about why we wanna invest for the long term.

[00:16:51] What does that look like? Why you want to think about your job now, how time is your best friend when it comes, comes to compounding. So that stuff is really important and a big one that I think a lot of parents miss out to talking to their kids. My parents definitely didn't really talk to me about it.

[00:17:06] Mm-hmm. Was taxes. My dad used to always say, there's two things guaranteed in life. Uh, death and taxes. Yeah, but we never talked about taxes. Yeah. So it's a really great opportunity to talk about taxes when they start their first job. In fact, a lot of parents who are financially savvy might do it earlier, so if they're doing the pocket money, they might be like, Hey, your pocket money is whatever your age is, so let's say $10 you get because you're 10.

[00:17:30] But two daughters comes back to us. That's the family tax, because you live here, you eat our food, we we give you clothes. Yeah. And then kids are getting that concept from an early age. It's not something that they're shocked by when they get their first job.

[00:17:45] Molly: Yeah, 'cause I just, for me, I just never understood what super was.

[00:17:48] I never understood what tax was. It was just money that I didn't have. So then I had quite a negative con of like connotation with it, but really super. I was like, it's still my money. It's just I can't touch it for many, many years. And I think as well, that's where like just getting up on money smart compounding calculator can be really helpful.

[00:18:05] 'cause I'm a visual and I know a lot of kids are visual. So actually visually. Popping in the numbers looking at, oh wow, that's, that money is gonna turn into this much money and understanding that concept. 'cause it's so powerful. Now if we just take a slight turn into debt and you know, we know buying now pay later, unfortunately, is those younger generations using them the most credit cards.

[00:18:28] And it's just like this free money that you can get your hands on and it's quite. Scary. And I think the only reason I did not go into quite bad credit card debt when I was younger is my mom never let me have a credit card. 'cause I know I definitely would've been Oh, good. Mom. Definitely would've been in a lot of, yeah, a lot of debt as many of my friends were, whose parents did allow them to have credit cards.

[00:18:49] So I guess how can parents prepare teenagers to handle credit cards by now? Pay later. Especially when they're so easy to open and you barely need like any prerequisites to even get it.

[00:19:01] Ana: Yeah, if you can have those conversations early, that's always the great way. Similarly, my, my mom said to me, if you get a credit card, you have to pay it off every single month.

[00:19:11] So just kind of setting those things up earlier. Now, a lot of people can't go back in time, right? You have kids who are looking at credit cards, so talking to them, sitting down with them, having them look at their bank statement every month. Making sure it's paid in full. Talking to them about if you are paying your minimum, go find a calculator online and see how much that'll cost you over a year, two years, five years, and see how much money you're actually missing out on.

[00:19:36] Yes, it looks so lucrative, like so cheap when you're only paying $15 in four payments. But talking about what the implications of that can be and how you can actually spend more over a long period of time because it seems so accessible, is really a kind of an important conversation to have right up front as well.

[00:19:57] Molly: Yeah, no, I absolutely agree. I think it's a very slippery slope and where I think the challenge lies as well is if you didn't get good, uh, money messages from your parents or your parents relied a lot on their credit cards, we need to break that cycle. Mm-hmm. So then it's not just passed on and passed on, because I do see it where kids are just like, well, my mom uses her credit card for everything, so I use my credit card for everything, and it's just this cycle of dead.

[00:20:22] Ana: And it goes back to talking about it regularly. They might actually see you using your credit card constantly, but they might not see that you're paying it off every month or that you've set it up so that it automatically pays it off. There's things that happen behind the scenes that kids might not see, and that's why talking about money regularly, consistently ongoingly is, is really important.

[00:20:44] Molly: Yeah, no, absolutely, and I think that's the biggest probably takeaway of this whole conversation is just keep talking about it regularly. I know I wrote it in my book as well. There was this guy who traveled around Australia, went to all socioeconomic areas, and he was talking at schools and he got kids to call out.

[00:21:04] He put a pile of money on a screen and kids had to call out words, and all the words were negative. They were like,

[00:21:12] Ana: yeah,

[00:21:12] Molly: greedy fighting arguments, selfish, evil. There were no messages of like freedom, success. So again, it was. They were only getting these messages from wrong place and that would be in the home.

[00:21:27] Yeah. So, yeah, so important to have that conversation. I know even in my family, my parents taught me a lot about investing, but bills were always paid behind, closed doors. So I always thought, oh, this is like. Oh, this is a bad thing. Paying bills is a bad thing, and especially, again, I think this is the concept where sometimes things aren't explained properly.

[00:21:48] Like my dad would get so mad because the lights would be on and he'd be like, turn off the lights. Turn off the lights. And I'm just like, God, if he just explained to us that he goes to work every day and when we leave the lights on, he thinks that's us not appreciating all his hard work. And if we can keep the light bill down, maybe we'll get X bonus.

[00:22:06] Or can we make a family challenge to see if the next bill's gonna be. Lower. That would've completely changed the way we reacted around that, as opposed to just being like, why is this obsessed? The lights?

[00:22:17] Ana: Yeah, exactly. Yeah, and Molly, it reminds me of like the first thing that we should do as parents, actually.

[00:22:23] It's not just the talking about money, teaching about money. The step before that that we didn't really touch upon, but you're talking about now, is us as parents thinking about our own relationship to money. How do we talk about money? Am I only just talking about the lights or am I actually talking about the underlining thing about that?

[00:22:40] Which is. Paying for those lights, being able to pay the bills. And so much of money is talked about savings and investing that we need to really focus on the spending. That is the biggest part of our money. Most of our money is going to be spent, so if we can get the spending right, talking about how we spend, we have to, you know, prioritize the rent or the mortgage and the insurance, and those are non-negotiables that we have to pay for.

[00:23:04] And then from those things. We can maybe go on a holiday or maybe buy some new shoes or whatever it might be. That spending part is actually the biggest part of the money conversation for us as individuals, as parents, and then as kids.

[00:23:18] Molly: Yeah, and I think I've had conversations with people where they're like, wow, I grew up not very well wealthy, but I grew up thinking I was the richest kid in the street.

[00:23:26] Because of how their parents discuss money. Yeah. So even if money is sparse, you can still, that doesn't have to be the underlying message. There's still so many ways that you can, um, yeah. By talking about it, you can change that mindset. Yeah. I love that. I just love, I remember having that conversation.

[00:23:42] This kid was like, I literally, like, I realized that when we were older, we were actually really, really poor, but we never went without, we always had food on the table. We didn't really get, we got like one Christmas present at Christmas, but we just thought we were like the wealthiest kids in the world.

[00:23:56] Ana: Yeah, I love the things that you look back on and you think were rich. I don't know if you've ever seen this online, these memes where people were like, oh, if someone had an ice dispenser in their fridge, that meant that they were rich. You know, like these ideas that you have as a child of thinking, whether you're wealthy or you're not.

[00:24:12] And um, yeah, it always makes me laugh.

[00:24:15] Molly: I had this moment the other day 'cause um, my partner and I were walking down the street and this little kid was in one of those motorized cars. Cars, yeah. And I was like, as a kid, you'd be like, oh my God, they're loaded. They have a motorized car. Yeah. Or otherwise, their parents just made really financially responsible decisions or the fact that they're a lot more affordable today than they were when I, we were a kid.

[00:24:36] 'cause they were like. 400 bucks when we were kids and I was like, oh yeah, they have a motorized BIE car. They must be millionaires. But yeah, it is so funny how you look back and go, ah, okay, maybe not. Well, thank you so much Anna. This has been awesome. And if people wanna learn more about you and your book, where do they go?

[00:24:53] Yeah, you can follow

[00:24:54] Ana: me on social media under my name, which is Anna Christina, or you can find my book. Uh, kids Ain't Cheap wherever you get your books.

[00:25:01] Molly: Awesome. Thanks so much for coming on the podcast and sharing all your awesome knowledge. Awesome. Thanks for having me, Molly.

KEYWORDS

money, kids, financial education, parenting, investing, budgeting, saving, credit, debt, financial literacy