7 Tips to Build Financial Confidence

Investing in Children and Teens to Help Them Invest Money

What is Financial Confidence?

If confidence is defined as, “A feeling or consciousness of one’s powers or of reliance on one’s circumstances, then financial confidence could be defined as a feeling or consciousness of one’s power and ability to earn well, build wealth and ultimately have financial freedom. There is a growing body of evidence showing a strong relationship between financial wellbeing and financial confidence, yet many children do not have the opportunity to learn the mindsets and skills necessary to build it, often because parents weren’t taught it themselves.

Use these seven tips to help you raise children to be financially confident adults. Give them the opportunity to write an abundant wealth building money story. A money story is a person’s relationship with money. It is what they subconsciously BELIEVE, THINK and FEEL about money, which drives what they DO with money, which forms their FINANCIAL REALITY. Children learn their money story from their environment, significant adults and the media. They may hear things like:

• “We can’t afford that.”

• “Money doesn’t grow on trees.”

• “Do you think I’m made of money?”

• “Investing is for others, not us.”

Children and teens may experience fighting or anxiety around money. These words and experiences can lead to a relationship with money based on scarcity and fear, rather than abundance and wealth building. Choose your words about money carefully and decide to change your own money story if you must.

The more you talk about money with your friends, family and children, the more comfortable you and they will feel around money overall. Some questions to initiate conversations could be:

? If $100 blew in the window right now, what would you do with it?

? I feel like ice-cream. Do you think ice-cream is a need or a want?

? I wonder how much that influencer gets paid to say they love that product? I wonder if they really do love it?

? What are you grateful for today?

? What would happen if all our money was suddenly sucked into a chocolate river?

? Do you think it costs money to boil the kettle, turn on the stove or keep drinks cold in our fridge? Use a comprehensive holistic money system, like The Millionaire Mindset Money System to teach children how to be excellent money managers who budget and invest. For younger children, label six clear jars: GENIUS, GOALS, GET, GUARD, GROW and GIVE. Teach them money mindsets and habits they need to make educated and informed financial choices as adults. As children grow, transition from jars to bank accounts and investing portfolios. For children of all ages, teach them how to save up to buy their wants by using sinking funds, envelopes and bank accounts.

Use powerful mental strategies like gratitude and affirmations to teach children how to think abundant wealth building thoughts, rather than scarcity. Everything we do with money starts with a thought about money and ultimately forms our financial reality. For younger children, encourage them to write down affirmations and things they are grateful for on small pieces of paper, decorate them and keep them safe in their GENIUS jar. For older children, encourage them to keep a gratitude jar or journal, and create a ‘My Wealthy, Healthy Life’ vision board. Some affirmations could be:

à I AM abundant.

à I AM good with money.

à I can do hard things.

à I am a wise-owl or mindful spender.

à I make good choices with my money.

Use the WOOP goal setting technique to teach children how to set financial goals (short, medium and long term). This technique also shows them how to plan for obstacles, both external and internal that could prevent them from achieving their goals timeously. Some external obstacles could be advertising, mismanagement of credit cards and social media pressure. Some internal obstacles could be a scarcity mindset and lack of financial knowledge. Use a visual to track their progress that includes their goal amount, what they are saving for as well as a start and end date. As they save the amounts, colour in their tracker and celebrate their progress.

Teach them how to set up multiple streams of income, some generating active income and some passive income. Active income is money earned in exchange for hours worked. Passive income is money earned continuously even when we are not actively working. It’s about working smarter and being paid for our initial effort repeatedly, such as income from a rental property or dividends from shares. Encourage younger children to think of different ways to earn active income. For older children, brainstorm ways to earn using questions like:

à What are your strengths?

à What do other people compliment you for?

à How can you make money from that idea?

à What skills do you need in order to make money from that idea?

à How much time do you have to work on your idea or business?

à How much money can you earn from that?

à What is something that you would like to learn about but can’t find any good books or courses?

Normalise investing and the investing habit (investing half of all income earned) from an early age. Many adults were not taught this wealth building habit, so it can sound impossible, but children are blank canvasses when it comes to developing their money habits. You can build your child’s financial confidence using these seven tips - Start today!

Laurel Makowem is a Certified Financial Education Instructor and founder of Mothers Teaching Money, a business and movement helping parents raise financially confident, responsible and independent adults, regardless of their own financial knowledge or situation.

Her mission is to demystify financial literacy through the Millionaire Mindset Money System, a comprehensive holistic financial education system. She provides fun online courses, workshops and products for children from 4-18 years.

Laurel can be reached at mothersteachingmoney@gmail.com

CLARE MCILWRAITH

It’s 2023. I don’t know about you, but I feel like the public dialogue about studying hasn’t changed in…well…too long.

Being in the Internet age, there is, of course, an ocean of information about studying available but is it good information? Will it actually help teenagers learn effectively and get the grades they’re capable of earning?

I think some of the information swirling around out there needs a refresh, and some of it actually just needs to go in the bin. To that end, below are three myths about studying I believe are in need of a good debunking.

1. Study needs to be pretty and perfect.

It’s not just their bodies that the likes of Instagram are telling teenagers need to look ‘perfect.’

I fear that Instagram feeds full of complimenting pastel-coloured notebooks, personalised stickers and calligraphy-styled notes will lead some teens to think that unless their study notes look worthy of professional photography, they’re no good.

But this simply is not true. The aesthetics of studying, generally, do not matter.

Yes, sometimes it’s important to be neat —setting out maths problems for instance.

But generally, and certainly when it comes to exam study, who cares whether notes look good. The important thing is, do they work?!

How a student gets through the gauntlet of exam study should only depend on one thing — what works for them.

Maybe they are naturally a ‘neat’ person who does benefit from setting out their desk and notes beautifully. But maybe they have zero interest in glitter pens and thrive with just a plain old notebook and ball point pen, happy to study in a darkened room so messy you can’t see the floor.

Both extremes and everything in between is fine as long as the system is working.

One of my most academically-qualified mates from high school had (and has!) handwriting so horrendous he could barely read it himself. I shudder to think what his study desk would have looked like. But as my Masters in microbiology and zoology friend demonstrates, the important part of studying lies far beneath the aesthetics. What matters is that students can take in, process and retain information in whatever way works for them - not whether their study notes would win any graphic design awards.

2. There’s only one way to study properly.

Some study information out there is like bad diet advice — just do this and the weight will fall off! — oversimplified and generic.

But actually, the absolute key to studying effectively is figuring out what works for you. Students study most effectively in their own unique way. The study techniques that I deploy for my exam study won’t work for all other students.

I call this process — each student’s unique method of studying (particularly for exams) — their Study System.

While the ‘lead actors’ of studying are likely to appear in most students’ Study Systems (study notes, past exams, practice essays, etc) there is plenty of room for different approaches.

Do they like handwriting study notes? Typing them? Maybe a mixture? Does watching educational videos help? Flash cards? Talking concepts over with a friend? Listening to music? Complete silence?

The take home is that we are all unique individuals and that individuality extends to how we study effectively.

3. Everyone should go to university.

We’re still really hung up on this one. Going to university after school is still the option most heavily marketed to high school students.

But there’s a problem. A lot of teenagers don’t want to go to university.

We need to move away from banging on the same university drum, and open teenagers’ worlds to see that there are myriad positive pathways to pursue after school that can offer up happy and fulfilled lives.

To my mind, keeping university as the measure of ‘success’ after school is completely counterproductive for many of our young people.