Financial Literacy for Kids | Up for Discussion with Will Rainey
Did you know that 86% of people say their financial situation has worsened their mental health? In our latest episode of Up for Discussion, we welcome Will Rainey, author of Grandpa's Fortune Fables and a passionate advocate for teaching kids about money. Will shares his journey from investment consultant to empowering parents to educate their children about financial management.
We explore:
- The importance of financial literacy for kids
- Societal taboos surrounding money conversations - Practical tips for fostering healthy money habits
- How financial education shapes career choices and wellbeing.
Will emphasises the power of financial knowledge: "If children know how to manage their money when they're young, it empowers them to make so many different decisions when they're adults." This episode is essential for parents, educators, and anyone interested in breaking the cycle of financial illiteracy. Join us for an insightful discussion on raising financially savvy kids and creating a more secure future!
Video Transcript
Introduction (0:00 - 0:13)
This is CB Up for Discussion, a podcast series from Community Business where we tackle DE&I and wellbeing hot topics with special guests from across Asia.
[Chris Mack] (0:15 - 1:11)
I'm Chris, Programme Manager for Wellbeing at Community Business and I'll be your podcast host for this episode. Today we are delighted to be Up for Discussion with Will Rainey, author of Grandpa's Fortune Fables. Will is a writer and speaker focused on helping parents teach their kids about money.
He's the author of the children's book Grandpa's Fortune Fables. His work has appeared in the Financial Times, iNews and the National News. His website, bluetreesavings.com, has helped thousands of parents start talking to their kids about money. He's been invited to speak at Fortune 500 global companies. Before starting bluetreesavings.com, Will was an award-winning investment consultant. He was providing investment advice to governments, insurance companies, and some of the world's largest pension schemes.
Will, thank you for joining us on Up for Discussion.
[Will Rainey] (1:11 - 1:13)
It's a pleasure to be here. I'm excited about this.
[Chris Mack] (1:14 - 1:20)
Me too. So Will, I've given you a bit of an introduction. Do you want to give an introduction from your side?
[Will Rainey] (1:20 - 2:22)
Yeah, sure. So yes, I'm from the UK originally, but I've been in Asia now for nearly coming up to 10 years. So I was, as you mentioned in the introduction there, I was an investment consultant helping institutional clients in the UK.
So I'm an actuary by background. So for those who might not have heard of an actuary, essentially someone does like financial statistics as it looks at risks. And I sort of did that in the investment world.
So I did that and then I moved to Hong Kong in 2014. So I was in Hong Kong for five years. And then in 2019, decided to take some time off the corporate world because I've got two young daughters.
And we moved to Hoi An in Vietnam, which I think is one of the best places in the world. And we were there during COVID, which was a really nice place to be. And that's when I started doing the Kids and Money initiative, mostly to teach my kids to start with.
And then I kind of expanded to help other families. And it's just gone from there to there. And now I'm based in Chiang Mai, North Thailand.
[Chris Mack] (2:23 - 2:35)
Brilliant. Now, that's me. You've already actually touched upon, you know, you mentioned your family.
What was continuing on that? What was your sort of inspiration to really focus on financial education for children?
[Will Rainey] (2:36 - 4:45)
Yeah. So when I left Hong Kong, so it's 2019, I said to lots of people, I'm going to take a like a mini retirement off corporate world, spend more time with my kids. And a lot of people said to me, oh, how can you afford to do that?
Like, how are you going to finance yourself faster? And I kind of thought, well, we've been, my wife and I have been saving and investing for a while, because that's kind of our background expertise. But it's really interesting seeing that comment coming from people in the industry.
So these are people who know all about investments and savings, etc. They've been advising or receiving advice about that, but they weren't doing it themselves. And I think there was a little bit of a culture of people are earning good money, and therefore they didn't have to worry about money, because they can just earn some more.
It's like, I don't need to think about saving. And so I thought it was really interesting. I had this amazing opportunity, and it was a fantastic experience to take that time with my kids.
And so I thought, well, why am I different to those people? And a lot of it comes down to, I thought about my parents, my parents were savers and investors. Essentially, I finished university and my parents said, right, parenting done, we're going to go move to Spain.
And they retired much earlier than their peers. And that was their objective. So I kind of saw the benefits.
And so I was like, right, I want my children to at least have the same opportunity that I did, or we had. And so I thought, I'm going to try and teach them about money. And as I was doing that, as I mentioned, I started sharing that with some initially friends and family, and then started to write, do some writing on the blog.
And then that's just seemed to be picked up. It seemed a bit of a niche seems like there wasn't that many resources out there doing that. And the other bit was, I remember when I read some of the really good personal finance books, I'm thinking of like rich dad, poor dad, or the richest man in Babylon, or even more recently, like the psychology of money.
And I always thought, I wish I'd have read them when I was younger. And that's kind of the other bit I want to write. I want to make sure my kids know those kind of key elements from those kind of books.
And hence why I wrote my book, which is kind of a child's version of some of those key books for adults.
[Chris Mack] (4:46 - 5:02)
It's a great point. And actually, one of the questions I kind of want to follow up with that is, is why do you feel there is that sort of gap? Why is it?
Is it not a topic that we talk to? I know, obviously, overall as a society, but in particular with kids? What do you why do you think that is?
[Will Rainey] (5:03 - 6:19)
Well, I think there's two bits. One is, parents just are never taught about money themselves, right? It's just crazy that not so.
Therefore, they don't have feel empowered to talk to their kids about money. They're like, well, how am I supposed to teach kids if I'm still struggling with money myself? So that's one element.
And then the other element is this whole, we have this whole society taboo about talking about money. It's like, well, we don't talk about money. It's not the right thing to do.
And so therefore, people kind of keep money to themselves, and they don't want to talk to their kids about money. Or I don't feel if they talk to their kids about money, their kids might go and talk to other people about money. And they don't want to sort of break that sort of society code that we don't talk about money.
And I think that's got to be broken, because it's going to have a long term. And what is having a big impact, as we know that, I think pretty much all like 50% of anxiety, that links kind of mental problems are coming from can be stemmed, or come back to financial issues, whether that's about relationships about work, about friendships and other pieces. So it's got to be changed.
And yeah, if we don't talk about it, and we don't provide education around it, at a young age, then kids are going to grow up thinking it's a taboo. And we shouldn't talk about or ask for help.
[Chris Mack] (6:23 - 6:41)
In your opinion, how does financial well being financial education or financial understanding during childhood, then sort of impact on either young adults, it could be employment or career path, or overall, maybe even overall economic security? How do you see that developing?
[Will Rainey] (6:42 - 8:28)
I think it's huge impact. I think if children know about how to manage their money, when they're children, it gives them it just empowers them to make such so many different decisions when they're adults. So I'll give you a very recent one is that my daughter wants to be a teacher.
So she's only 11 years old now. And she wants to be a teacher when she's older. And when lots of adults ask her, what do you want to do when you grow up and says, I want to be a teacher, they'll say, Oh, it's not much money in teaching.
Why do you want to be a teacher? And she's like, almost heartbroken, because she wants to be a teacher. But they're saying don't do that.
Because but from my perspective, because we've been spending a lot of time, my kids teaching them about money. And they've, they've got some of their own little investments that are growing slowly. So she can have different sources of income.
So almost thinking about writing like little books, so she gets other sources of income. Again, I think she's actually has that power. I think even if she does become a teacher, sadly, is underpaid relative to the service that provides, I still think she's going to be better off financially than most people.
But most importantly, she's going to be doing a job if she's only 11. But she wants to be a continues to be a teacher, she can do the thing that she loves, because she doesn't have to worry about money. And there's so many other people out there who are just working in horrible jobs, because they need the money.
And then that causes depression, etc. And so I think just having that knowledge about money can change career paths, relationships, earning potential as well, because, and also gives that freedom and flexibility, which I say was the biggest thing for my life, my wife's life was having that time off the kids when they're young, gives them that flexibility. And I think, again, if kids know that they can look after their money, they're going to have that flexibility, they can change their, their situations and not get trapped.
And I think that's, that's hugely powerful.
[Chris Mack] (8:30 - 9:22)
Freedom, empowerment, you know, that all of that actually relates to some of your experiences as well in terms of where you where you originally started, then you were moving around with your partner with your family to different countries, because and that that stems from that understanding and that that developing almost that security as well with within your sort of financial circumstances, but also, again, it demonstrates the relationship we have with money, you know, you've got, you mentioned your daughter being so passionate about pursuing, you know, a particular job role, but, but someone brings up the topic of money, when actually, what's the relationship do they have with with money?
And why is that such a, almost like an overarching and almost pushes the goal of career aside, and you've now just focused on the money side of things, isn't it?
[Will Rainey] (9:23 - 10:25)
That's huge. Because on that, it's because money is so much about psychology than it is about numbers and charts and mathematics. Because it's what do you want with that money?
What does that money mean to you, as you've kind of highlighted there, and some people, they need to have the biggest job with the most amount of money, because that's their status. This Look how look how important I am, I've got this big, powerful job that earns a lot of money, or own this big company. But for others, that might not be the case.
If some people it might be, they might just have that whatever it may be, but others might be, I just want security, I want to have flexibility. And therefore, I want to do a job that I'm really passionate about. And I think it's trying to make sure people understand, right?
Whatever you put your mind to your finances can kind of follow. But at the moment, a lot of people just follow that default of must get high paid job, because then people will see me in a higher regard. And it's really not true.
And actually, there's people have these big salaries, but are still living paycheck to paycheck and struggling with money. And that's the saddest stories.
[Chris Mack] (10:26 - 11:05)
I mean, it is. And I think you've already highlighted, you know, a couple of things we need to take into consideration, you know, of course, is we do live in the world that we live in. So how do you find?
Do we sort of acknowledge certain factors that might play a role with developing a child sort of understanding around finances, you know, taking into consideration whether it's cultural backgrounds or socioeconomic factors that influence that financial literacy, almost, you know, is that something that we need to, you know, essentially not ignore and play and include into the conversations?
[Will Rainey] (11:06 - 13:43)
Yeah, no, 100%. And I think the cultural point is, is an interesting one, but I don't think it's a materially different one. For example, in the in the West, there's not a very big savings culture.
But clearly, in places like Hong Kong, there are like when kids get their red packets at the Lunar New Year, and most of the parents take that away and save it for their kids. And it's kind of this natural kind of savings mindset. And I think that's really powerful.
And hopefully, more of a savings culture will be introduced. But I don't think that's the biggest one is probably more about that social, economic change. And I think this is so, so important in and it's almost like you have to do the opposite to what they are.
So what I mean by that is, when you've got people who are from a relatively a poorer social, economical background, you need to get them to believe that they can take simple actions, and their future is going to be different. Because it's so easy for them to get into this kind of mindset of, I don't come from money, I don't know about money, I didn't, I'll probably never have money, this is just my life. And you have to try and outbreak that by saying, No, actually, there's lots of really good stories about people who start like that.
And they just get into a simple habit of just saving a little bit, as hard as that is, just save a little bit, but over time and be impatient, that will compound and it can change. And then the opposite on the higher end of the social economics, where you're essentially these kids are essentially entitled, they're getting money from their parents, the parents are like, I've had this money, I want my children to have a really good life, I'm going to pay for everything that they get. They're going to, essentially, that kids, those kids from the rich backgrounds, actually, one of my most popular blogs I've written was why I feel sorry for the rich kids.
And it's all about them, they're not having that opportunity to make money decisions that they don't have that. What are they striving for when they're saving? Because why save when mom and dad will just buy it for me?
What am I going to achieve? What's my kind of purpose? And so there's a lot of mistakes that are being made in both ends.
And I think that's where parents need to almost take the opposite for the rich kids. They almost have to try and treat the kids to be poor, and let them experience that and say, look, look, you need to look after your money. Yes, this is how much stuff is actually worth, this is how we've worked hard for our money.
This is kind of the value of that. So they appreciate it. And again, on the other side, get them to have that kind of rich mindset of you can break out if you look after your money well.
So that's a huge variation in terms of what parents need to do. It's almost like the opposite of what the situation they might be in.
[Chris Mack] (13:48 - 14:19)
And obviously, we're talking here about children, we're talking about young people. And we're not expecting children and young people to be, you know, geniuses with their finances, you know, automatically. So their roles that people play, you know, predominantly within obviously, this discussion, we're talking around parents and guardians.
So what role do you feel parents and guardians play in setting a good financial example, and educating children about personal finances?
[Will Rainey] (14:19 - 17:45)
Yeah, so I think they play a huge part in it, in the sense of being showing the role modeling good behaviors in the sense of showing savings, talking about money, again, just don't talk about stresses and stuff like that. But talking about money in an open way about we're just going for our family finances. This is how much things cost, not to try and scare the kids, because kids can get quite scared about money.
I'll give you one quick example on that. I said to my, we were out one day, and we went to pass this restaurant. And because we're starving for lunch, and we had the cinema or something.
And so we wanted a quick lunch. And we looked at the menu. And I went, Oh, no, that's too expensive.
And then we just went somewhere else. And then later, my daughter said, Oh, Dad, you said it was too expensive. Does that mean we don't have money?
And I was like, No, no, no, no, no at all. I just meant for the just too expensive for what we wanted at that time. But straight away, she kind of picked up on I said too expensive, therefore, we can't afford it.
And therefore, worrying starts worrying. So we have to be very, very careful about how we talk about money around our children. They're listening to everything.
So again, I wasn't talking to my kids directly, then they were just overhearing. And so we need to be very careful. But we do need to talk about money.
So they see that it's case. But yeah, role modeling, allowing them to make ask questions. And kids love talking about money when you talk to them about money.
And if you know, if you don't know the answer, the best response is, is to simply say, let's find out together. And then there's so many good there are, if you look for them, there's great resources on the web to help you any kind of money topic. And so I've done that with even with my kids and my background, I've sometimes gone, actually, let's just sit down and have a look together.
And they love that learning with their parents, rather than always thinking that the parents must have the right answer, because they're adults. I thought that's a very key one. But also, sadly, that if they don't learn from their parents, who else are they going to learn from?
At schools, it's not on the curriculum. And it's not taught most, there's no other people out there going to teach your kids. So if you're a parent or guardian, they're going to learn and they're going to pick up most of their money behaviors from their parents.
And so even if you're not talking to them, they're going to be watching you picking up and they're going to copy what you do. So it's best to sort of take control of that and try and demonstrate good pieces. But the key thing I try and say to all parents is when talking about money, it's not, again, you don't need to make your kids financial geniuses.
There's kind of very kind of basic rules. So just getting your kids to save a little bit of money every time they get some, it doesn't have to be they have to save all their money and become these savers that don't ever spend. That's not just like every say $10 they get, get them to save just one, get them in that habit of just a small bits every single time.
Like as adults, if we had to save 10% of all the money we've ever received, we'll be a lot wealthier than we are today. But kids can get into that habit just every time that small piece. And if every parent can do that.
And if every, if any parent that does do that, I'm pretty sure their children are going to grow up to be much more financially healthy and wealthy than the majority with just that one small action. And that's not about charts or jargon or anything like that. It's just a simple action.
And we know that so few people are doing that because they're kind of caught up in that kind of instant gratification consumer world that we sadly live in now.
[Chris Mack] (17:46 - 19:04)
You know, I want to highlight a couple of things within I love that example that you gave. Imagine if you never talked to your children openly about money, would your daughter have asked you that question? That's, that's one aspect, isn't it?
But I think as well with the small action around, you know, getting used to putting a small percentage away. And that's, that's something that we do at a very young age. Not only is that action, a great habit to get into, but understanding the reason as to why.
And I think that's a really important thing. Because if I'm being told to do something, I think I'm just doing it because I've been told to do it, and I have to do it. But if I understand the reason why, and the benefit that it's going to have, not just for now, and to see a little bit into the longer term side of things, then that we start to translate those behaviors into, as you mentioned, habits.
And next thing you know, they're 20 years old, you know, whatever path they've taken in life, and you can see them, you know, X amount of percentage away. And by the time it's retirement age, by the time it's however old they are, they've, they've, they're just doing it. And to a point where they probably don't even notice that they're doing it.
[Will Rainey] (19:05 - 20:24)
It's just... And this is something that I've been, so one of the bits I use in my blogs, and in the book as well, is I get kids to think of money like seeds. And I say to them, put that, you save one out of every 10 seeds that you receive.
So that's one out of every $10. And then you plant it. So that's either a savings account or an investment account.
And then that, that seed grows into a tree. And their job is essentially to grow this kind of financial forest. And the trees, as we know, as they grow, they produce more seeds, which is your interest or your, your dividends.
And my kids love it. They like, oh, this is why I'm saving, they're growing this forest, and they now see this little bit of trickle of these new seeds being produced. So again, for my daughters, they have a bit of saving investment, it's not huge.
But now they, I tell them every month, oh, did you know, you've just received an extra seed from your forest? And they're like, oh, amazing. And then the next month, a little bit more.
And they're like, okay, so they want to kind of grow and nurture this, this forest. And as you're pointing there, it's this why. And then we, for my kids, we've said, our forest, we've been doing that for many, many years.
And that allowed us to take that time off, and give us that freedom and flexibility and opportunities that, which we're very fortunate to be into. And hence why I want them to have that as well. So again, giving them a bit of a purpose of why they're saving and seeing that money grow.
[Chris Mack] (20:24 - 20:50)
And it's and it's translating it into a into terminology into almost like a language that that that children understand, because like you said, even on occasion, average adults, and I'll stick my hand up, I won't understand, you know, a lot of this jargon, as well. So by translating it to an easier concept to sort of understand them, then we, you know, hopefully understand it a bit more.
[Will Rainey] (20:50 - 21:03)
Well, that's, that's the best things I get from messages from mostly from parents who have read my blogs, or read the book with the kids. And they're like, I read, I read this trying to help my kids, but this has helped me more, it's helped them.
[Chris Mack] (21:08 - 22:02)
I kind of want to take it into a little bit of a slightly different direction. Because obviously, you know, going back to the previous question, we're looking at different people from different backgrounds, like I mentioned, whether it's cultural, whether it's socioeconomic. Now, having a conversation, and we talked about role modeling, for families that potentially are going through some very challenging times.
And whilst trying to be mindful in terms of how we talk about money and things like that, what would you say are some, you know, whether it's advice, or whether it's things to consider to still have those discussions around money to children, in circumstances where unfortunately, you know, we will know that a certain percentage of the population will be going through, you know, financially challenging times. So what would you say to those sort of families, you know, on the different spectrum of socioeconomic status, basically?
[Will Rainey] (22:03 - 24:47)
Yeah, so I think a key point is, it's those small actions over a long period of time makes a big difference. And I think it's just empowering them to say, persevere and be patient. With those actions, it will change.
And I think it's so hard when you're in those situations, again, I can only imagine. But it's understanding there are great stories. So one of the stories that I share, and I shared with a charity in the US, as young kids coming from very deprived backgrounds, and I shared the Ronald Reed story.
So Ronald Reed is this gentleman in the US, and throughout his whole life, he worked as a janitor, and a gas service, so petrol station, for many years, and some of that was only part time. So he didn't earn much money at all. But when he died, when he was 92 years old, roughly, he had over 8 million US dollars in his bank account.
And everyone's like, well, in his savings account. Now, how did he do this? Like, where's this money come from?
And he's just learned to live below his means. And his means were very low. But he did, he said, he focused on his friends, spending time with them, and not spending money.
And he took managed, even though he had limited earnings, he managed to save just a little bit, and then learn how to make that money grow. So talked about learning the basics of investing, it took him a while to build up enough so he could invest. But again, he persevered.
And over time, his wealth grew and grew. And there's many other stories I've started to hear now, of others who have gone through that, but it's not going to turn around very quickly, is the first thing. And I think that's the bit that so many people get caught up in when it comes to money is, I need to change it around.
Now, I'm going to take these actions, and I want to see a big outcome straight away. That's just not the case. It's a case of take the right actions, which means thinking about your spending, trying to find little ways to save, make that savings grow over time, and then be patient, and it will change.
Whereas so many people try and find quick fixes, I'm going to put my money into Bitcoin, I'm going to borrow money, I'm going to join this, get quick rich, get rich quick course and pay lots of money for that. And that ends up in disaster, and sadly, play the lottery. And we know that, sadly, that the poorest families are the ones who spend most of their money on lotteries, in that hope, because they say that's the quickest way of changing it around.
So again, it's, there's no quick fix. There really isn't. And for your kids, and yourselves, take small actions, and be patient, and it will change.
Once it starts to change, it will change materially for the better.
[Chris Mack] (24:48 - 25:32)
Yeah, it's, it is a good point, because I don't know if it's, I don't know where the influences maybe come from, whether it's, I don't know, things that we see in the media, people we talk to, whatever it might be. But whenever we talk about managing your money, we think about dollar signs, and pound signs, and moving, I've just moved this to this account, and I've just moved this to that account. And as you mentioned, I think patience is a really big one, but patience plus a small action.
But I think the key bit is action, doing some thing. And, and, and we all have different financial circumstances, but we can, hopefully, we can all just do one thing. That's sort of in the right direction.
[Will Rainey] (25:34 - 26:03)
Yeah, no, I 100% agree. Because that's, that's something I thought, yeah, does change was different between, I say, my wife and I, to many of the people I know, that we yeah, we took that, we read the books, we saw our parents, we took that action. That's what I really want for my kids, and try and get as many families to, I don't want people just to enjoy my book, I want them to read the book, and then set up a savings or investment account for their kids, so it can make a big difference to them as they're growing up and change their futures.
[Chris Mack] (26:04 - 26:21)
Brilliant. Listen, you've already shared a few stories. And I know we wanted to see if we can explore any other sort of positive or even negative instances relating to financial well being of children.
I don't know, I'll leave you, I'll give you the space if you if there's any other sort of stories you wanted to highlight or spotlight.
[Will Rainey] (26:22 - 28:06)
Yeah, so there's a few. So one is about getting kids to start to earn their own money. And so again, when I was in Hong Kong, one of the greatest stories was used to share, we were on the ground floor apartment and had a little garden that used to share with the block of flats, apartments opposite.
And the little boy who lived next was essentially our neighbour in the garden. He was just so entrepreneurial. It was amazing.
Like he, I don't think he wasn't doing amazing in school. He was doing good in school, but not anything, but his talent. And I remember seeing getting off and seeing him having his lemonade stand.
And he made some money, had all his friends helping him and came back. And I said to him, what are you going to do with the money that you've made? And he gave me the best response.
He just said, I'm going to go and buy more lemons. And he was just going to go and do that. And he went off.
Then he went over the border to Shenzhen and come back with these drones that he sold to people for a markup. He bought himself a popcorn making machine. And so he was just learning all these new skills about how to earn money.
And I think this is a really great thing that we don't talk to kids enough about. It's not just about how to look after money, which we've kind of talked about in other stories throughout this, this podcast, but actually trying to get kids to think about other ways of making money rather than just go to school, get a corporate job. Again, nothing wrong with that, but you can enhance that earnings or it might find that kids just have this natural enthusiasm for doing entrepreneur stuff, entrepreneurial ideas.
And so I really encourage all parents to at least talk to their kids about doing their own little mini business. It could change their whole mindset and it helps them learn about how to manage money as well in a really fun, engaging way.
[Chris Mack] (28:06 - 28:33)
Absolutely. And do you know what? I think what was really great about that story, all those actions aren't in the realms of impossible, but like you said, the mindset, the knowledge, the understanding as well, you know, help drive those behaviors.
And I would love to, I would love to know what, you know, who knows if we ever come across this, this child in the future, who knows what their development and where they've grown to.
[Will Rainey] (28:33 - 28:34)
Exactly. Yeah.
[Chris Mack] (28:34 - 28:54)
But we've, we've covered, we've covered the questions and more. So I, you know, it's, it's one final one, a question that we, we, we like to ask all of our guests, really. What do you think the biggest way we can make a ripple of change throughout society?
[Will Rainey] (28:55 - 29:28)
So for me in this field that I'm in, it's to see financial education in schools. I think every child should have the basic knowledge and ability and belief that they know how to look after their money. It's crazy that we go into the world as adults and not knowing about money in a lot of cases.
And just, yeah. So just getting financial education into schools can change the lives of those with good grades, poor grades, rich backgrounds, poor backgrounds for the better.
[Chris Mack] (29:28 - 29:57)
Absolutely. Well, that that's awesome. That covers all the topics that we wanted to talk about in today's episode.
So a big thank you, Will, for joining us on Up for Discussion. It's been a real pleasure and best of luck with, with the books and all the best with hopefully we can pursue some of these goals and seeing a lot more financial education, financial understanding with this generation and all the future generations to come.
[Will Rainey] (29:58 - 29:59)
Thank you for having me. It's been a pleasure.