The following content was featured in WSJ and Barrons (links below)
Adrianne’s insights on educating children in finance:
Set up an allowance or job system so that younger kids can earn and spend their own money; 9 or 10 is a good age to start. This teaches kids very important executive-function skills: how to prioritize, make trade-offs, and experience limitations. My kids have debit cards from their bank accounts.
We put 50% of birthday money from family into these accounts, along with the pay we give the kids to do jobs around the house. We don’t give them money for doing dishes or other community chores, but I will pay them, for example, for picking weeds or doing my laundry.
Involve children in discussions about family money decisions, and talk through it with them so they can hear your own values and how you make these decisions. You can keep it age-appropriate, but discussing choices— such as summer vacation travel, and the difference in the cost of going to Spain versus camping in a national park—will illustrate trade-offs and help them understand what is important to you as a parent, such as valuing experiences over owning goods.
At different life stages, such as when they’re starting their first jobs, spend time with your children or have your financial advisor spend time with them, walking through the big items to consider. One is budgeting: How much are you spending monthly versus bringing in? Discuss saving in a 401(k) at work —how do you allocate, and how much should you put away versus spend now? And talk about what they should do with extra savings—how should it be invested?
WSJ (Feb 19, 2025): Prepare Your Kids for a Transfer of Wealth
Barrons (subscription required): “Teach Your Children to Preserve Family Wealth, Not Squander It”