How to Teach Kids About Money (And Wealth) With Maya Corbic

Transcript:

 

On this episode of the personal finance podcast, we're going to talk to Maya Corbick about how you can make your kids wealthy.

What's up everybody. And welcome to the personal finance podcast. I'm your host, Andrew founder of master money. co and today on the personal finance podcast, we're going to be talking to Maya Corbick about how you can teach your kids about money. If you guys have any questions, make sure to hit us up on Instagram, Tik TOK.

Twitter at master money co and follow us on Spotify, Apple podcasts or whatever podcast player you are listening to this podcast on right now. And if you want to help out the show, consider leaving a five star rating and review. Can I thank you guys enough for leaving those five star ratings and reviews.

They truly help us spread this message to people on how to build wealth. Now, today we are going to be talking to Maya Corbick about how to teach your kids about money. And she has a fantastic Instagram account called teach kids money, but she also wrote this great book called from piggy banks to stocks.

And it's a book for your kids to teach them how money works, how investing works, how business works. And it is a fantastic resource for any parents out there who want to teach their kids about money. Now today in this episode, Maya and I go through how to teach your kids about investing, how to teach your kids about money by age, and some of the key lessons that you can teach your kids when it comes to learning about compound interests or learning about business.

And we go through a bunch of different scenarios on how you can do that. And then also we asked Maya a bunch of rapid fire questions at the end of the podcast, and of course, what wealth means to her. So if you're ready for it, let's welcome Maya. To the personal finance podcast. So Maya, welcome to the personal finance podcast.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really excited to be here, Andrew. I am so excited to have you here because you have one of my favorite Instagram accounts called teach kids money, but you also just wrote this fantastic book that I have gone through. And I think it is. An amazing way to teach your kids about money called from piggy banks to stocks.

And I've even been going through it with my five year old, just kind of talking it out loud and thinking through it. And I think this is a really, really cool book. And it also has activities and workbooks type things in there that you can actually utilize. So I'm really, really excited to have you here, but what got you originally interested in teaching kids about money?

Well, originally, um, it was really just my own past. Um, I'm the first generation immigrant, immigrated from Bosnia. And, you know, I had nothing and I had to work my way to get to where I am. I mean, I lived in government shelters and government housing, and I remember, um, once I became a CPA, I had some clients, they were making six figures income and they had nothing to show for.

And I remember thinking, how is this even possible? Like I literally, like I lived in government shelters, government housing, and my mom was able to stretch that dollar to make her ends meet, you know, and it was really, really strange to me. And then I had my own children and I started thinking, okay, what are my kids going to learn in school?

And I just thought that school was covering financial literacy at the time. Even though I mean, I know, I remember that I didn't learn it in high school, but then I was like, I. I thought maybe in elementary school, this is what they teach, right? Because I actually immigrated when I was in high school. So, um, I started looking into the curriculum and there was nothing.

And this is 12 years ago. So quite a while ago. And I think now a lot of schools have introduced financial literacy curriculum. Or some of it and, uh, I realized that, you know, my kids were not going to learn anything unless I teach them. So I started teaching my own children. And very shortly after that, other people were asking me to teach their kids.

And again, very shortly after that, I started going to schools and doing school workshops, and it just sort of expanded from there because there seems to be so much need. And this is one of the most powerful things I think that parents can do for their children is teaching them about money and teaching them actually how to utilize money, how to save, how to invest all these different things.

And it looks like when I read through your book, that you believe that anybody can become a millionaire as long as they start obviously early enough. And so if a parent wants to start teaching their kids about money, what is kind of the best way to kind of introduce that concept? You know what? Um, I think the easiest thing to do is just think of money as something that is not A taboo.

A lot of us have been brought up in the families where, you know, they say, we don't talk about money, you know, don't ask about money. Don't mention it. But I actually think we should be talking about money because money is a regular part of our lives. We use it on a daily basis. And we should be talking about it as if it's something, you know, just normal.

And when we talk about it as if it's something normal and throughout the day, certain things happen to us that it. Pertain to money. I think we should be talking about these things to our kids. So, you know, I will go to a store and maybe I, let's say I will not buy this cup and, you know, my child wants me to buy it because it has a superhero on it or something like that.

And so I will use that instance as a really good way to connect with my child and talk about money. Okay, we're not going to buy this because number 1, this is not in my budget. So then, you know, you may get conversations around the budget, or it may be like, because, you know, this is too expensive and I already have so many of these at home.

So we really don't need any more like that. But it's just having that conversation and being honest about it and having that also abundance mindset. So when you say. Okay. You know, I don't want to buy something. Also be very careful what you say. Don't say I can't afford it. You can say I can't afford it, but I can't afford it now, meaning that we can afford it later on.

So let's plan for it and how we're going to achieve it. You know, if this is something that you want, let's figure out a way to like, save for it, or maybe figure out how we can earn money for it. It's also important to incorporate that positive money mindset and not the mindset of scarcity, because we don't want to pass that on to our children.

Exactly. That abundance mindset is so incredibly powerful because you think about the parents, you know, back in the day who used to say, Hey, don't leave the lights on or something like that. But they don't explain exactly why they're saying things like that. So I think it is so important, like you're saying, to just start to have these conversations in everyday instances to teach your kids about money.

It is one of the biggest things that you can do to help your kids overall. So how do you teach your kids the why behind why they need to learn about money? I think this is a really important concept, and you kind of talk about it more so in the book. Two, but why or how can you teach them about the why?

So they know why they're actually doing this. Yeah, I think everybody's why is very different. Um, you know, a lot of times people want more money and it's not so much the money that they want. It's more like, why do they want more money? Is it the time freedom to spend with our loved ones? Is it, you know, because they want to travel.

Um, and when the kids are young, they don't know why they have no idea what why is, but to me, I mean, I have teenagers now and I usually tell them. Um, especially my daughter, because she's a girl, you know, and, you know, she jokes sometimes with me. She's like, I'm just going to marry rich. And I'm like, no, you don't want to do that.

Um, it's just that I want her. And I mean, it all depends on what she wants, but what I want for her is to be independent, to have her own money. And so she's not dependent on anybody. And for both of my children, what I want for them is to have enough. Money invested that it's earning them and I tell them those are called money babies, but that's interest earned.

So that money is producing money babies and those money babies can support your lifestyle so that you're not stuck in a job that you hate. There's so many people that have jobs that they dislike and it gives you freedom, not just the freedom, you know, like, yes, you, if you want to go and spend your time on the beach or you want to play basketball or whatever all day long, that's great.

But at some point you will get sick of that too. So it will give you freedom to do something with your life. Maybe even something more meaningful, like to pursue certain goals or maybe start a business that helps people in a certain way, I think you can actually create a better society. So I think that why we need to define it, what it is for us.

And then we need to talk to our kids for them to help understand what their why is. Absolutely. And think about what Maya is talking about here for all the listeners is how powerful would this stuff be to know if you actually knew it when you were, you know, five, 10, 15, 20 years old, and you actually understood compound interest.

You understood how businesses work and you understood all of these different concepts, how much different your life could be if you actually taught this stuff. So I think this is so powerful to actually have this message for our kids. So as we go through this process, one big thing about the book is teaching kids about investing.

Cause. Obviously investing creates freedom for our lives. So it is one of the most important things that we need to learn as early as possible. So how early should you kind of approach investing when you're teaching kids and how does that approach change over time? Oh, it definitely changes over time. So my suggestion for all the parents is to start investing on behalf of their kids.

As soon as the child is born, if that's possible, I do always caution parents because sometimes people say, well, I have absolutely no money. I mean, take care of yourself first, put on your own oxygen mask first, right? Like take care of your own finances before you can start taking care of your child, but you can invest as little as 10 per week.

And that can add up significantly over a long period of time. And when they're babies, of course, they don't know anything about investing, but you're setting up this nice nest egg for them. And then as they get older, then you can start teaching them to put aside a little bit of their allowance. And when that amount accumulates, you can invest that together.

And then as they, you know, have their first part time job, again, the same thing, like take a little bit of that paycheck. Put it aside and invest it so that when they become adults, this becomes a habit. They say 95 percent of what we do, we do on autopilot. We do it out of habit. So we want to create these really, really good habits.

And, uh, one thing that I started doing with my kids when they were younger, I would actually, so we started off with savings accounts first, and they knew they had that savings account. And the money in there was, um, it was actually divided into long term and short term savings because long term for them is like.

So out of their realm, they don't even care about it. They don't care about the college. They don't care about owning a house one day. So we had a short term savings just to get them to save up for something that they can get in the near future. And that gave them that drive to continue saving. Saving and investing for the long term goals, so that was really kind of like, the 1st thing that we did, and then my kids actually realized because I would show them their savings accounts that they were not really making much interest on those savings accounts.

So, then we invested into a term deposit. That was the next step and they realized they got a little bit more of an interest and then they were like, okay, we're ready for savings. So I started buying them stocks of companies they knew and understood, um, like that they were actually consumers of. So like a lot of kids have iPads and iPhones.

So my kids now own shares of Apple, and this is not a suggestion that everybody should do this, but, you know, it's just an example. And eventually we progressed. Owing Apple and like shares of stocks that they, or companies that they knew and understood was actually really helpful because we were able to have conversations about these companies, especially if they came up in the news.

It's like, what are these companies doing? Is this going to increase the share price? Is it going to decrease it? Um, but now we invest in ETFs and index funds. So it's kind of like, it really progressed. I know it's a long winded answer, but it really progressed, you know, from the time they were born to where they are now.

I love that detail because I think it's really important to kind of see that spectrum of how this needs to evolve over time. Because for a lot of people, they may think, Hey, my kids are too young to learn about this, but they're really a lot of times not, you can kind of explain simple concepts when it comes to investing, which kind of leads me into kind of what I want to talk about here.

One of our most popular episodes we did over the last quarter was talking through, you know, how to teach your kids about money by age. So I wanted to see if you had any tips on how to teach kids money by age when it comes through this process. Cause I know a lot of people are in situations where they have kids at certain ages.

Maybe they're younger kids, maybe they're older kids, and so the approach a lot of times has to be different like you're talking about here with just the spectrum of investing. So say for example, you had kids that were five or below. So this is obviously like kindergarten age and below. Sometimes it's difficult to teach kids about money at that age and some people don't do it, but I actually started doing it at this age.

Is there any tips that you have for people who have kids five and below? Oh, absolutely. I mean, at this age, kids usually know that money is used as an exchange for things or services, right? Like, they know that we use money to get things. So I think it's a perfect time to start teaching them about money.

Um, and the very first concept that I like to teach this age group is understanding, uh, for them to understand the difference between needs and wants. And they can actually get this at this age. I've been in kindergarten classrooms and I taught this. They understand needs are things we need for survival.

Wants are things that are nice to have, but we don't need them for survival. And, you know, I would even explain to them when your parents are shopping with you, they have things that they have to get, those are needs. And if there's money left over, then they would buy wants for you or for the household.

And, um, you know, we've done some exercises. I would tell them, you know, next time you go into the store with your parents, you know, point to the things that are needs, point to the things that are wants. But you know, it can actually be a little bit tricky because I had some parents message me afterwards and they were like, well, I wanted to pick up, I don't know, something for the parents, right?

Like whatever it was. And my kid was like, Hey, that's a want. That's not a need. Put that back. Okay. So, um, yeah, it can get tricky like that. And you know, it's a good time to talk to them about coins and bills. So they understand like, okay, how the coins relate to each other. You can start giving them allowance.

If you choose, make it very simple so that they understand. Um, I personally really think that. When you give that allowance, you need to make sure that they do something with it. It's not just handing money over. It's teaching them that, okay, now we have this money. What do we do with it? So when my kids were little, I used to teach them that they have to save a portion of it right away because I wanted to really embed that habit.

And so that's just an example. And that's fantastic because I think those two things are really, really important. The needs in one side is something that I haven't done a ton of yet. So when I read it in your book, I said, Hey, I got to start doing this with my five. I have a five year old and a two year old, so they're both in this range.

And so I said, I got to start doing this. But I did do the bills and coins where I actually went out and ended up having to buy fake money because I was doing bills and coins with real money. And my two year old got ahold of 100 bill and ripped it in half. So I ended up having to go through, uh, and I bought some fake money.

Now they can kind of handle it, you know, like prop money on Amazon or whatever. Um, and they can now handle it and we, we do all these different games with it and stuff. We even play with their toys to like create little businesses and they use the money to kind of learn how to, to kind of do that kind of stuff.

So I think this stuff is really, really important needs and wants. I'm going to implement right away, right? When I read your book, I'm definitely doing that. I think it's gonna be really, really powerful now. 6 to 11 is where they start to change and maybe development is happening in different areas and they can understand some different concepts.

So is there any differences on how you handle kids within this age range? Oh, absolutely. At that point in time, I start telling them, you know, they can actually spend their money wisely. They can start understanding that different stores may have. Different prices for the same item so that you can actually save some money and that money that you see, you can actually spend it on something else, right?

Uh, so that's usually appealing to them. I also like to teach them about budgeting. Like, it's kind of the beginning of the budget. So what I've done with my kids, my daughter was, I think, eight when the first time we implemented this, but it was her birthday party. And I said, okay, you're going to be in charge of this budget.

I'm going to show you how budgeting works. And I purposefully made the budget. I guess I could have made it. But, um, I made it a little bit smaller because I just wanted to teach her certain lessons, you know, because of the budget we realized like, okay, we need to have it at home. And I think she was great too.

So in grade two math, I don't think that they were covering or like, maybe she didn't really. Do the math yet, but she knew the numbers, like she knew, you know, 300, like anything above a hundred, she knew and understood. So I had this Excel spreadsheet that I created with some formulas and I would just like plug things in there.

And I said, as soon as we plug in, let's say pizza or cake or whatever, I said, this amount on the bottom, it keeps getting smaller and smaller. So I said, we don't want it to become red or like have a negative sign next to it. And she, it's so interesting because yes, they don't understand math, but she understood what the whole point was.

The point was not to get that number down to zero or below. Like she didn't even understand the negative numbers, right? Like that's a whole different math concept, but, um, every time that number got. Close to zero, you know, she was like, okay, well, maybe we can change something. And it was really interesting because she was in charge of making decisions.

And then she said, well, can we make the cake at home? Because it would be cheaper. And I said, sure, not a problem. So we did that. And then she ended up saving maybe, I think it was like 30. And I said, well, you can keep this if you want. Or you can spend it on something else. And she decided to spend it on those loot bags, the gift favors, which I absolutely despise.

I think they're just junk, but kids love them. So I just thought that was really nice that she was generous and she wanted to give something back to her friends. Um, but it was an exercise that we went through and then after the following year, she was in charge of it even more. Like I didn't even have to explain to her as much because she knew exactly what was going on.

That's amazing. And I think that is one cool way because you're integrating some of the stuff that they're probably even learning in school with the math side of it. And in addition, it's amazing that she has that natural inclination for generosity to you. I think that's pretty, pretty cool. We're going to go to 12 and 18.

So age 12 and 18, obviously they are either preteens or teenagers. And so this is a concept where definitely they can understand a lot of different concepts here. So what do you kind of think through and how do you teach kids money during these age ranges? Yeah, I actually think this is an age where it's really, really important to start teaching them about investing, especially because a lot of them will start having their first part time job.

So before investing, actually, it's again, like teaching them to save, but I guess the idea is that you would be teaching them to save from a very early age. So now it's just like, this should be embedded. It should be there. Like they're paying themselves first from every paycheck that they get. And now this money is going to be invested and, you know, they can start to understand more of these investing concepts.

Another big one that I think parents should teach, and sometimes we forget to do this, is credit cards and debt management. So parents can put their kids on their credit card as authorized users. And usually people freak out when I tell them this, but I'm like, that doesn't mean that your kid is going to go out there and have a field day with your credit card.

You're still in control. You don't even have to give them that credit card. If you don't want to, you can hang on to it, eventually make some purchases on it. But by the way, so your child will assume essentially your credit score, but your credit score has to be really good if you're going to do this.

Otherwise, you can actually mess up your child's credit score. So, um, If you do this, make sure that, you know, you put a limit on that credit card, how much your child can spend. And it's not just giving them the credit card and say, Hey, here you go. It's about having rules. You know, the rules are how much can you spend?

What stores can you spend at? Who's going to pay for this? Are you going to pay me? Are you going to pay bank directly? Let's look at your credit card statements. Let me teach you that, you know, this credit card statement needs to be paid in full and that you really shouldn't spend money. Unless you already know that you can cover this, right?

Like we're using this to build your credit so that when you're 18 years of age and older, you know, if you want to apply for, I don't know, mortgage or a car loan or something that you can actually get it on your own and you don't need a cosigner. So I think that's really important. For sure that that is really important.

And I think learning this stuff when you're a teenager, imagine if people do this stuff early on, we would have so much less money problems overall when they go into adulthood and have this understanding of how this, all this stuff works, especially when it comes to credit cards, debt, those types of things, and making sure you're paying off your statements in full.

So I want to shift gears here to some key lessons. to teach kids because I think there's some really cool concepts that you have in the book, and so I think there's some fun stuff that we could do here. So what are some fun ways to teach kids about compounding? Obviously, compounding is one of the most important things they should learn early on, because if they start early, they could become really, really wealthy, even with just a small amount of money.

So do you have any fun ways to teach them about compounding? Yeah. I mean, I like to ask them usually like. I'm sure people have heard it before, but would you want to have a, like 3 million now or a penny that doubles every day for the next 30 days? And usually kids will say, Oh, I want 3 million. Why not?

Right. But then if you actually let that penny double by the time, you know, it's like the 30th day, that. Penny has grown into 5. 3 million or something like that. And then it's good to have a discussion around that. It's like, Hey, why did you choose 3 million instead of this? Did you know that penny can double like that?

I mean, in real life, like you don't have a penny that doubles as quickly as that. But the whole idea is that compound interest is really powerful and Einstein called it the eighth wonder of the world. But one thing I like to do with my kids, especially now that they're older, there are a lot of free compound interest calculators online.

And I always encourage them. I'm like, you know, just put in some amounts, like play around with it. See if you invest this much at, let's say 10%, 3 percent inflation rates. So what would that amount be 10 years from now, 20 years from now? Those calculators are free, but I think they're just. I don't know. I find them amusing.

I like to look at different scenarios. I, you know, even just for me, for retirement one day, I just really enjoy looking at them. I'm the same exact way. And people make fun of me all the time because I spend my spare time going through compound interest calculators and looking at all these different calculations, which people who have listed the podcast for a long time.

No, I put. Pretty much everything into a compound interest calculator for opportunity costs. So it is one of those things. Uh, I can definitely relate to that for sure. So have you found any cool ways to teach kids about business? Cause obviously like early on, I think it is one of interest for me specifically where I go through with my five year old and we take that fake money I was talking about, for example, and we'll take his toy cars and we'll use that and say, Hey, here's a car dealership.

Sell me these cars and I'll hand you a X dollars that I think these cars are worth. And so we're kind of teaching them sales, negotiation, a little bit about business and transactions. So is there any other cool concepts that you found for kids to teach them about business? Yeah. I mean, I absolutely, first of all, I just want to say, I love what you're doing.

And I also think that role playing is really important, especially if they have toys, you know, that they're like role playing with, it's like setting up a business and these toys are all interacting, um, you know, their imagination can grow wild and I mean, you can be just there to facilitate few things, uh, that would definitely be for younger kids.

Um, what I've done with my children last summer was my neighbor, actually, he, um, he's a single professional, a high income earner, doesn't really have time to take care of his lawn. And some of the neighbors were complaining, they were actually going to call city on him. And I was like, I didn't want part of that drama.

I was like, I'm not doing that. So I said, okay, well, we can do something about this. So I said to my kids, you already cut our grass. You can mow his lawn as well. I prepped them like I, we went through this whole process. We looked at how much people pay for grass cutting in our area. And then we said, okay, so if you guys want to do this, this is good money.

It was working out to like 40 per visit, which is a lot more than minimum wage that teenagers are getting. And then we had this like, almost like a proposal for the neighbor, um, it was like, they were going to go in and, you know, the story always helps. So it's like, how are you going to sell your services?

So they're, you know, they were going to say like, oh, you know, we're saving up for a new laptop. And, you know, we're looking to do services for other people, and I even prepared them for negotiation. I think negotiation is really important. And a lot of times people don't prepare their children for negotiating.

But I said, you know, if he tells you it's too expensive, or if he says no, then you can ask him why, if he says it's too expensive, then figure out, you know, like, you can lower it down to maybe 35 or 30. So I just gave them some pointers on that. But anyways, they ended up going to his door and he hired them right away.

He didn't go, he did not negotiate. He was just happy. They were there that, you know, somebody was going to cut his grass. And then, um, it was really interesting because we took that a step further. So I started telling them, uh, because we were going on vacation for two weeks and I said, well, who's going to cut his grass?

Because now this is your responsibility. This is a business. And, uh, they both said that they had friends that they were going to like us. And I said, but now you can. Pay your friends the full 40 that he's paying you, or you can pay them 20, which is way better than what they're going to earn working at a, as a cashier, because I think it's like 15 where I am, like, that's the minimum wage.

And then they said, they were like, well, no, we'll just pay them 40. And I said, okay, but there is a chance that you could actually hire all your friends. You can go around our neighborhood and actually get more gigs like this, and you can have a group of people working for you and you can pay them 20, 25 an hour, which is still really good.

And you keep the profit, right? So I did explain all that, but it's so funny, I guess. I don't know, maybe because I'm an immigrant and I'm very driven. I totally would have done that when I was younger. Unfortunately, nobody explained it to me. I kind of had to learn this a lot later on in life. And my kids are like 40 is just enough, right?

Like it's totally cool. And you know what? In some ways, I think it's good to know when enough is enough. Right? So I was like, you know what? If you're happy with your 40 once a week and they split it. So each will get 20. And I was like, okay, I think. That's okay. Then I love that. And I think that this is the cool part that you unlock here.

So what's happening here is that you're showing your kids, Hey, you can start this business, you can go start this lawn care company, and they're learning all these lessons, even if they're not even doing this leverage piece where they can utilize employees, things like that, they're learning the lesson that it exists and that'll kind of sit in their brain and they'll kind of think through, Hey, maybe I can do this with some other situations.

And I think it's so important just to plant that seed. That's such a cool story. I think that is one where I love that stuff where you have these small businesses in these neighborhoods, because it's really, really helpful to unlock. of these things for kids. So I think that is really cool and something that I wish you know, all of us could learn early on.

And I think it's really, really powerful for sure. Do you have anything that you think is the most important lesson for kids to learn about investing? Is there something specific that you think is the most important piece to learn about investing early on? I think just that the kids and I know it's hard for kids to understand this, but they have one asset that we as adults.

Have less and less stuff, which is time. So the sooner they start investing, the better off they will be. And I remember hearing about that when I was in high school, but it just didn't, it didn't click. It only clicks now. And I don't really know what's the best way to explain it. I tell it to my kids. They just keep rolling their eyes all the time.

They're like, yeah, you tell us that all the time, but. Yeah, I think it's just understanding that they have that time and the sooner they start investing, the better off they will be. For sure. And are there any games out there that you've come across for investing or anything that kids can kind of play to kind of learn these concepts, especially if they're more game oriented than they would be just listening to their parents tell them?

Yeah. So I absolutely love, have you ever played cashflow quadrant? That's what got me into real estate investing as a, when I was younger. Yeah, and they do have like a part where you're actually like, even investing in stocks and whatnot. And, um, I actually talked about that on my Instagram recently, and I had a teacher tell me that he tried applying this game in his classroom.

And he's like, it didn't really go well. I think the reason why it wouldn't work out well in the classroom is that it has to be in a smaller setting. So for us, it worked because yeah. Here we have like 2 adults, me and my husband and then 2 kids and we played this with our kids since they were very young, like maybe 10 years old, but my husband would take 1 kid.

I would take the other kids. So we play, but we pause the game and we're like, hey, do you understand what's going on? Because there's that sheet. It kind of lists your net worth. Not necessarily net worth, but I think it's like. Lists your, um, your assets, passive income. Your assets. Yeah. Assets. Yeah. And so we're like, do you understand why you're recording like this?

Do you understand what's happening? And so somebody needs to take the time to explain it, but if you have a whole classroom playing it, it's, it's really hard. If anybody is a teacher that's listening, and if you're thinking of playing this in your classroom, I would suggest you play this maybe with one or two kids and then you make them champions and leaders, and then they can teach it to like one or two kids and then so on and so on.

Because it's a great game. But it is. complex. Like you really have to understand what's going on, especially if you're learning some of this stuff for the first time. It's overwhelming. But once you learn it, it's eye opening. It's just like, Oh, my goodness, 100%. I know so many people who have learned how to just invest in real estate through that game.

And if nobody's ever heard of it, it's called cash flow. I think Robert Kiyosaki, the guy that wrote Rich Dad, Poor Dad developed it. And it's a game where you can actually go out there and buy real estate and stocks and different assets. And then you kind of learn how these assets Work and how they can increase your balance sheet over time or your net worth statement.

Same thing. And you can go through this process and really, really learn exactly how these impact your finances. So it's a really, really powerful game. It's not cheap. I think it's like 70 or 80 bucks. Last time I looked, uh, but you can find used copies and stuff like that too on eBay. And it's worth the money.

I think it's worth teaching people, especially if you have older kids, it's going to be a really, really cool concept, but you do have to understand what's going on, like Maya is saying. Um, so it's important to kind of have those concepts and smaller groups are probably better. So I want to shift gears here to chores also, cause you kind of indicated that you do believe in chores.

So how do you think through chores and how do you manage chores for your kids? I actually don't believe in chores. Uh, I should say that, but I believe that there's actually four different ways to do allowance. And I believe that there's no one fit all. Approach. So, uh, is it okay if I just quickly go through them because, um, yeah, so after doing this for a decade, I realized the parents were at each other's throats about what's the proper way to do allowance.

And um, when it comes to teaching kids about money, it really should come from your values. Everything is based on your values. So, um, even when it comes to parenting, we don't all parent the same. Right? It depends on the values. So allowance is the same thing. Allowance is just a tool that helps our kids learn how to manage money now when the stakes are low and dollar values are low, so that they can actually properly manage the money later on.

There are really four different ways. And if you try one, it doesn't work for you. Try another one. Something's going to stick. So the first one is chores, which we all know, you know, the kids don't do the chore, they don't get their allowance and parents will support this. They want their kids to be hardworking and they want to instill the notion that, you know, we have to work hard for our money.

The parents that don't believe in chores allowance method, what they do is like, they'll just give a set amount of money to their kids because they want their child to use that money to learn how to manage it. Uh, but what they believe is that. A child will not be paid to make, let's say their bed or take out the trash as they get older.

They should be doing these things because they're contributing member of the household. And so if these kids don't do the chores, they lose opportunities to, I don't know, play video games or screen time or go and play. Playdates and so on. There is a hybrid approach, which is the mixture of the first two and these parents give their kids some allowance that's not tied to chores, just so that they can manage this allowance and learn from it.

Uh, but the, the kids also have an opportunity to do chores that maybe parents would pay somebody else, but instead of being somebody else, the parents are paying the kids, you know, it could be like washing your car or shredding your. Confidential documents and things like that. So the kids have the opportunity to earn more money if they want to.

And the last approach is really no allowance at all, because some people just believe that kids should not be given allowance. But in that case, I like to encourage parents to give their kids an opportunity to practice with money somehow. So one example is the one that I talked about earlier, teaching your child to manage their own birthday budget, right?

Like that would be one where your child is in charge. And they know, like, they're like, okay, this is how money works. I'm managing it. It's not my parents telling me what to do. So I don't believe that there's one set way. I think we can all decide what works for us. And a lot of times people will try something and they'll tell me, oh, I failed.

I'm like, no, no, you did not fail. It just means that maybe something didn't work out. Try something else. Right. Exactly. I love that. And I love that you went through those options because I think those options are really important because each of us have a different way to parent. And I think that's really, really important to kind of have those options available.

And I think one big thing here is that, you know, whatever option you choose, as long as your kids understand how to manage that money, that is going to be the biggest portion overall. Are there any ways that you manage, you know, paying your kids? Do you just pay them in cash or do you use specific banks or how do you kind of think about that?

Yeah, so when my kids were little, there were no apps or any of the stuff that they have now, like there's Greenlight, there's Busy Kid, there's GoHenry, um, in Canada, they have, like, uh, Maido, and, uh, we actually just used to give them cash, and I found that when they were younger, cash was Great, because it really taught them about the relation between the coins and the bills, and they were able to give us change, uh, and it was a lot easier, like we would go to the bank and we would get smaller bills and smaller coins, and we would just distribute that to our kids and they could separate it into like their little piggy bank and whatnot.

So as they got older, I realized that, you know, we need to start teaching them how to handle money online. And sometimes again, parents freak out about this. They're like, Oh, you want me to give a bank card to my child? And I'm like, no, I mean, yes, you should open up a bank account for them. I personally prefer cash.

I am a cash, but I love cash. But our world is moving towards cashless economy. And it doesn't matter whether I like it or not. It's my job to prepare my child for where the world is going to be when they grow up. So, um, you know, yes, I gave them, I opened up bank accounts for them, uh, checking and savings.

I had their bank card with me at all, at all time when they were little. And I would only bring it with me when, you know, we were going, let's say to Walmart or Toys R Us or something. And I'll be like, okay, you know, I'm bringing it, you know, how much money you have in your bank account on the checking bank account and that you can spend, you can't spend more than that.

So I think it's important to teach them how to handle this cashless payments, how to understand how the banks work, how do we draw money, how to deposit money, because that is, that is all important. Absolutely. I completely agree. And so utilizing kind of both concepts, giving him cash, especially early on, like you said, is going to be helpful just for understanding and how to manage that money.

And then from then on, you can also teach them on the digital side as well, because that's what we're going towards, like you said, is just is one of the biggest things. Now, do you invest for your kids specifically for their future? And if so, how? Yes. So we started investing for them as soon as they were born.

Um, that's Because I'm from Canada. So we have something similar to 529 plan. So as soon as they were born, we open that up and we have certain maximum amounts and we've been contributing maximum amounts to that. And, uh, any money that our kids got, especially when they were little. We actually opened up another custodial account where we deposited this money.

So they, in addition to their college fund, they have this other money that had, it's literally been like accruing interest since they were born. Um, and now, as they're older. Again, every time, you know, they have birthday or Christmas, I buy them a share of, um, now it's like an ETF and, you know, that's just, it goes into their investment account and then I encourage them again, like whenever they earn money to save a portion so that they can actually invest themselves.

Um, they also get dividends within their portfolio and. It's just nice. You know, I would tell them, I'm like, Hey, you got dividends. And they're like, yeah, make sure you invest that like reinvested back into the, you know, and I just love that, you know, they're not like, Hey, I want to spend it. I wouldn't let them spend it anyway, but I just like it that they say, just reinvest it.

I'm like, okay, we're going to keep building. That's amazing. And I think that's one of the, one of the most powerful lessons we can definitely teach our kids going forward is just kind of showing them that they have this available and showing them, you know, how this works and these brokerage accounts and how to save a portion so they can invest those dollars for sure.

So this is one question I ask everybody. If somebody was looking at a pie chart of your specific investments, how do you invest your money? And what does that kind of look like? Yeah. So for me, most of my money is in ETFs. I would say about 90 percent of it is in ETFs and same with my kids actually. And I think individual stocks or maybe even more like maybe 94 percent I think individual stocks are maybe another 5 percent and then I do have maybe 1 percent of Bitcoin.

Exactly. That's perfect. And that's what I love. Pretty much everybody kinda lands on that same scenario when we talk to 'em on, on here is a lot of, most folks are like majority index funds or ETFs or something in that range. And then it comes down to like that final 10% is always different, which is always interesting.

Um, so I'm gonna ask a couple of questions. Rapid fire, I'm gonna shift gears here and kind of see what you think. So what are some of your favorite books that you have read as of recent? Oh, um, so as of recent, um, I really like Dan Sheik's, uh, book for teenagers, first to a million. It's absolutely amazing.

He gives a lot of great tips. I wish I had that book when I was a teenager. I think that's, you know, it's an amazing book. Another one, which is my favorite. I didn't read it recently, but I always mentioned this book because it's my favorite book. Uh, it's Atomic Habits by James Clear. I live by that code. I do believe the small steps can lead to big results.

And every day, you know, whenever things get hard, I'm just like, I'm just going to do one little thing. And it doesn't matter what it's for. If it's like in my personal life, if it's in my, You know, fitness, if it's for my finances, I always try to do one little thing and really the compounding of doing that one little thing after a long period of time, it does show that it does make a big difference.

Both those books are amazing. Dan's a friend of the show. And then, but James clears book and this is a great time of year to start to read that again because I usually read that book pretty consistently. Um, and towards the beginning of the year, I start to do it again just to kind of remind myself throughout the year.

You know, these small habits are really going to add up over time. And I love that book for sure. What part of your work or your life makes you come alive? Oh, I love teaching, but I love teaching in person more than online. Um, I was actually just teaching online yesterday and, but when I teach in person, it's like, I just feed off the energy of the participants and I can read the room, I'm not a trained teacher.

I just think that this is one of my gifts and I'm very grateful for it. I can read the room. I could see if I'm losing someone and I can bring them back and I can get them involved and I can. Get them to understand what I'm trying to teach them and I don't know how I do it. I just, I'm able to do it and it's, it makes me so happy when I'm actually able to teach something to someone that they didn't understand.

And I also love it when people message me afterwards and say, Oh, what you said, or what, you know, I actually ended up applying that. And this is how my life has changed, or this is what our family is doing now. And things are so much better. And you can absolutely see that coming through in your book and in the way that you teach online even.

And then in person is probably even better just 'cause you can talk to those individuals after and see their energy and have that conversation. What is your biggest fear when it comes to money? Um, because I come from scarcity, right? And I am still battling that scarcity mindset. It's really hard. I am always afraid that I'm.

Going to forget about the things that are really, really important that I'm going to put money first, like things like my health or, you know, I'm very ambitious and very driven. And so I keep pushing and a lot of times, especially now that I'm getting older, I'm kind of like, wait, you're like, I need to take a break.

Like my health is going to suffer. Like the alarm bells just go off. It's like, I'm not spending enough time with my kids and they're getting older and they're going to leave soon. And I want to. Still stay married to my husband. So it's like, I don't want money to make me forget about things that are really, really important.

Right? Like chasing money, like having this business. And I love what I do, but again, it's at the end of the day, it's a business. Right? So it's kind of like, okay. I don't want money to be the reason for me to like forget about the things that really matter. And that's 100 percent one that I can definitely relate to too, because I've kind of think through this all the time.

Like, am I spending enough time with my kids or my wife or all these different things? It's really, really important to kind of think through that, because that's one thing that a lot of people regret on their deathbed is they say they didn't spend enough time with the people they love. And those, you know, our kids are going to remember how much time we spent with them.

And so I think it's really, really important. I think that's a great one. How do you plan to level up your finances this year? I would like to invest more. I have, I was thinking that I'd like to increase my investment percentage and we've been comfortable with where we are right now. I just thought maybe you could tighten the belt a little bit.

Exactly. And that's kind of a valuation I do at the end of every year to same thing. And I think it's really important for all of us to do that. If you could tell your younger self, one thing about money, what would that be? I think it would be definitely learn about ETFs and index funds because they're really easy to understand and start investing in them as soon as you possibly can.

And even if you can just only invest 10 per week, that's great. Just do that. You don't need to invest more if you can't. Uh, but stay consistent and let that money sit in the portfolio. Do not take it out. Consistency is the key and starting early is really, really powerful. Absolutely. The last one is my favorite one.

What does wealth mean to you? I think to me, wealth is actually things that are not necessarily related to money, but I think money can definitely help with. So for me, wealth is health. My health, the health of my kids, as we speak right now, you know, you told me your kids are sick when my kids are sick. I don't feel well, even though I am physically well, and everything's fine with me.

But when somebody's sick, I just, I just, I'm not okay. Um, so, yeah, our health, you know, the fact that. We just have each other. I mean, I'm just so grateful. I have so many amazing people in my life that I can count on, that I can rely on. Um, that's really true wealth to me. Absolutely. And that is such an, uh, incredibly powerful answer that we can all always keep in the back of our mind for sure.

So Maya, this has been absolutely amazing. Where can people find out about more about you, your book and your website and everything else you have going on? Yeah, sure. Thank you so much for asking that. So I am quite often on Instagram. I hang out there a lot. I answer a lot of my followers questions. My Instagram handle is teach.

kids. money. I do have a blue check mark next to my name, so make sure you follow the right account. Otherwise you're going to be harassed by scammers that will try to sell you crypto. Um, I also. So I have two websites. One of them is the Nari D I N a R I I. com. And another one is wealthy kids dot club. And my book can be found on Amazon, uh, or pretty much any bookstore.

And, uh, it's called from piggy banks to stocks, the ultimate guide for a young investor. Absolutely. We will link all those up in the show notes below so that you guys can check those out. Maya, thank you again so much for coming on. This was incredible. Thank you so much for having me. This has been fun.

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