Sarah Wells – The West Australian
Finance and money expert
Sarah Wells: Money’s not a dirty word, let the next generation learn from your triumphs and tragedies.
Father’s Day is a wonderful day to celebrate the important men in our life, but did you take a moment to step back from the commercialism of it all on Sunday and focus on the important life lessons shared between fathers and their children?
I’m not a parent, so some might say I’m not qualified to talk about this, but I am still the child of a parent who can reflect on what I’ve learned, observed and discovered from watching my father with his finances.
The first lesson Dad taught me was that money, politics and religion should never be discussed at the table or at any family or social gathering. This may sound outdated, but it’s advice that I live by, and I believe the alternative is asking for trouble.
Now that I’m an adult I wish my dad had felt comfortable to share more with me about money, including his failures, to encourage me to be curious about money. Instead I witnessed shame, conflict and a lack of money as a subject that no one ever wanted to discuss in my family, and so it became taboo.
That was in the 70s, but in our modern world what can dads do differently to inspire their children to engage in a more positive way with finance and money?
My advice is to start with setting a budget or limit for birthday and Christmas presents on both sides, share experiences with your children about investing, philanthropy or confess mistakes to them about your financial escapades growing up.
Set up a joint savings account with your kids and encourage them to earn money around the house, engage them in the weekly shopping and meal planning and help them set financial goals.
If they’re saving up for a car, help them understand what it takes to run one, and explain that while you won’t pay for their car outright, you will contribute. This sets up healthy boundaries around both money and expectations and opens up conversations around money.
It doesn’t matter where you start with these types of money chats — they can happen daily, weekly or monthly — what’s important is to start demystifying the world of money and finance for your children.
Talking to them about money will help take away the embarrassment that often comes with it. Shielding them from your failures often does the exact opposite of what we expect it will do and makes money a taboo subject, often for life.
If you can be open and honest about money and finances with your children, you are playing an important role in shaping the financial future of generations to come.
We all want the next generation to be better off than our own, and money and finance is a big part of their journey.
Soon enough they’ll be adults too, facing the world of money, taxes and debt, and the best we can do for them is to educate them, bringing money talk out of the shadows and into the light.
Sarah Wells is a Perth-based money and finance specialist