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Raising financially savvy kids is harder than it sounds. Kids have everything taken care of for them including groceries, housing, transportation, education, and entertainment. While it’s not healthy to scare your children into financial awareness, setting up systems in your home to promote allowance for hard work can be a great way to raise financially savvy kids. Kids who understand the value of hard work and subsequent money earned (even if it is for chores done around the house) will be more fiscally responsible adults. So, these excellent books on raising financially savvy kids can help.
#1 – Rich Dad Poor Dad: What the Rich Teach Their Kids About Money That the Middle Class Do Not! by Robert Kiyosaki
Here are 6 excellent books on raising financially savvy kids:
Rich Dad Poor Dad is Robert’s story of growing up with two dads — his real father and the father of his best friend, his rich dad — and the ways in which both men shaped his thoughts about money and investing. The book explodes the myth that you need to earn a high income to be rich and explains the difference between working for money and having your money work for you.
20 Years… 20/20 Hindsight
In the 20th Anniversary Edition of this classic, Robert offers an update on what we’ve seen over the past 20 years related to money, investing, and the global economy. Sidebars throughout the book will take readers “fast forward” — from 1997 to today — as Robert assesses how the principles taught by his rich dad have stood the test of time.
In many ways, the messages of Rich Dad Poor Dad, messages that were criticized and challenged two decades ago, are more meaningful, relevant and important today than they were 20 years ago.
As always, readers can expect that Robert will be candid, insightful… and continue to rock more than a few boats in his retrospective.
#2 – Make Your Kid A Money Genius (Even If You’re Not): A Parents’ Guide for Kids 3 to 23 by Beth Kobliner
Many of us think we can have the “money talk” when our kids are old enough to get it…which won’t be for years, right? But get this: Research shows that even preschoolers can understand basic money concepts, and a study from Cambridge University confirmed that basic money habits are formed by the age of seven. Oh, and research shows the number one influence on kids’ financial behaviors is mom and dad. Clearly, we can’t afford to wait.
Make Your Kid a Money Genius (Even If You’re Not) is a jargon-free, step-by-step guide to help parents of all income levels teach their kids—from ages three to twenty-three—about money. It turns out the key to raising a money genius isn’t to teach that four quarters equal a dollar or how to pick a stock. Instead, it’s about instilling values that have been proven to make people successful—not just financially, but in life: delaying gratification, working hard, living within your means, getting a good education, and acting generously toward others.
More specifically, you’ll learn why allowance isn’t the Holy Grail when teaching your kid to handle money, and why after-school jobs aren’t always the answer either. You’ll discover the right age to give your kid a credit card, and learn why doling out a wad of cash can actually be a good parenting move.
You don’t need to be a money genius to make your kid a money genius. Regardless of your comfort level with finance—or your family’s income—this charming and fun book is an essential guide for passing along enduring financial principles, making your kids wise beyond their years—and peers—when it comes to money.
#3 – Smart Money Smart Kids: Raising the Next Generation to Win with Money by Dave Ramsey and Rachel Cruz
In Smart Money Smart Kids, Dave Ramsey and his daughter, Rachel Cruze, team up to share some personal family stories you don’t want to miss! Get a no-nonsense approach for teaching your kids and teens the basics of money.
Find practical strategies to raise money-smart kids in this debt-crazed world. Smart Money Smart Kids offers common-sense ways to teach these money lessons:
- Where money comes from
- The value of hard work
- How to save, spend, and give
- Debt, and how to avoid it
- Paying cash for college
- Living responsibly
Here are the remaining 3 excellent books on raising financially savvy kids:
#4 – The Opposite of Spoiled: Raising Kids Who Are Grounded, Generous, and Smart About Money by Ron Lieber
For Ron Lieber, a personal finance columnist and father, good parenting means talking about money with our kids. Children are hyper-aware of money, and they have scores of questions about its nuances. But when parents shy away from the topic, they lose a tremendous opportunity—not just to model the basic financial behaviors that are increasingly important for young adults but also to imprint lessons about what the family truly values.
Written in a warm, accessible voice, grounded in real-world experience and stories from families with a range of incomes, The Opposite of Spoiled is both a practical guidebook and a values-based philosophy. The foundation of the book is a detailed blueprint for the best ways to handle the basics: the tooth fairy, allowance, chores, charity, saving, birthdays, holidays, cell phones, checking accounts, clothing, cars, part-time jobs, and college tuition. It identifies a set of traits and virtues that embody the opposite of spoiled, and shares how to embrace the topic of money to help parents raise kids who are more generous and less materialistic.
But The Opposite of Spoiled is also a promise to our kids that we will make them better with money than we are. It is for all of the parents who know that honest conversations about money with their curious children can help them become more patient and prudent, but who don’t know how and when to start.
#5 – The Motley Fool Investment Guide for Teens: 8 Steps to Having More Money Than Your Parents Ever Dreamed Of by David Gardner
The Motley Fool has made investing fun and easy for millions of people. Now, it custom designs its wit and wisdom for today’s money-savvy teens. The Motley Fool Investment Guide for Teens helps teens stand out from the ho-hum mutual-fund crowd, build a portfolio of stocks they can actually care about, and take advantage of the investor’s best friend—time—to watch their profits multiply.
Strike a blow for financial independence. The Fool shows you how to:
- Question authority when it comes to managing your money
- Save cash (for investing, for college…and, yes, even for having fun!)
- Dodge the spending and saving pitfalls that trap so many adults
- Get started investing—online and off—with just a few dollars
- Discover up-and-coming businesses that could become future blue chips
Warning: this is not your parents’ money guide! From identifying companies that are both cool and profitable to building a portfolio that makes tracking investments exciting, The Motley Fool Investment Guide for Teens shows young investors the way to financial freedom.
#6 – The Wisest Investment: Teaching Your Kids to Be Responsible, Independent and Money-Smart for Life by Robin Taub
As parents, you know that teaching their kids about money is critical to success in life, but studies show that many parents feel they lack the time, knowledge and experience to do it well. Add the seismic shift toward a cashless, digital society — accelerated in our post-pandemic world — and it’s easy to feel overwhelmed.
With The Wisest Investment: Teaching Your Kids to Be Responsible, Independent and Money-Smart for Life, award-winning Canadian author and Chartered Professional Account Robin Taub puts you at ease by laying out a roadmap for teaching your kids about money.
In The Wisest Investment, you’ll learn:
- The Five Pillars of Money: Earn, Save, Spend, Share and Invest
- Age-appropriate (from young kids to emerging adults) examples, actions and guidelines for all Five Pillars
- How to instill solid values in your children to help guide and prioritize their financial decisions
- How to help your children establish healthy money habits for life
- How to capitalize on “teachable moments” about money in countless everyday scenarios
- How to enhance your own money knowledge, so you can “lead by example”
- How to explain and navigate our increasingly cashless society
Written in short, punchy chapters, it’s a go-to resource for time-starved parents like you. Filled with practical guidance and examples, suggested activities, worksheets and self-assessment tools, it’s a book you will turn to again and again.
Teaching your kids to be money-smart will pay off in numerous ways and just may be one of the wisest investments you make.
