What I’m Teaching My Kids About Money 

Teaching kids about money isn’t something I was shown. Nobody taught me about finance when I was growing up. Not really. We were told to go to school, get a job, and earn a living. But what to do with that money once you had it, how to save it, grow it, protect it, nobody ever sat us down and explained that. I don’t blame my parents. They didn’t know either, because nobody taught them.

But the truth is, that gap has cost me. I am 41 years old, and I am only now starting to properly figure out my finances, something I wrote about honestly in my post on building savings. Only now starting to invest, to think seriously about retirement, to build something beyond getting through the month. And I’m doing it under hard circumstances, with years of financial mistakes already behind me.

I think about how different things could have looked if I had started at 18. Or even 25. The compound interest alone. The habits I would have built. The decisions I might have made differently.

I don’t want that for my kids. I want them to have the financial freedom and the knowledge I never had. I want them to start early, make wise decisions, and go into the world prepared, not learning the hard way as I did.

That’s why this post exists.

Honesty Over Protection

I cover everything for my kids, clothing, toiletries, food, all of it. They are never without, and they will always come before I think about spending anything on myself. That’s just how it is, and I’ve never resented it.

But what I’ve also done, from very early on, is be honest with them. Not in a way that put adult burdens on young shoulders, but in a way that made them part of our reality rather than shielded from it. I’ve come to believe that’s one of the most useful things I’ve done as their mom.

A lot of parents assume that protecting kids from financial stress is kindness. And sometimes it is. But there’s a version of honesty that isn’t about making your kids carry your anxiety; it’s about raising kids who are financially literate before the world teaches them the hard way. That was always my goal.

The Muizenberg Season

There was a period when we were still living in our apartment in Muizenberg, when things were genuinely tough. I’ve written about that in more detail in my journaling post, but what matters here is what came out of it.

I sat my kids down and told them the truth. That things were going to be a little difficult for a while. That we wouldn’t be going out as much, that luxuries would have to wait, that for now we were focusing on what we needed rather than what we wanted. My eldest was 17, my son was 11, and my youngest was 9. Old enough to understand. Young enough that I was careful about how much I put on them.

What surprised me was how easily they got on board. There were no tantrums, no complaints, no making me feel guilty for what I couldn’t give them. Things became simpler, snacks got smaller, weekends were spent at home, but we were never miserable. If anything, I think we became closer during that time. We had less, but we had each other more.

My eldest stepped up in a way I didn’t expect. I started baking cookies, and she would take them to school to sell to her friends and classmates. We didn’t make a lot of money from it. But every cent mattered, and she knew that. She was 17 years old, and she handled it beautifully. That’s what honest conversations about money build in a child.

What Humility Actually Builds

There’s a saying that nothing good comes from spoiling a child, and I truly believe that. Every parent wants to give their children everything and feels guilty when they can’t. I feel that guilt all the time. But I’ve learned that it’s okay. Not being able to give them everything isn’t hurting them. They are healthy, well looked after, they have everything they need and then some.

But what does spoiling a child actually do for them? How does it prepare them for the world, for hardship, for disappointment? How does it build their emotional intelligence? It doesn’t. In fact, it can cause more harm than good, raising children who don’t know how to handle the word “no,” who crumble when life doesn’t go their way, and who have never had to work for something they wanted.

Teaching my children to be humble, to understand the value of what they have, to appreciate rather than expect, that’s what built the maturity I saw in my eldest during one of our hardest seasons. Not spoiling them was one of the best things I ever did for them.

The System I Use for Teaching Kids About Money

So here is what it actually looks like in practice in our home.

Both my younger two receive R150 a month in pocket money, and it’s divided into three equal parts before they ever really see it as one amount.

R50 goes into their everyday bank account, spending money. Snacks, small things they want, whatever they choose. R50 goes into a linked savings account for shorter-term goals, a gift they want to buy someone, or something they’ve been saving towards. And R50 goes straight into their Easy Equities investment account every month, without negotiation.

My daughter’s investment is in an S&P 500 tax-free account. My son’s is in a Nasdaq 100 fund. Both go in monthly and stay there. If you’re not familiar with it, Easy Equities is worth looking into. It’s accessible, low-cost, and straightforward to set up.

I’ve explained compound interest to them in terms they understand. The longer the money stays in, the harder it works for them. The growth they’ll see in ten or twenty years will be significantly more than what they’ve put in. They understand these are long-term savings, not money for next month. And they’ve never once asked to touch it.

Three Kids. Three Money Personalities.

What I’ve learned is that you can raise your children in the same household, with the same values, the same conversations, and the same system, and they will still be entirely different when it comes to money. Mine certainly are.

My eldest is 20 now and financially independent in the most meaningful sense. That was something I pushed for deliberately. I wanted her to know what it felt like to earn money, to have it be hers, and to understand the weight of it. She got her first part-time job at 16 and has worked ever since.

Today, she handles her own transport, her own social spending, and she pays a small amount of rent and contributes to electricity. If we’ve run out of bread or milk, she’ll often just pick it up without being asked. I still buy her toiletries and will occasionally grab something for her when I’m shopping for the others. But she asks me for nothing. She knows I’m here if she needs me, and that seems to be enough for both of us.

My youngest is 12, and she is the saver. She hardly spends money on herself; instead, she saves up for gifts, birthdays, and small surprises for people she loves. She comes to me regularly to check her bank account together so she can see exactly what she has. When she receives money from family, a birthday gift, or something from a grandparent, she comes to me almost immediately to transfer it in. She tells me she’s budgeting, and she really is. She has rarely bought anything impulsively in her life.

My son is 15, and he is a different story entirely. He loves his snacks, he tends to overspend, and his wants are bigger. He saved up for a gaming mouse recently, and his birthday request this year was a laptop. His wants are larger than his sister’s, and that’s okay. He’s learning. And the fact that he saved for that mouse himself, without asking me, tells me the foundation is there, even if the discipline is still catching up.

The Humble Wants Conversation

This is something I’ve thought about a lot because I don’t think it happens by accident.

My kids don’t make demands that don’t match our reality. Not because I’ve said no so many times they’ve given up asking, but because they genuinely understand what our reality is. I’ve included them in it. They know what things cost. They know what I spend money on and why. They know the difference between a want and a need, and they’ve never tried to blur that line with me.

That’s what I mean by the humble wants conversation. It’s not one conversation, it’s an ongoing, honest relationship with money that starts when they’re young and builds over time. It’s telling your kids the truth about what you can afford without making them feel like a burden for having needs. It’s making sure they know the difference between a want and a need before the world shows them more harshly. It’s raising kids who, when they’re standing in a shop, don’t expect everything they point at.

I didn’t have a script for it. I just decided early on that I would rather my children go into the world financially prepared than financially naive. And that meant starting the conversation long before I thought they were ready.

More Than Money

There is one more thing I want to say…something I’ve tried to weave into every money conversation I’ve had with my kids.

Even when things were hard, I wanted them to understand that we were still in a position of privilege. That there is always someone worse off. Not to trivialise what we were going through, our struggles were real, and I never minimised that, but to keep perspective. To be grateful for what we had, even while we were working toward more. And to never judge anyone else based on their financial circumstances, because you never know what someone is carrying.

Because financial literacy isn’t just about money. It’s about gratitude. It’s about perspective. It’s about understanding that your circumstances don’t define your worth, and neither do anyone else’s.

If you haven’t started these conversations with your kids yet, you don’t need a high income or a complicated system. You just need to be honest with them. Start where you are. Start with what you have. The conversation is free, and it’s worth more than any amount you could put in their hands.

I wish someone had started it with me.

Disclaimer: All financial products mentioned in this post are based on my own personal experience and preference. I am not affiliated with or sponsored by any of the brands or platforms mentioned. All opinions are entirely my own.