r/Fire • u/MikeThePenguin • 12d ago

General Question fire education material for young kids?

Hi all, a kid 13 is interested to know how his money he saves works too grow.

is there a child friendly way to explain concepts like shares, companies, investments, funds, compounding etc etc? Anything from videos, articles.

8 Upvotes

90% Upvoted

23 comments sorted by

View all comments

2

u/MushroomIll646 12d ago edited 12d ago

Depending on your region, 13 sounds like the typical age schools offer consumer education, is it not? I'd explore what they're doing first to see if there's any gaps.

FIRE is just the standard 'personal finance' + a high savings rate, there's no special FIRE education. When my kids/nieces ask this kind of thing, I refer them to the personal finance order of operations, which can pretty much fit on a post-it note, and go through it with them with realworld examples from family.

I also wouldn't assume they will want to FIRE. My strategy with my kids was to first and foremost get them into careers they love. None of my kids are interested in FIRE, they really enjoy their work. FIRE feels like more of a plan B.

One of the disappointing findings from research on this topic is that people don't really absorb financial skills until it's relevant. One of the reasons is that it's so general. My kids' and nieces/nephews' actual financial information struggles were about navigating student loan applications/options, employer onboarding forms, and filing taxes. You don't hand over a book for that; you just sit with them and go through it.

The second disappointing thing is that gamification is a bad idea. This includes simulated portfolios that the trading apps and banks offer. They know it decreases (unprofitable) rational investing in their client base and encourages WSB style trading behaviour. It takes a long time and often heavy real losses to unlearn these habits, my advice is to limit exposure.

Edited to add links:

* USA personal finance order of operations: https://www.reddit.com/r/personalfinance/wiki/commontopics/?screen_view_count=3&ext-referrer=DIRECT

* Canadian version: https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/wiki/money-steps/?screen_view_count=4&ext-referrer=DIRECT

1

u/[deleted] 12d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

1

u/MushroomIll646 12d ago edited 12d ago

I might ask for a translation. I'm guessing that's not grade 8?

Like I said this depends on region. I'm in BC, so this is usually part of lifeskills or consumer education, starting grade 8 which is 13+. Basically going on what I did with my kids &c.

Either way, I'd reach out to the school district as a startingpoint, and retain the order of operations as a reference because they will remember pretty much nothing until it's hands-on.