Everyone is a product of where they focus their time and energy, right? As you can tell from this blog, much of my focus is on personal finance, especially financial independence. In my personal life, much of my focus is parenting two boys, ages 5 and 6.
Getting them started on a path of financial independence is inevitable. Given their age, we are working with simple things like chore charts and saving money for special toys.
One of my biggest concerns is the changes in the world. When I growing up in the 80s, I knew programing a computer was the future. Nowadays, retail stores and newspapers are closing. The automotive industry may nearly disappear as robot, on-demand cars may mean car ownership and driver jobs are a thing of the past. Artificial intelligence promises to disrupt more markets.
I know that most people think new jobs will be created. That’s probably true, but who knows if enough good jobs will be created. It seems that the current trend is replacing journalist jobs with influencer jobs. That should concern us all.
We can’t change where the world is going, but we can help prepare my kids. Here are a few things that we’re doing:
Teach Core Life Skills
This is a no-brainer. Some skills never grow old and can directly influence your bottom line. Here are the first two skills that came to mind. If you can think of more, I’d appreciate it if you could please drop me a line in the comments.
1. Cooking
Food is often one of people’s largest expenses. It doesn’t have to be. Eating out at restaurants is expensive. If you know the basics of cooking, going out to eat is less appealing.
We’ve got the kids enrolled in an after-school cooking class. They might not be learning much. (I’m still waiting to be served breakfast in bed.) However, they are learning and enjoying it. Those are the important things at this age.
In conjunction with learning cooking, I hope to teach the boys how to shop to save money. This will include updated versions of the following articles:
Being able to manage and limit one of their largest expenses can only help their financial bottom line in the future.
2. Handyman
I’m not handy at all. I can’t fix anything. I can barely work a screwdriver. If something breaks, I have to write a check.
That’s not good, especially for landlords like us. If you are good at fixing things and home improvement in general, you can create a lot of real estate opportunities with just sweat equity. You can fix up the house and move repeating the process over and over. You may even be able to keep the money tax-free when you sell. It may be a long time before artificial intelligence replaces carpenters and plumbers.
Perhaps someday, one of their jobs could be a managing our real estate “empire” and we could pass money and equity to them over time. I haven’t figured out exactly how this arrangement would work, but in theory there’s an opportunity there.
For now, I just want my kids to be better than I am with any handyman stuff. Home Depot has “kid workshops” once a month, but we haven’t had a chance to get to one yet. They also have workshops for adults, so maybe it’s not too late for me to learn a thing or two to pass on.
Personal Finance
I don’t think I’ll have to focus on teaching them too much about personal finance. I half suspect that they’ll learn it from osmosis perhaps like I did from my mother. However, I can give them a couple of boosts.
If they don’t master personal finance from osmosis, they can fill in the gaps with my Ultimate Guide to Financial Freedom. I’m hopeful that when they are older they’ll give their old man 10-15 minutes to read the Cliff’s Notes to financial success.
As a practical matter, I recently wrote about their kid Roth IRAs which will give them a head start in saving for retirement.
Education
Education is one of the foundations for a high-earning career. We’re investing a lot in private school now in hopes that it will set them on a great path for the future.
I’m still not sure that’s an optimal investment. For example, an episode of Teen Titans Go! (one of my favorite kid shows) brings up the idea that investing in a rental property is better than college. I don’t agree, but it’s an interesting topic. Of course, the Teen Titans teach a lot of personal finance.
Finally, it’s helpful that the the best financial independence book is actually a kids book.
Final Thoughts
One of things that I’m hoping to balance is giving an opportunity versus handing them too much. That’s why they are earning their kid Roth IRAs by picking up dog poop. That’s also why I think they would have to be property managers before they reap the benefits of the rental properties.
