00:00.00

wongga

Hello investment community. My name is Garret Wong I am your host of the investing to win podcast today. We have a guest who is going to be talking about the youth our future our children I really intrigued and super excited Maya Corbick

00:17.72

Maya

Thank you so much for having me on the show. Garrett.

00:18.59

wongga

Welcome. No the pleasure is all mine. So before we get into the topic and like I said I'm super excited. Why don't you tell the audience just a little bit about yourself. What's your story and your background.

00:32.51

Maya

Sure so I'm ah a mom. First of all I've got 16 and a 14 year old I'm also a cpa but I am an immigrant I immigrated from war torn bosnia with my parents and my brother when I was 15 we lost everything in the war. Um, sort of immigrated with 2 suitcases and $50 so I had 2 part time jobs when I was a teenager I lived in government housing government shelters. But you know I worked hard and I became a cpa. Um, and then when I got married my husband and I managed to pay off $60000 of student loans and we paid off our mortgage by the time I was 32 so at that point in time I was um, you know, kind of free to do whatever I want and. I ended up quitting my regular 9 to 5 job and I started my company so that was about eleven years ago and I ah um you know and that time my kids were very little and I was trying to figure out what do I want to do with my life and what was important to me and being a cpa I saw people that struggled with money and I thought that. You know we can change that if we can teach our younger generations. How to be smart with money so that's why I started my company and for the past eleven years I've been helping parents teach their children about money.

01:52.78

wongga

Wow. Okay, so the company um Denari am I saying that correctly. Yeah so so where does that name come from Dinnari that's interesting.

01:57.87

Maya

You are yes, it's called the Nari Financial Education Academy it was more sentimental because dinner is a currency like that used to be part of former Yugoslavia. There's also um I guess the Roman Currency

02:08.27

wongga

Um, ah, okay, okay.

02:13.52

Maya

Was more sentimental I think it was actually very confusing for people at first when they saw that name. That's why on Instagram I just go by teach kids money he can be more simple and more direct than that.

02:23.54

wongga

Yes, wow okay cpa and then moving on um super impressive and I mean your background is just very touching to to make it to where you have today so congratulations. Um, maybe if you could share.

02:36.51

Maya

Thank you.

02:41.37

wongga

Like what motivated you to start an academy but focus specifically on teaching financial literacy to to kit to kids.

02:47.50

Maya

Yeah, so as I said when I quit my full-time job. My children were very young. My son was I think 6 my daughter was around 4 and you know I was just having conversations with them at the time I was driving Jeep Cherokee and I remember my son telling me I needed to get a new car. He said he didn't like my car and I said okay so what should I get and he said should get a Ferrari and then I realized I was like he has no idea how much things cost so I started actually looking into. Okay, what are my children going to learn in school. And you know back eleven years ago things were very different than they are now. Um, there really weren't that many resources in terms of books for kids about financial literacy and I also realized the schools were not teaching much and so that's what prompted me to to teach this I felt like there was a need. Um, I do feel that we've come a long way. There are a lot more books out there for kids about money. A lot of schools are starting to implement financial literacy but I also think that more needs to be done. There are some topics that we are not teaching our kids about in school. Like investing or about credit cards and debt and so on so there's a lot more work that still needs to be done and I think that parents are the ones that need to kind of pick up the slack and fill that role that maybe the schools are not doing.

04:17.87

wongga

Yeah, no I know we were talking in the pre-show just about how hard you know entrepreneurs or are just parents in general with our generations Now. We want to provide for our kids and it's hard to teach them about money when they're not. Hurting or starving like my parents were and I'm sure your parents and all these struggles especially like my I come from an immigrant background as Well. Can you maybe talk about the benefits of of why introducing children to these concepts at an early age is beneficial.

04:48.88

Maya

So I read a while ago that 95% of what we do. We do out of habit. So if in my opinion if we teach our kids some of these really good money habits early on. We. Want them to and you know we want them to embed those habits in their daily living. We want them to do things on autopilot. So for example, you know if I want my kids to become really good with saving money I want to teach them pay yourself first method. So whenever they get some money whether it's from their part-time job or maybe monetary gifts I want them to save a portion of that money and I want that ingrained in them so that one day when they become adults. They don't just go out there and blow their whole paychecks. Um, and so. If I teach them to do that from a very young age with allowance I hope that that sort of sticks with them and this is just a normal part of their daily life. This is what they do when they get paid.

05:53.34

wongga

But you said pay yourself first I mean my kids might think of that as permission to just go blow their whole paycheck. What does pay yourself first mean in your concept.

06:04.69

Maya

Right? So yeah, it's ah it's really interesting ah name for this concept but pay yourself really means that whenever you have money coming in. You take a portion and you put it aside and you sort of forget about it. Um, you can put in a savings account if you feel comfortable with investing you really should be investing because that's the best way to build wealth. But essentially you forget about it the money that's left over is your fund money and not just just fund money. But it's really money that you know should pay for the bills. Um, and you know you should pay for fun things. But without money you're paying everybody else with the money that you have put aside, you're paying for yourself for your own future. You are essentially building wealth. You know for the for the years to come.

06:54.43

wongga

Okay, okay I get it I get it now. Um, well it's it's not. It's just it's interesting right? because I think paying yourself first. You're kind of rewarding yourself for your future and I know.

06:56.93

Maya

Yeah, sorry I know it's a confusing name. But um, yeah.

07:07.86

wongga

I mean I used to be really bad with money I'm I'm willing to admit it. We ran up credit cards. We would renovate and then refi and pay off the credit card. But if you look underneath the the fine lines I think we were probably living off credit card debt a little bit too much and now that we do have savings. You just feel more confident knowing that you have something in the bank and you're not living paycheck to paycheck even if it's only a couple hundred dollars I think that's what you're really saying there.

07:37.50

Maya

Oh Absolutely it just um I think for me personally what I what I do with my own children and I mean this is just a suggestion. It doesn't mean that and that other people should do that They should really I believe align their own money teaching approach with their own family values but would. My husband and I have been doing with our kids is every time they got allowance or they got monetary gifts. We always made sure that they saved some of it and that that money was invested So Now they have this nice little nest egg and it's kind of like what you were just saying it gives you that comfort that. Something bad was to Happen. You have something to fall back on and you know I really hope and I'm trying to teach them to grow that nest egg so that when they graduate from College. Maybe they can use it to you know purchase their first property and then house hack. Um, maybe they can just keep growing. It. So by the time they're 40 that amount has grown substantially and then maybe at that point in time they would have enough to live off just dividend income. Um, and become financially independent so they don't have to work if they don't want to work. It just gives people options.

08:50.93

wongga

Yeah, no I yeah for sure I was just going to say um I looked on your Instagram account and you have a ah huge amount of followers by the way so congrats on that and I saw one graphic there. Ah maybe you could share that with the audience about. Start I think it was I'm probably going to butcher this but starting off with a certain amount of savings and turning them into almost like a millionaire after a certain amount of years. Can you kind of explain that.

09:09.30

Maya

Citizen.

09:19.84

Maya

Yeah, sure. So um, we really don't need to invest much to um, you know to set up our to set up our children for financial success. So um, you know it could be just $10 per week or you know. $20 per week. Whatever we can afford. But the idea is that we want to start investing for them as as soon as they're born pretty much and the reason why we do that is because we want the compound interest to do all the growth. Along with the longtime horizon that our kids have ahead of them. That's 1 thing that our children have that we don't have. It's a time time is the biggest asset that they have so compound interest ah plus the time the long time horizon that they have ahead of them. Ah, can actually do all the heavy lifting of the wealth creation and it's just simple math but the longer this money is invested the more money it's going to create so it doesn't need to. We don't need to invest a lot of money. It could be just literally like $10 per week and you know we invest that until. Their age of 18 and then we let that money sit. We don't touch that money. It's in the portfolio. It's invested by the time they're 65 years old they can have approximately $1000000 and of course you know they can have more than that because when they start working when they have a part-time job. They can contribute more than that at some point in time you know this.

10:47.81

Maya

Responsibility of investing on behalf of your children can be transferred from you one to them right? like they have a part time job. They should start investing on their own behalf and continue to do so.

10:57.85

wongga

Okay, yeah, amazing I mean how many people can say that they can be a millionaire by just putting away small amounts for most of their lives. Um I want to back up a second because we were talking about. Um, you you had mentioned that a long time ago when you started the company. There wasn't a lot of education financial education in the schools. Can you kind of speak about the the transition and the progress that you've seen schools made. About financial teachings. What have you seen in the last decade or so.

11:33.11

Maya

Yeah, so I have seen a lot of schools I wouldn't say a lot but depending on where you live and some states have done this some of them have not I know the Florida has implemented mandatory. Um. Financial literacy program for kids I'm up in Canada um, and here it's been hit and miss. Um, you know some schools or some school boards have implemented it and then you know it would kind of like fall off the table and then they would pick it up a few years later because I feel that there is a need and there's a push for it. But there is no um, follow up to see how well these programs are doing and do they need to be maybe changed or adjusted. Um, so you know I think that. The schools are trying to do something but I think they're not doing enough and I think this is where we need parents to step in because we can't just expect schools to do all the you know, heavy lifting and all the the work when it comes to financial literacy. You know. Some things that they teach are very the basics which is actually not necessarily a bad thing and I'll circle back to that. But Dave you know they'll teach how to budget your money what our needs what our wants those are basics but we need to teach our kids more than that.

13:01.36

Maya

Um, we need to teach them How to invest we need to teach them. Um, how to you know, get a credit card. What to be careful about when it comes to credit cards and those are the things The schools don't teach. Um, you know it's really interesting too when it comes to Schools. You really want them to teach the basics. Um, you don't want whoever is teaching this financial literacy stuff to be teaching it with their values because I think the values should come from the family so we all parent differently. Based on our family Values. We should be teaching about money based on our family values because our values are different from family to family so money is closely tied to family values. Personal finance is called personal for a reason So what? my family does may be completely different from your family. And you may disagree with some choices and that's okay, um, but when it comes to schools I think the schools should teach the math and the basics and you know, kind of just keep it at that. The problem is that when teachers sometimes teach this stuff. That they may you know throw in some of their own stuff that you may not necessarily agree with and you know that's the part that we need to keep out.

14:15.96

wongga

Okay, so when you say it seems like you're saying that I mean I'm up in Canada too as you know and having the curriculum I don't find it structured either. Are we talking about them throwing in a little bit of extra math to talk about.

14:22.79

Maya

Yeah.

14:34.00

wongga

Taxes and interest rates like where where are these things being taught.

14:37.44

Maya

So for example, I'm in Ontario um, and ah so it's really interesting. This was the progression so in 2013 in Ontario they realized they needed financial literacy and they introduced this program and it was really weird. Um. They mandated all the teachers regardless of what the teachers were teaching to somehow incorporate financial literacy in their curriculum. So a music teacher had to do it an art teacher had to do it and. The school board or the school boards ask for this because I guess they didn't have enough in their budget to create a separate financial literacy course so it was really up to the teacher to kind of implement this and they were provided with resources. Um, to help them implement financial literacy curriculum into their existing curriculum. Obviously this was very hard to do because teachers are already stretched as as it is and there was no follow up. Nobody was you know following up on this to see okay is this being done how effective it is. So it slowly just went away like nobody talks about it anymore. But I think I'm probably one of the only people that still remembers that this was in place and anyways, so now what the school boards have done in Ontario we have grade 10 career scores.

15:58.17

Maya

And in this careers course the students do some resume writing and I think they do some basics of financial literacy. Um I Do think that in some other subjects. Um some teachers bring in financial literacy but not everybody does that like ah for example. My son I remember when he was studying compound interests. He came home and he said yeah we just learned the math behind it but nobody ever told us why compound interest is important and why we need to know about it and how actually it applies in real Life. You know how it is good for us to get compound interest when we invest our money. But. Maybe not so good like if you know we have credit card that so nobody talked about that and I think that's really important That's something that we need to you know, discuss in the classroom.

16:47.53

wongga

Okay, um, well let's let's That's a great segue. Let's talk about your classroom. Why don't you tell? ah the audience a little bit more in depth about the Denari financial Academy and like curriculum and things like that What type of things are you teaching.

17:01.15

Maya

Yeah, so I actually used to do this in person in greater toronto area and then Covid happens. So now I do it online because my company has grown so Much. We only have I only teach these classes once or twice a year. Um, and we will go into different different topics. So We'll obviously start off with like needs needs versus wants but understand Ah, what is you know your net worth how you calculate that the cash flow Quadrant and you know. How to create passive sources of income we discuss or we talk about how to do a budget. Um, we go into discussing credit cards and debt and you know, especially for teenagers like what they need to know when they've become 18 Because they will be they will become bombarded by these financial institutions that will offer them credit cards. Um, you know in exchange for a t-shirt or something like that. We talk about um, investing the the very basics of investing just to kind of like warm them up and get them excited to invest. And we talk about financial fraud and identity theft which are huge issue and we really need to learn how to protect ourselves from that and so on so it's it's um, there's a lot covered as part of these courses.

18:27.64

wongga

Do you do it specifically for age-related groups as well.

18:33.79

Maya

Yeah, so we have um, it's a similar content. It's just um, you know the for example so we have classes for younger kids like ages 8 to 12 and then we have classes for older children ages 13 to 18 um, and then the content is similar but also different because the older kids they go more in depth and you know we discuss it. Um, you know at their level whereas with the younger kids you know it's kind of like discussed in the language that they can understand with a lot of metaphors and. Um, you know we go a little bit slower and we don't cover as much.

19:11.19

wongga

Yeah, that was actually 1 of the questions I was going to ask you I mean an 8 year old how do you even make it engaging never mindd age appropriate. How do you keep their interest.

19:23.30

Maya

Yeah, so it has to be done in a fun way. Um, this stuff can be very boring and dry. You have to talk to them at their levels. So what I like to do is like when I talk to kids I like to imagine myself, let's say if I'm talking to an eight year old I'm like okay I pretend that I'm eight year old how would I explain this as an eight year old so try to explain it in those terms. Um and then finding activities to do when you're teaching is absolutely helpful in a classroom setting. That's a little bit different. We play these like online games. But ah for parents I always tell parents to use real life examples because you don't need to create some special ah activities you know, just to you know reinforce a certain lesson. All you really need is something that's. Happening in your life right now and you can you know start talking about it to your child and again you talk at their level and you know you don't have to you know if you see their eyes glos you know, get glossy and like you know you're you're kind of like see your words are going over their head. You know, try to rela back in try to explain it in a way that you think they would understand if they're not understanding and if they're not asking any questions at that point it's it's good time to stop and maybe revisit this particular topic again I do find that when it comes to teaching kids money. This is 1 thing that we.

20:46.74

Maya

Have to kind of repeat ourselves over and over and over again and eventually it sinks In. It's kind of like teaching Manners. We're teaching them to wash their hands every time they come you know from the outside they come in the house. Um I know when my kids were little I would repeat that over and over and over again. Um, and now it's like it just happens on its own so money is the same thing.

21:06.55

wongga

I I find this fascinating because as I said as a young adult and even as recently as a few years ago I wasn't great with money so when you have a parent obviously parents want to do the best for their kids. But there any a-ha moments that you find with the parents once once they're like learning or maybe you know through their kids.

21:28.00

Maya

Oh absolutely. Um, you know it's really interesting because um yeah, when I talk about investing you know and I and I teach kids and sometimes you know parents they will listen like they're they're there. The lesson is happening and the parents are in the background and. You know they will listen and you know I will show some examples just to get kids excited about investing why they should start investing early and you know so his parents are you know I get comments like man I wish I knew this when I was younger I wish I knew this when I started my first part-time job because if I had invested. $10 per week or $20 per week like that would have made such a huge difference so they are I actually it's funny because on my Instagram account I get a lot of parents who are following me and they're saying that they are learning themselves so they can educate their kids. And the book that's coming out as well. It's um I actually had some families that were testing it and um, those parents actually some of those some of those parents came back to me and they said I actually finally do not feel intimidated by stock market I finally understand. What they're talking about I understand the jargon. Thank you? Um, but sometimes you know we have to learn as parents before we can educate our kids.

22:51.36

wongga

Right? And if you're a spender and you don't and you're living paycheck to paycheck. Um, it's hard to tell that to your kids to start saving when you're not saving yourself.

23:01.48

Maya

Right? And you know the thing is like I don't get.. It's really interesting. This is such an important topic. Um, but there are people that are just not interested in it and they will I don't know if they'll ever be interested and you know that's not my Niche. Um. There are just people that kind of shrug their shoulders when I tell them what I do and they just you know they're just not Interested. They're not interested learning themselves. They're not interested in learning teaching their kids. They do say that it is important but they have no desires. So Unfortunately those are people I can't help. I Mean you know you can't help people that don't want to be helped themselves.

23:36.10

wongga

No for sure. Um, you mentioned a book and I I think I asked this but I want to get into it a little bit more so you have this financial Academy You said you speak a couple times a year I get that you can't teach everybody personally and you're scaling your company. So What does it look like for a typical parent who let's say like because we're going to throw this information to the show notes and they go on your website. Are there just a list of courses are they virtual are they webinars or they recordings How does it work.

24:03.62

Maya

Yeah, so the courses are virtual. Um, there are some recordings but I always prefer to do virtual live and right now there's really nothing at the moment there. There will be some stuff in the upcoming New year as well. I usually do some courses in the summer and those fill up pretty quickly because I try to keep it small because I do want interaction in the classroom because again, this stuff can be really boring so we try to make it more interactive with the kids. Yeah so I only I only do this twice a year for anybody who's interested. They should subscribe to my newsletter. Um, because that's when they can find out about it or follow me on Instagram but um, you know the courses themselves are you know, usually it's about 5 courses. It's either Monday through Friday or once a week for five weeks

24:56.96

wongga

Okay, and tell us about the book I mean that's huge. You said it's coming out November and this is I mean the date today is October Twenty seven so this is very timely. Why don't you tell us about it here's your opportunity to give yourself a plug.

25:11.31

Maya

Yeah, yeah, thank you? I'm really actually excited about the book. Um, you know I was asked just actually before this podcast I was doing another one and they asked me this said, why didn't you write a book about something else and. There are so many more books that I want to write but I purposefully wrote this one because I find that there are so many people out there who are intimidated about investing and the goal of this book was really to just simplify it simplify it in a language that a 10 year old can understand. Um, the book looks really friendly. It's very colorful. It's got lots of pictures. Um, and the reason for that is because not only because it's for kids but it's really for anybody 10 years and up 10 years of age and older. Um, because. You know I want not just kids to learn from this book I want teenagers I want parents and you know somebody said to me. Do you really think a teenager would want to pick this would want to learn from this book and I said yes because I have so many other investing books which are fantastic. They provide great value but they're boring. So I'm really hoping that this book is not boring that it actually teaches what it needs to teach and it excites people about taking the next steps and investing it's called from piggy banks to stocks the ultimate guide for a young investor.

26:26.57

wongga

Okay, what's the title of it.

26:35.66

Maya

And it's available on Amazon.

26:35.88

wongga

Nice, Okay, all right. We'll throw that in the show notes as well. Um, maybe could you share? Maybe ah a success story from the Academy where early financial education made a significant difference. In a child's or even the family's life.

26:53.91

Maya

Ah, yeah, sure. So um, we had this one family and this is the first thing that comes to mind but um, their son was just not interested in investing at all like first of all, he was not interested in money at all. And there are some people out there. They just don't want to talk about money and that's normal, but these parents they were actually very well financially off and they were financially educated. They just did not know how to approach their son. And especially like you know teaching them teaching him basics. But also how do you teach things like investing and so on so what I suggested was to actually um, really try to understand what does he care about? Okay so he doesn't care about money. What does he care about. So this. A particular individual. He was a part of a band and that's all he wanted to do. He just wanted to compose songs and play in the band and sing and that's what that's what mattered to him and the 1 thing that he wanted was an electric guitar so I was like okay, perfect now we have a goal we know what he cares about? let's. Tie as many money lessons as we can to this goal so we started basically creating this plan. How can we? Um, you know, save up for him or how can he save up to get this electric guitar.

28:24.87

Maya

So they would actually give him an allowance and um, you know they thought that he was going to be spending this allowance maybe on lunches at school or whatever but you know the idea was like okay you spent some but you saved some towards your electric guitar. This kid was so determined he really wanted this electric guitar. So he actually started saving all his allowance towards it and um in the end. Um you know he actually ended up reaching that goal and getting that guitar but it was all these lessons that he came to learn along the way about you know, like saving and. They were also giving him opportunities to earn some money at home I forget exactly what he was doing for them but it was like oh there's so much allowance you get now. But if you want more money you can do and I'm just making this one up right now because I don't remember but you can wash our car. Instead of us running the car through the car wash. We'll give you ten twelve dollars whatever how much it would cost. So yeah, that was that was really interesting and exciting for me, you know because I felt like we made a ah little bit of ah a difference in somebody's life.

29:33.62

wongga

I would say I would say a huge difference I mean I wish I had learned that when I was younger too. Um, you know I 1 of the questions I wanted to ask you was parents who are listening to this and we have obviously a lot of parents. When when they listen to this and they're thinking. Okay I want to start teaching my five seven nine year old at home. What are some of the things I know you said goals? Okay, but are there any other tools or techniques that you maybe recommend to get people started on this.

30:02.91

Maya

Absolutely yeah, so with younger kids like five year olds I always suggest that you know parents start with explaining to them the difference between needs and wants. So at that age. They're capable of understanding the needs are things we need for survival wants are things that we want. Um, like candy toys but we don't need them for survival and so every time you know you go to a store together. You know to avoid them begging you for candy or toy you can ask them to um. You know, identify like what's a need. What's a want today. We're going grocery shopping so we have to buy needs first there's any money left over well we can potentially buy someones. um so I know um I actually had some parents do this exercise with their kids like they would go into store and literally that the kids would just. Go down the aisles and they would point need want need want whatever so it was a like little fun exercise. Um, we also like to do that at home sometimes but you know it's it's funny because some kids would be pointing to objects in the house. It's like this is a need and this is a want. And sometimes they would ask the parents. Why do we have so many wants like why do you need? Whatever right? So um I even had like 1 parent come back to me and she said that her kids realized that their house was too big for them and they were asking them. Why do we live in this big house.

31:28.52

Maya

Um, we could afford we should be We should be actually living somewhere smaller. So I mean it can get a little bit tricky right? They have to be prepared to answer some questions and living in a big house is absolutely okay, right? like as long as you can pay your bills We you know we should enjoy our life. Why not.

31:44.31

wongga

Yeah, yeah, but it's having that balance. But yeah I can just imagine that conversation from an 8 year old being challenged why your house is too big. that's that's awesome um

31:53.30

Maya

Yeah I mean sorry to try I just want to mention this to I even had when a mom said to me that um I think she went shopping to winners and you have winners in where you are at right? yeah and she picked up a picture frame and her daughter who was 8 at the time she said to her.

32:01.77

wongga

Um, yes, yes.

32:10.83

Maya

Why are you getting that. That's a want and so she she sheepishly put it back but she really wanted it to.

32:17.42

wongga

Ah, no, That's Awesome. No I was going to ask? Um, you know you mentioned allowances I have given my kids allowance I got an allowance when I was a kid but I know that. It's kind of controversial a little bit and many parents struggle with the concept. What's your take on allowances and how can parents use them as a tool for financial education.

32:39.32

Maya

Yeah, so it is definitely controversial and um, I'm really glad that you called it a tool. So um I because I've been doing this for such a long time I've developed a framework around this and. Ah, believe me I've have seen parents argue over allowances like very heated discussions. So what I have come to realize is that there is no one right way of teaching kids about money. There is no one right way to do allowance when I do my workshops for parents sometimes when parents. Ah. Parent counsels hire me and I go into schools and I just do parent workshops. Um I tell parents that they are 4 different ways of doing allowance and they can choose whichever way works best for them. But ultimately the allowance is tool. To teach kids money management. Allowance is not a gift a lot of times parents think that allowance is a gift because we're giving money to the kids. Ah, but you know allowance really enables the transfer of purchasing power from the parent to the child and the decision making is transferred from the parent. To the child. So um, the 4 different allowance methods are the first one is allowance tied to chores and parents who support that allowance method believe that you know they want to teach their children that money doesn't grow on trees. You have to work hard to earn your money.

34:04.18

Maya

And you're rewarded for your efforts. So if they don't do a chore. They don't get paid the second allowance method is not tied to chores. Um these parents just give a certain amount of money to their child once a week or every two weeks um and they believe that chores should be done out of the duty as a family member. They believe that children. Um who you know do these chores will not be paid to do these chores when they become adults like nobody's going to pay them to make their bed or take out the dishes from the dishwasher. But what happens is. If the child doesn't do the chore. They don't take away the money they take away other things like screen time or playdates and so on and there is a third allowance method and the third allowance method is the mixture of the first two. So. It's like a hybrid method and these parents they give their kids. Ah, certain amount of money. Um, and what they do is allow actually children to have opportunities to earn more money. So let's say for example they would give them let's say five or ten dollars a week but you know if you want more money you can go wash my car or you can shred my papers. So they will give them opportunity to earn money by doing things that maybe these parents will pay somebody else to do for them and then the last allowance method is really just not giving allowance at all some parents feel very strongly about it and that's okay.

35:34.21

Maya

Um, with those parents I strongly urge them to find opportunities where children would um, have ability to manage money so it would be like let's say doing a budget for the child's birthday. So Maybe that child at the beginning when the child is younger would be involved in planning that budget and kind of figuring out how the budgeting works but as they get older. They can actually um, you know completely manage that budget on their own or you know back to school shopping budget or something similar to that. But the idea is that you really want them to practice managing that money and making mistakes making mistakes is good. We want them to make mistakes when the dollar values are low and the stakes are not high rather than when the dollar values are you know, high like when they get out of University. And they have like a 6 figure Salary. We don't want them to make many mistakes then right.

36:30.19

wongga

So no, That's great and thank you for providing that list. But I'm curious because I know it's controversial. Why don't we spell it out for the audience speak to me about. Somebody who is you know, very venommently opposed to Allowances. What is what is their message. Why are they so opposed to it.

36:50.85

Maya

A lot of times people tell me I can't afford it I barely have any money to get by I just I can't afford to give allowance. But what I'm trying to explain to them is that when you give allowance you're transferring the purchasing power. So I feel that everybody can find some allowance to give and you know before you start jumping at my throat any listeners just hear me out. Um, if you go let's say through your bank statement or credit card statement for the past month identify transactions when you bought something for your child whether it's candy whether it's toy whether you give them money to go to the movies with their friend or whatever it is now the idea is that you would really want your child to ah pay for those things himself or herself. Ah, so you would whatever that amount is that you spent. That's the the amount of money that you could have given them and they would be the ones deciding whether that money should be spent on that toy on that candy on that movie ticket now they're in charge they're making decisions. They're not begging you to pay for them. Um, especially because sometimes they just don't have any clue how much money is in your bank account and what your budget is but when the money is sitting in their piggy bank or in their wallet. They know exactly how much money they have and you know what? maybe the first time they're gonna make mistakes.

38:13.91

Maya

They're going to spend it all. But if you stick to your guns and you're just like you know what you spent it all. You have to wait until next allowance date. Um, they will quickly learn that you know money is you know we have a certain amount once we spend it. It's gone so we need to make better choices and I have noticed now with my own kids. Um, like I'll give you is it. Okay, if I give an example. Yeah so when they were very little um and I forget exactly how old they were but we were taking them to Disneyland and I said to my husband this is going to be a disaster I'm like this is you know a place where you go and you want to buy everything.

38:32.75

wongga

Absolutely.

38:51.74

Maya

So we said okay, what are we going to do and we decided we're going to give them vacation. Allowance. So we said to the kids and I forget exactly how much money we gave them that first time we've been to Disneyland so many times after that but we gave them a certain amount of money and we said listen these are the rules you can spend here's this money. You can spend it right now if you want to, but you're not getting a penny more or you can wait until we get to Disneyland and you can spend it right away on the first day or you can wait until the end of our stay and you can go to all different shops and you know stores and. Kind of gather the information as to like how much things are and what you want to get and on the last day you can purchase something that's really meaningful to you or you can even bring this money back to Toronto and um, you know you can spend it on something here.

39:45.12

Maya

And you can also bring some of your allowance that you have saved up so that you're purchasing power is bigger. So what actually ended up happening. Ah the kids were absolutely amazing. They waited until the very last day to purchase they ended up buying these plush toys and um. They didn't bother us at all. They did want to go into every souvenir store and check out every shop but they were so good and you know, um and I think my daughter was and I don't know which visit this was so I'm a little bit confusing myself here. But I know that um, my daughter at 1 point in time. When we went to Disneyland we were crossing the street and and just really randomly she turned to me because we gave them american dollars and she turned to me and she said you know what this american dollar is killing me and I said what? what are you talking about the exchange rate is so high and this was my I think she must have been 7 at the time seven year old talking about foreign exchange rate because she understands because the money was given to her and she had to exchange it and use it to buy toys so you know when we give money to kids. It's very different than you know when we're paying for things.

41:00.14

wongga

Amazing. Yeah, no thank you for sharing that story I Yeah I think having I think budgeting is is something that ah everybody needs to know, especially adults and and having a kid to be able to work through that is is absolutely Crucial. Um, so in terms of long-term financial habits I know we've touched on them. But if you could have sort of ah a short list. What key lessons do our children need to learn to prepare for the financial realities of adulthood.

41:30.40

Maya

Sure I think the first one is and this is the one. It's so simple and we just discussed it but I feel adults still struggle with it is understanding the difference between needs and wants and you know when we want to purchase something if it's really not a need if it's not something that's you know. We really really need it like I would say wait 24 hours and then if you really want it and you can afford it then go for it. The second one is as I called it pay yourself first meaning like as soon as you have some money save some of it and then um, invest it. Um and you know just. Start investing as soon as possible start investing frequently. Don't try to time the market and I would advise everybody who is afraid of investing and but is interested has long-term goals and I mean long-term goals are like 10 years or further um to look into. Learning how to invest with index funds and etfs this is something I wish I learned when I was younger because I find it's so easy to understand. It's easy to learn the management fees are high and it gives enough time for markets to recover when you invest in this kind of investments and there's. Plenty of different etfs and index funds that you can like look into but anyways, this is just something kind of like this is just a tip of an iceberg for anybody who's interested in investing to start looking into more and then I think it's really important to teach our kids about credit cards and that that.

43:03.58

Maya

Having a credit card is not necessarily a bad thing. It's just like it's like a credit card is a tool It's like a knife. It can be used for good and for bad right? if you use your credit card to build your credit score. Then you know you can actually maybe one day ah borrow money and have a mortgage and. You know it can. It can be really really helpful. But um, if you don't know how to use it properly can really hurt you and you know like if you declare bankruptcy that stays on for so many years and so yeah, those would be I guess my top things to when it comes to financial literacy.

43:38.53

wongga

Yeah I'm I'm nodding my head here because when my kids turned 18 so my I've got a 19 neteen and a 21 year old now we both encourage them to get student credit cards. Um, and you know $500 limit or whatever it is and I said if you do nothing else just have. You know, buy something for $10 and then pay it off, buy something for $10 and pay it off and my older son he actually the moment that he makes a purchase because it's integrated with his his bank account. He goes online and just transfers over from his checking account to his his visa which effectively. Pays for it already. But I can only imagine what his credit score is after doing this for 2 three years so you know he's setting himself up without having that bad habit of you know, spending credit that of money that you don't have.

44:27.21

Maya

Exactly and I think that's wonderful that you're doing that and yes, it's so important to teach them to pay it off to pay off that credit card in full.

44:35.51

wongga

Well, yeah, 20% interest or whatever it is is is is tough. Well I can't believe that you know 45 minutes has flown by but I want you to you to leave the audience with the question that I always ask every guest. Um, so this is the investing to win podcast. How do you Define success and what does winning look like for you.

45:01.97

Maya

It's so interesting when it comes to winning for me. The first thing that always come to mind is like my my health and my family so you know money is important to me. It's important to all of us. We can't live without it but um. you know it's important to for me it's important to have that balance so um you know it's important to invest but I also want to invest that money sometimes in my family like we do a lot of traveling together because they care about those memories. Um, and. Spending that quality time together I also invest not only in the stock market but I invest in my health like I pay for my yoga classes I invest in the food that we eat. So to me, you know, making sure that my family's okay, my health is okay, that's. That's really what true winning is.

45:55.49

wongga

Awesome! Well thank you so much for spending this time with me and we'll put all of your information in the show notes good luck on the book release. That's super exciting and we'll catch up on social media. Thanks for stopping by.

46:09.81

Maya

Absolutely thank you so much for having me on the show. Thanks bye.

46:13.49

wongga

Okay, take care.