The other day, an ex-colleague asked me if I was planning to send my two-year-old boy for mental abacus and other enrichment classes. I reacted with unmitigated horror. Really? Is there a need to do that when my boy contentedly spends an hour or so running amok in the void deck, pointing excitedly at passing cars and flying birds? The best form of learning is spontaneous play, I reckon.

But I won’t be so hypocritical to claim that I’m leaving everything in the hands of Nature. Since it seems that most people will expose their kids to phonics or hanyu pinyin when they are three years old, it means that I can just use this period to focus on money concepts during my interactions with him. I’m much encouraged by books that proclaim that I don’t have to be a millionaire in order to raise one. So here are three ways I am inculcating money concepts:

It so happens that a group of final year NTU Mass Communications students have recently launched a website called Money Talks (https://www.money-talks.sg/) that aims to empower parents with tools and skills to level up their child's financial literacy. At the start of their campaign, they gave out physical Money Talks kits that comprised four magnets. This was perfect for my boy who is very much into magnets now. It seemed that he was attracted by the colorful illustrations.

These days, he will happily place these magnets onto the refrigerator before taking them down to gift me.

These magnets read Save, Spend, Share and Money Talks respectively, so whenever he brings me one magnet, I will say aloud the word that is on it. He will of course (try to) repeat the word after me. I swear that his pronounication of _Share _is uncannily accurate!

I hope that he will learn to pick up these words soon and internalise how he should divide his money into these three areas.

It appears that their physical kits are fully redeemed, but you can still request for a digital kit on their website! They also have a Facebook page that you can follow if this rocks your boat: https://www.facebook.com/moneytalks.sg

Okay, this is slightly unorthodox but upon realising how my boy absorbs news words like a sponge, I have taken to saying this Chinese proverb "书中自有黄金屋" (shū zhōng zì yǒu huáng jīn wū; literally means that there is a house of gold in evvery book) every time I read aloud to him.

I know it sounds silly but if you think about it, the Japanese say itadakimasu each time they have a meal. This goes to show that rituals and routines are important, so why not I try to influence him positively by drumming this proverb into his subconscious and guiding him to be a lifelong reader?

In our educational system, we are used to the rhetoric of how reading enhances our language skills and broadens our knowledge of the world. So why not frame the value of reading through the lens of financial wellness then? Whenever I come across articles about how successful entrepreneurs share important lessons that were instrumental in marshalling them towards wealth, I can't help but notice that they will single out reading as a dominant factor. Hence, reading is an indispensable way to not only polish our English, but also to gain invaluable insights that empower us to amass wealth.

Toddlers are the most impressionable beings as they like to be involved in their parents' undertakings and are eager to help out in any way they can. So my boy is entrusted with my wallet whenever we go out. It's a task that he takes seriously as he will hold my wallet for dear life and never let go of it. This makes for a great opportunity for me to tell him how we use the money inside the wallet to pay for our spending, which is incidentally reinforcing my use of the word 'spend'.

Other times, I will get him to hold the Rewards card whenever we patronise the supermarket. My aim is to get him to pass the Rewards card to the casher so that he can understand in time to come how spending strategically can reap paybacks.

I got this idea from "How to Make Your Kid a Money Genius" (Beth Kobliner): acknowledge your kid's efforts by praising him or her for investing time and effort (on page 140) on a task like planting a seed. This is to attune him or her to the fact that investing is a way of making things grow.

Well, my toddler is too young to plant seeds yet, but the other day, he was trying his hardest to take two huge packets of diapers out from the delivery box. (Please see the photo below.)

He gave it his all and eventually succeeded. Guess what I said to him? "You invested great effort! Goooooooood!"

Closing Thoughts¹

So there you have it: the 4 money routines I'm building with my toddler. Are you doing likewise with your child? Please let me know your methods so that I can incorporate them into my daily interations with my boy!​​​