A Financial Education for Kids

Schools teach kids a written education, but they don’t teach a financial education. Here we challenge what needs to be taught in schools in order to give kids choices when they leave school.

A Business Success Formula That You Can Teach Your Kids!

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In our previous post we shared Sean Rasmussen’s teachings around developing a healthy self image. This article follows on from that discussion as we share more of his valuable teachings around being successful in business.

How would you like to know Sean Rasmussen’s Business Success Formula?

Teaching these understandings to your children will set them on the path to being successful entrepreneurs.

 

Sean introduced a simple formula that will get results in business. The formula is…

 

(Training + Tools + Team) X Time = Results.

 

This formula can fit all business models, whether it be Network Marketing, conventional business or an Internet Based Businesses. This fits with what we have read about Robert Kiyosaki and his Business Builder model (as opposed to small business). He describes building a business system that will grow itself. Sean’s formula formed the bases of the whole Boot Camp of which we were taught how to address each aspect through Internet Marketing.

 

In our recent blog about David Wood we discovered that he also uses this formula for business success and he taught us how to apply it to Network Marketing.

 

Training: Attend the boot camps, join a program, find a mentor and study the business system.

 

Tools: Use the tools provided by the business system. Use the tools that work, don’t be a tool trying to work it all out for yourself! Or as David Wood says, “Use the tools, don’t be a tool!”

 

Team: Build a team of experts around you who build your business. In internet marketing it may be virtual assistants, ghost writers and marketers whom you can contract very inexpensively from counties such as the Philippines or India. With Network Marketing it will be the people in your upline as well as those in your own network that form your team. You help them build their business and yours will naturally become successful as well.

 

Time: Give it your all! Without putting time into your business initially it simply won’t be successful. With businesses that grow and generate a passive income the amount of time you need to commit it great to begin with and the income is small, but as your business grows your work time will diminish, but your income will continue to grow!

 

Results: Your income generated from your business.

 

 

 

 

 

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Teaching Kids the Business Success Formula

 

 

Flynn extracting the honey from the honey cone.

The Business Success Formula can easily be taught to kids. Firstly help them get started with an enterprise. This way they will learn all about it. For example my son Flynn has learnt a huge amount about bee keeping, harvesting and processing honey and then marketing it.

 

Next teach them how they can make their business easier by utilizing the right tools. In Flynn’s case it was about borrowing the right extractor equipment and using an expert’s advice (his Grandad) which saves him time.

 

Then investigate ways of putting a team together to make the process less work and more profitable. Flynn utilized his friends to help bottle the honey, he had people selling his honey on consignment and he found people to take his honey to the market. He wasn’t doing all the work!

 

Flynn with his product

Explain to your kids about delayed gratification. That is: put the hard yards in now for a financial reward later. Once they see a result in their wallets/purses then they will fully grasp Sean’s formula for business success. Flynn has realised this. He used all his own money to buy his honey and he also paid for everything he required to bottle and market it He understood that he needed to make his business work in order to get his money back with profit. Once he experienced a result with his first batch of honey, he became much more focused and determined with his second batch, which by the way he invested twice the capital!

Three Reasons Why People Are Not Making Money Right Now!

 

Sean Rasmussen also pointed out three reasons why people are not making money right now. He emphasises the importance of “Action, Intention and Value”. When people use the Business Success Formula, and also attend to and are clear on these three things, they are perfectly set up to make money in their chosen enterprise.

 

Action

 

Action is obvious. Take action straight away whenever an idea or opportunity presents. As soon as an idea presents itself, build upon it. Avoid killing the idea with all the “what ifs”.

 

Intention

 

To illustrate the point about Intention, Sean had us all write onto a small card what our intent was for the three days at the boot camp, and then we put the card in our pocket to be carried around where ever we went. The idea is…  we thought about and put out to the universe our intent without trying to force an answer or outcome. Amazingly, by the end of the three days the answers to our intention were answered! Intention can also be aligned with having a plan.

 

Value

 

He refers to Value as being your highest values. Sean Rasmussen explains that your highest values dictate what you focus on. So it is crucial to ensure that what you want, whether it be health, money, family or whatever, is high up on your value list, otherwise it simply won’t happen.

 

Our Money Mastery mentor, Paul Counsel, also enlightened us to this very important distinction. For us we struggled with putting business ahead of family as our highest value. Our kids have always been our highest value and consequently take up all our time and energy. So what we learnt was that we needed to align business with our highest value of family. Hence we have done that with this very blog and with other enterprise we are pursuing. By aligning our highest value with business, we then have better focus and desire, and our enterprise is moving forward and so are our entrepreneurial mindsets.

 

So there you have it… Sean Rasmussen’s Business Success Formula.

Flynn celebrating his business success!

In our next blog we will talk more about the wonderful personalities we met whilst on Bootcamp and the sorts of things they are doing to inspire others.about the tremendous opportunity for our kids (and us grown ups!) with building a membership site on the internet. The figures possible…. are mind-blowing!


Kit and Chayse and a Lesson on Self Efficacy!

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Kit has decided to form a partnership with Chayse with his Lolly Bag Enterprise for Kids Business! He figured that his Dog Walking business was moving too slowly, and he saw how easily Chayse was making an excellent profit. So they joined forces and together visited the local supermarket to spend their capital on buying large bags of confectionary. This time they were very serious and bought $230 worth of lollies!

The Production Line

Once again the family pitched in around the dining table to sort and bag all the lollies. Before long Kit and Chayse, in partnership, were ready to go out to the sporting grounds and sell their product. Click here to view a video of Kit and Chayse’s production line!

This time round was a little different though! Our kids had been taught and now understood the value of gifting (An Entrepreneur’s Conscience). Taking a small portion of their profits and giving it towards a worthy cause, teaches the kids about generosity and about appreciating their own good fortune. We also believe that by giving, the universe in turn will give back in some way or form. Flynn, for example, is putting money to one side to give to our African sponsor child Cheroko. Amber has chosen to give to the Cerebral Palsy Association because she has a school friend with this disability. Kit and Chayse have chosen The Flying Doctor Service as their charity because the Flying Doctor really helped us out when Kaitlin was born in a very remote Kimberley town. (Kalumburu).

Designing the For Sale Sign with RFDS as the beneficiary....
All the soccer lads checking out their lollies.
Watching Jai in action at the soccer fields!.........

 

 

 

 

 

.....whilst the boys sold their wares

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

So armed with renewed confidence, the two boys did the rounds of the sporting grounds and sold box after box of lollies. They were magnetic – attracting people from all over the place. Just like the Mr Whippy Van!

The boys were very good at counting money and giving the correct change. They did at first need prompting to approach groups, and to say thank you. However, after a while their confidence grew and they happily spoke with customers. There were lots of questions about what they were doing and why they were selling lollies. Kit and Chayse would tell people that it was their business and that they were also giving a little money towards the Flying Doctor’s Service. People were all very happy to support their business and some even bought lollies just to have a chat with them!

On a later trip to the sporting fields I was super surprised to find that young Chayse had taken it upon himself to gather up his heavy box of lollies and head off down the lines of spectators. I had no idea that he had gone as I had been focused on watching Flynn playing his soccer game. I was suddenly alarmed to notice that the lolly box had gone from under my feet and that Chayse was no where to be seen! Looking around I could see some commotion about fifty metres away. It was Chayse with a crowd of people buying his lollies.

I was very proud of the little “fella” as he had proven that he was developing his self efficacy with being an entrepreneur. Through many weeks of shyly putting himself out there with his customers selling lollies, he had finally built the confidence to go it alone!

If he keeps this up he will be an awesome young entrepreneur when he grows up!

Cathy and I have been learning the importance of self efficacy at our Money Mastery Course from our mentor Paul Counsel. He explains that it is very difficult to just switch and be an entrepreneur. What we need to do is to build up to being one by pushing our upper limit continuously. That is done by doing things that take us out of our comfort zone. Take on new challenges and then celebrate the success, then repeat it over and over again. Eventually you become comfortable with being uncomfortable, which in turn open up new possibilities and attracts opportunities. This is exactly what has been happening with our four year old son Chayse… in fact it has been happening to all of us!

Kit also demonstrated his growing confidence only a few days ago. He said that he wanted to take his Enterprise for Kids lolly business down to the local skate park all by himself. We agreed to his request and let him go. His big brother Flynn was instructed to follow behind at a distance to make sure he was OK.

Self Efficacy!

Well Kit sold a bunch of lolly bags and on returning he announced, “A Granny gave me a big cuddle and kiss!” Not sure what he was going on about we asked him to explain. Kit said, “She was really happy to see me doing my business.  She bought some lollies and then gave me a cuddle.”

 

 

 

Two young Entrepreneurs....
....share their rewards.....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

......with the RFDS.
You can donate directly to: www.flyingdoctor.net

 

 

 

 

 

 

We believe that our enterprising children are experiencing mindset shifts to think more and more like entrepreneurs. It will be interesting to see how this changing mind set effects the way they approach their enterprise for kids ventures. It all takes a lot of practice and confidence. In later blogs we will talk more about self efficacy and how our other children are moving along with it and we we also share our own enterprising endeavours!

Plan to Buy Gold and Silver!

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“Failing to plan is planning to fail!” Robert Kiyosaki

 

Most people have a plan on how to make their money, but they do not have a plan on what to do with their money when they make it. Kiyosaki points out that often these are the same people who will have a problem with not having enough money.

He also explains that if you have a good plan before you earn it, then your problem will be having too much money! …Now I like that problem!

Kids need an education on how to plan what to do with their money when they earn it.

Kiyosaki goes on to say,

“Poor people don’t have a plan. All they do is earn more money and spend it on bigger liabilities that take more money from their pockets and then they have to earn even more money. Therefore, despite what they earn, they are always short of money.”

The solution is to plan to spend earned money on Assets (things that appreciate over time) to make passive income. Don’t buy liabilities (things that depreciate and lose money over time) with earned income. Then use some of your passive income from the assets you own to buy the liabilities you want.

Our own kids are all busy planning their enterprises and are successfully making themselves money. They have plans to buy liabilities such as nerf guns, Ipods, computers and so forth, but no plan to buy assets. So I thought it was time to have a conversation with my kids about having a plan to buy assets.

We wrote an article about our conversations with the kids about Assets and Liabilities.  Here is a link to that article.

Once “Assets” as opposed to “Liabilities” was explained to the kids they were then able to make a plan to buy assets. In the above mentioned article I gave several suggestions of Assets that kids could buy. I would like to elaborate further on why Gold and Silver is an excellent asset that our kids could buy with their earned money.

Gold Coin from Lydia

Subscribers to this blog would have seen the promotion of a Gold and Silver Seminar that we hosted here in Bunbury a few weeks back. Our presenter, Andrew Smith, a mining engineer, investor and businessman, has been intimately involved with the world of Gold and Silver mining for many years. He gave many excellent reasons why Gold and Silver is well worth considering as a long term asset investment. I’ll now explain some of those reasons.

Gold and Silver is recognised world wide as money and can be used to buy products and services just as fiat currencies can. The first gold coin was around in 600BC in Lydia, Asia. The difference being, currencies devalue whilst gold and silver hold their value.

Andrew invented the “Meat Pie Indicator” to show why this is!

Aussie Gold 2012 Coin

Let’s see if you can get your head around this explanation of how the Meat Pie Indicator works!!

Back in 1970 you could buy a meat pie for 40c and today the same pie would cost you $4.50. Andrew explains that this indicator shows the Aussie dollar devaluing 350% over a period of 42 years (ie you need 350% more cash to buy the same pie).

What is interesting, is that if you had bought the meat pie with 40c worth of silver back in 1970 when silver was less than $2 an ounce, you would have needed one fifth of an ounce. Yet if you bought the same meat pie today using silver (at $35 an ounce) you would only require about one eighth of an ounce of silver. Silver has increased in value by more than 400% during the same period!
This is a terrific example of the Dollar devaluing due to inflation, whilst Silver (& Gold) gains in value! And no it isn’t just the Aussie Dollar that has devalued! All world currencies have! What’s worse, is that hyperinflation in certain countries have caused their currency to become absolutely worthless. Take Zimbabwe for example. Interestingly though, the people of Zimbabwe are now using gold to buy and sell goods.

If you are interested in understanding more about Hyperinflation and how it could even happen to us down under, then have a look at these videos…
Hyperinflation Nation Part 1

Hyperinflation Nation Part 2

Hyperinflation Nation Part 3

“Inflation is as violent as a mugger, as frightening as an armed robber and as deadly as a hit man” Ronald Reagan 1980

As you can see, having precious metals is a hedge against inflation and devaluing currencies. Although this in its self is a very good reason to own gold and silver, there are also many more reasons.

Reserve Banks around the world are injecting more and more money into their economies. This money is being created out of thin air! Every time this occurs it dilutes the money supply and makes it more expensive to buy goods and services. It creates inflation, which in turn reduces the buying power of the dollar. What also happens is that more money is needed to buy gold and silver!

It is estimated that there is 80,000 tons of gold in the ground (in the World) and we currently mine 2500 tons a year. At the current rate of mining there is less than 30 years of gold left in the ground. Silver is running out even faster with only 20 years of silver mining remaining. I guess you can see that with gold and silver running out and the ever growing world requiring more and more of it, then you would expect their values to increase.

Indian Bridal Jewellery

What’s more, the Indians and Chinese love buying gold and silver, and as they become wealthier, so will their thirst for these metals. There are 2.6 billion Chinese and Indians. Much of the gold is bought as jewellery during the Hindu wedding season and during the Chinese New Year celebrations. It is estimated that there is 18,000 tons of gold jewellery present in India alone today. That is a huge amount considering that 165,000 tons have been mined world wide to date!

The commercial demand for silver in manufacturing products such as mobile phones, solar panels and mirrors means that the silver used with producing such products is not stored, but used up. This demand has been increasing year by year.

Since 2001 the USD gold price has increased by 500%.

Gold from $300/ounce in 2001 to $1750 today
Silver from $4 an ounce in 2001 to $34 today

As you can see fundamentally owning gold and silver for the longer term looks to be very promising. So why not introduce your kids to buying this asset class with some of their earned money, or rather than giving them cash for birthday presents, give them silver!

Perth Mint

It is very easy to do. The Perth Mint buys and sells gold, silver and platinum. All you need to do is walk in and buy it. Gold at $1750/ounce may be out of their league, but silver at $34/ounce is manageable. They can buy coins or bullion. Bullion will be better value for money, as coins are looked upon as collectables and have an additional cost for minting which greatly inflates the cost to buy the silver.

Our kids now have new goals. There goals are broken up into three parts and they have a plan for each. A part for buying liabilities, a part for buying assets and a part for tithing!

This website is worth a look at if you are keen to further your education on Gold and Silver.

$20 Piggy Bank! Click Picture

Cathy and I and a group of our friends are very excited to be heading up to Perth to learn from another Great Master. His name is David Wood and his event will be awesome!  So I guess our next blog article will be about what we learn from him!


How Bad Do You Want It?

Cathy and Trevor A Financial Education for Kids, Developing a Money Mindset, Enterprising Kids , , , , , , , 4 Comments

We were going to write about Kit and Chayse’s enterprise and how they have gone with working on their goal, but have decided to share an interim and thought-provoking blog designed to make you think about how much do you really want success (in any chosen field)!

Our daughter Kaitlin saw this video on You Tube and sent us the link. We thought it was awesome. So, take the time to watch the clip (it doesn’t go for very long), then read on.

How Bad Do You Want It? Video Clip

How Bad Do You Want It? Click image to view clip.

For those who want to digest the words again, I have taken what I could decipher from the You Tube and written the transcript here.

There was a young man who wanted to make a lot of money, so he went to his Guru and said,

“I want to be on the same level you’re on.” And the Guru said, “If you want to be on the same level I’m on, I will meet you tomorrow at the beach.”

So the young man got there at 4am. He wore a suit, but should have worn shorts. The old man grabs his hand, leads him to the water and says,

“How bad do you want to be successful?”  The young guy said, “Really successful”.

The old man says, “Walk on out in the water. “ He goes waist deep.

This waters freezing. The young man thinks, I just want to make money and he’s making me swim.

I didn’t ask to be a life guard. I wanna make money.

“Come out a little further. “

So he’s thinking. This old man’s crazy. He makes a lot of money, but he’s crazy.

“Come out a little further.” And he did.

This man is crazy.

The old man said, “I thought you wanted to be successful”.

He said, “I do”.

“Then walk a little further”.  The old man pulled him, dropped the young man’s head in the water, held his head down, and continued to hold him down, even when the young man struggled.  He held him down, but just before the young guy passed out, the old man raised him up.

He told the young guy. “When you want to succeed as bad as you want to breathe, then you’ll be successful!”

 

 

 

 

 

After watching this video, it really made us think, How much do we want it? Do we “really” want it or just “kinda” want it? Want what, you may ask?

Well, anything really. How much do we want our fitness levels to be at their optimal levels? How much do we want to be financially free? How much do we want to have a happy and loving family life? How much do we want to enjoy our time with friends and experience unique and exciting experiences?

For us, it’s a little bit of everything. But what we realised as we’ve been completing Paul Counsel’s Money Mastery Course over the year, that splitting our attention between everything (as we have in the past), we get a medium result from everything. There’s nothing wrong with that, it makes life comfortable, and that’s OK for many people.

But for us………we’re ready to challenge ourselves. We’re ready to step up and make a difference in those areas in a big way, not an average way.

So, whilst we may not exist on 3 hours a night (although that’s debatable with our 18 month old at times!), we do put in the long hours. We do stay up until midnight (long after the kids have gone to bed), working on our internet business, studies, trading or Health and Wellbeing business.

We try to focus as much as we can on them. And why do we do it? Because we know that we are already successful in some parts of our lives. We know we have a wonderful family and supportive friends. And we know we’ve achieved that through dedication and focus. Now, we are ready to transfer that focus and skill to other aspects of our lives. We know that when we are financially free, that this will positively affect every other part of our lives.

If we want more time to focus on our kids, we can hire someone to do the mundane things in our lives, thus freeing our time. We can create awesome experiences beyond what we’ve already had. We can take time to enrich our own relationship without worrying about how we are going to pay the next bill.

Now, it may take us a little longer to achieve our goals than it will Giavanni Ruffin (the athlete in the movie). He has MAJOR, unstoppable focus and he WILL achieve, no matter what. It’s not a matter of IF, it’s a matter of WHEN for him.

But even if we used just a tenth of his energy and commitment, it has to be better than no focus at all. Where your attention is held is what will show up in your life. You need to “attend to your intention”. A clear intention with determined focus will set you on the right path to success.

This lesson on focus can be applied by anyone, whether it is teenagers studying at high school, kids with big sporting ambitions or parents developing business. Kaitlin is challenged with maintaining focus with her studies. We are glad she discovered this video, thought about its excellent message, and decided to share it with us.

So, like we said at the beginning of this post, “How Bad Do You Want It?”

If you enjoyed the first video clip, and thought that was all there was, think again………then have a look at this one…

How Bad Do You Want It (part 2)

How Bad Do You Want It? Pt2 Click to view

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Related Posts:

Youth Enterprise…. Kaitlin and Jai

What “The Secret” Left Out

Anthony “Tony” Robbins is an American self-help author, motivational speaker and Life Coach. He became well known throughout the world through his self-help books. Our Mentor, Paul Counsel, speaks highly of Tony Robbins and his teachings.

An Entrepreneur’s Conscience!

Enterprise For KidsTeam A Financial Education for Kids, Becoming an Entrepreneur, Developing a Money Mindset, Enterprising Kids , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , 12 Comments

Is Having a Money Mindset Charitable?

 

Yay! Enterprise For Kids Rock!

I was talking with a dear friend and asked what she thought of our Enterprise for Kids blog. She thought that it was very well done and that her kids were very inspired by our kids’ enterprise experiences. Her children had read every blog post and watched every video, then her nine year old daughter sat down and planned an enterprise following all the lessons we talk about in our blog.

Wow!

That is exactly the sort of inspiration we hope to develop, especially with kids.

What happened next was a real surprise to me!

 

What! I have to give it all away!

My friend explained that she didn’t mind the idea of enterprise, but she wasn’t OK with her kids having an enterprise where they make money for themselves.

I was a little taken back when my friend said this. I really had never thought that there would be people with the view that kids shouldn’t be making money for self interest. I was also grateful that my friend was frank in sharing her beliefs as it helps me better understand mine.

Firstly there is no right or wrong in what people believe or do. Everyone is entitled to their views and I respect my friend’s view.

After this enlightening conversation, I came to realize how far our mindset around money has changed since we started out on our journey in search for economic and personal freedom. It also had me thinking about the entrepreneur’s conscience!

Wealthy entrepreneurs think very differently to the rest of us.

Generally I would also say that they are not selfish; although I’m sure there are some who are, like there are selfish poor people as well!

Wealthy people would have persisted with their goals and taken certain risks to get to where they are now. Many of the wealthiest entrepreneurial people in the world are also very charitable and give millions away supporting causes they believe in. It is much easier to be charitable when you are rich! Many who are struggling to make ends meet do not have the time, energy or money to make larger contributions to the world.

Bill Gates
Warren Buffett
John Templeton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Bill Gates, for example, employs many people to spend his money on charitable causes! Warren Buffett, who has lived in a very modest house all his life, gives away billions to charity! And Sir John Templeton (1912 – 2008) contributes $70 million each year through his foundation providing research grants and programs relating to the Big Questions of human purpose and ultimate reality (very interesting if you have the time to delve!).

Only last week I was speaking with a new entrepreneur friend who lives in Perth. He has recently created tremendous wealth developing property mostly in the Western Australian mining town, Port Hedland. He explained to me that he no longer needs to work and he now channels his energy into his passion. He is planning to take his young family to America where he has enrolled in a Theology university course. From there he plans to do mission work in Africa. Being a successful entrepreneur is allowing him to follow his charitable dream!

It could be argued that entrepreneurs, as opposed to the rest of us “workers”, have more free time, are less stressed, enjoy better health, eat better, travel more and their families are given more opportunities in life.

Do the rich have an entrepreneur’s conscience?

Probably more so than the rest of us!

The difference being is that they are in a much better position to make a real difference in our world than those of us who are tied to a “job” and to “debt”.

I’d like to thank my friend who allowed me to consider my views of an “entrepreneur’s conscience”.  I certainly value the importance of teaching kids enterprise, and I do support the view that enterprising kids should also be taught to be charitable.

Our view also is that a child has to walk before they can run…..meaning that for us, it’s OK for our kids to have a “selfish” goal because that is what motivates them at the time to take action and learn the entrepreneurial skills necessary to succeed. Then, when they have mastered that skill, they are taught to have a goal, but think about where they may like some of the money they earn to go. That is exactly the process we taught our Chayse (who’s 4) and Kit (who’s now 7) when they reset their goals. See this in action in an upcoming blog.

The more entrepreneurs we create the better our world will be!

 

As we revisit our own kids entrepreneurial journeys in this blog, we will share the lessons around their entrepreneur’s consciences and how we are teaching them to be charitable.

Next time we will talk a little more about the conditioning we have around money and how the wealthy do think differently.

Keep this discussion going by sharing your view in the comment box below.

Lastly, I’d like to take this opportunity to remind you about the Gold and Silver Seminar that we are holding in Bunbury this Sunday. It will be an informative presentation that will open your eyes to some excellent investment opportunities. The discussion after the seminar is a great way to meet and network with other investors and business people. Bring along your teens to kick start their financial education. Click Here to view our flyer and please pass it around to others who you think may be interested.

Youth Enterprise…. Kaitlin and Jai

Cathy and Trevor A Financial Education for Kids, Enterprising Howitt Family, Enterprising Kids , , , , , , , 0 Comment

So far we have seen Flynn building a great Honey enterprise and actually achieve his goal. Kit had a go at “dog walking”, but quickly cottoned onto the fact that Chayse was making more money than him selling lollies or candy at the local Soccer fields, so has been pursuing that with his brother. They have made quite a team, and we will revisit them in an upcoming blog post. Amber has actually reached her goal with her “New from Old” endeavours and we will celebrate her achievement in another post also.

So that leaves our creative Artist, Kaitlin, and our budding App Developer Jai.

It has been interesting to note on the kids’ journeys, that it is actually easier to introduce a different mindset around money to children who are younger than it is to teenagers or older children. Why would teaching youth enterprise be so challenging? Well, the answer is simple really. In our case, Kaitlin and Jai have been a lot more conditioned around money than the younger siblings. They have been around longer with us as their major source of education. Our thoughts/objections/subconscious beliefs have been ingrained into these two and it is now quite a process to change those beliefs.

Kaitlin and Jai

Luckily for us, Kaitlin and Jai are both quick learners and understand the concepts we have been trying to teach. The main obstacle has been providing the “time” to put this newfound knowledge into action. Being teenagers, their lives are full of homework/study, sporting commitments, social life and social media. All of these are things we want to encourage in our children, so our challenge has been finding the time to also include a Financial Education.

But in the end, as with everything, “life” has been the best teacher of all.

Jai hasn’t had an urgency to pursue his App Developing as there was no time line on when his goal needed to be reached. But since then, his goal has changed. Jai has been accepted into the Country Week Soccer team and will be competing in Perth during the holidays. He has to pay for a good portion of this trip. He suddenly has a renewed vision and goal to aim for, and he has spent countless hours researching a variety of ways to make the money in a short amount of time, kicking his youth enterprise into action!

Jai's focus or goal has changed.....
Jai loves being active and he now has a new goal.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

He has come up with different ways to make the money, some of them he wasn’t interested in before. The sorts of opportunities Jai has been looking at are mowing lawns in our neighborhood, finding items to sell and hiring out exercise equipment. Together, he and Trevor worked out he needed to find $10 a day to be able to afford his portion. He has been negotiating with us over particular jobs that need doing around the house (above and beyond household chores) and been getting on and doing them. He has gone through many of his good quality items that were a “must have” when he bought them, then realised that perhaps he didn’t need them as much as he first thought. These, he has posted on Facebook to sell.

So, whilst Jai’s App developing has taken a backseat, it hasn’t been forgotten, it is just something he has recognised as a longer term project and pursuing it now wouldn’t give him the instant money needed to go on this trip. We are proud of his efforts and are sure he will reach his goal in time.

Jai reflected on his Entrepreneurial Journey a few weeks back. Click here to view!

Kaitlin doing what she loves!

Kaitlin, our artist in residence, is finally learning to manage her energy around study, social life, sport and her youth enterprise ventures. She has put a time line in place and is having more requests for art, so has to now take the time to start each piece so it can be finished in time for Christmas (for some) and earlier for others. Having a boyfriend has actually increased her self effacy as she needs to complete certain things before socialising.

Kaitlin and Lachlan

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Luckily, lachlan encourages Kaitlin to do that, because he actually wants to have a social life too!

Kaitlin and her friend Georgia are also realising the power of leveraging their time. They have come up with some great ideas around Enterprise and have put steps in place to pursue these ideas. They are longer term goals, but in the end will reap more rewards than working a job. However, they still see the need to pursue their “job” in the meantime, to give them the money to put towards their enterprise when it is up and running. We will keep you posted with their endeavours.

Kaitlin & Georgia

So the journey towards Financial freedom is always a rocky one,  but one worth following regardless of what else is going on in your life. Our kids are teaching us so much along the way, and whilst all of their efforts aren’t successful, they are learning from that and moving forward……..and we couldn’t be prouder.