What to Teach Your Kids About Money, and When 1887

Every parent eventually asks the same question: what does my kid actually need to know about money, and when do I teach it? Today's roundtable brings together three genuinely different perspectives, financial educator Karen Holland of Gifting Sense, middle school teacher and author Alaina Trivax, and Rishi Vamdatt, the now-college-bound creator behind Easy Peasy Finance who started teaching kids about money at age eight. Together they build a real, age-by-age roadmap, from swiping a credit card at six years old to filing taxes for the first time at eighteen.

What You'll Walk Away With

• Why waiting until kids are "old enough to understand the math" is one of the most common mistakes parents make
• A simple age-by-age breakdown of what to teach, from age six all the way through eighteen
• Whether you should tell your kids exactly how much you earn, and what to say instead if you'd rather not
• Why letting kids make small, affordable money mistakes now protects them from much bigger ones later
• How to talk to kids about in-game currencies and microtransactions in a way that actually sticks
• A refreshingly simple way to build an allowance system that teaches real financial judgment, not just chore compliance
• Why you don't need to be great with money yourself to teach your kids well, and what actually matters more than expertise

Why This Matters Now

It's easy to feel unqualified to teach your kids about money, especially if your own financial journey has had plenty of stumbles. But the goal was never to have all the answers. It's to normalize talking about money at home, model good decision-making out loud, and let kids practice with small stakes before the stakes get real. A little structure around when to introduce which concepts takes the guesswork out of a subject most parents already feel behind on, and turns it into something manageable, even fun.

From the Basement

A special exhibition round of trivia brings together three guest contestants for a genuinely close guessing game on the current going rate from the Tooth Fairy, complete with inflation commentary that would make any economist proud.

Resources Mentioned

• Follow the Money by Alaina Trivax — Alaina's new activity-based book teaching kids about money
• Let's Make It Grow — Alaina's platform helping parents teach financial literacy
• Gifting Sense — Karen Holland's nonprofit teaching kids mindful spending, including the "Spending Ed" program
• Easy Peasy Finance — Rishi Vamdatt's YouTube channel and book series, including the new release Easy Peasy Stocks

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