My five year old told me that she was richer than her friend. Rich. I asked her why she thought she was rich and she told me that she had lots and lots of money. Of course her valuation of the various coins she has is probably not right. Each coin counts as one coin - and so if she has four hundred coins then she has four hundred. Not dollars, not cents, just four hundred. I then proceeded to explain to her that wealth is evaluated differently based upon different assets. I have a relative that some would describe as ‘land wealthy’ because the estimated value of his land might be a high dollar amount. I have a friend who has lots of possessions that are worth a lot of money all together.

My daughter’s estimation of being rich and my desire to some day have accumulated some wealth are very, very different scales but the discussion reminds me of the need to teach her about money and personal finance. If she can start out her life with a better sense of financial stability and a plan for her future financial goals she’ll be rich. Not as much, or maybe more, than her friends but hopefully she’ll be able to teach them a thing or two and they can teach her a thing or two as well. Educating my daughters about faith, finances and most importantly my love for them are things I strive every day to do.

• No related posts.

This entry was posted on Sunday, September 23rd, 2007 at 9:23 pm and is filed under Foundations, Lesson Learned, Money Management. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.