Research shows that kids form many of their adult money behaviours by the age of seven. Will Rainey is the author of the children's book, Grandpa's Fortune Fables. His work has appeared in the Financial Times, the Times (UK), iNews and The National News. Will's website, Blue Tree Savings is a financial education platform to help parents teach their kids about money.
Will believes that it needs to be fun and engaging for kids to learn about money. He tells to his daughters that money is like seeds. If they plant (save) their seeds, they will grow into Blue Trees. He uses stories and analogies in his weekly blogs, online course and in Grandpa's Fortune Fables. He wants all kids growing their own financial forest.
“A little bit of weekly money allows kids to make decisions and form habits. And if the parents can teach their kids to save a little bit of pocket money every week, it doesn't matter how small, that's a habit and it's all about actions. Kids can make mistakes, they can save up for something and find out they should've done more research because the toy they thought they were getting is not as good as it actually is. They can make that mistake when they're young and the money's small. Whereas most adults if we don't get any of that training, we get to adulthood, have a lot more money, make a big mistake and it's super painful. Whereas having mistakes when you're a kid, it feels painful for them, but they'll get over it and they'll learn.”
Will Rainey is a writer and speaker focused on helping parents teach their kids about money. He is the author of the children's book, Grandpa's Fortune Fables.
His website, bluetreesavings.com, has helped thousands of parents start talking to their kids about money. He has been invited to speak at Fortune 500 (Global) companies.
Will was an award-winning investment consultant. He was providing investment advice to governments, insurance companies and some of the world's largest pension schemes.
“Using the tree analogy, we can then talk about storms that come along and this is like a stock market crash. And the tree analogy works really well because when we say there's a big storm, we don't go and chop our trees down. Trees might get broken, but we know that after a storm, the tree grows back bigger and stronger.”
It was kind of by example, was it? That they taught you, they didn't actually tell you anything, but you sort of looked at and go, "Hang on, they're doing something right."
Will (2m 33s):
Yeah. Well, they claim to have told me but I don't remember. But yeah, definitely from seeing what they're doing and them sort of having such a great life and having a different life to others as well. So I kind of wanted to mimic that and that's what I kind of did as well.
Phil (2m 47s):
Your job was in finance. Tell us about your experience there in the finance industry and what you were doing and what you learned there.
Will (2m 55s):
Yeah, sure. So I'm actually an actuary by background. For those who don't know what an actuary is, it's essentially an accountant who loves statistics and doing lots of financials.
Phil (3m 4s):
I've got a joke as well
Will (3m 6s):
Oh God, here we go.
Phil (3m 7s):
What's the definition of an actuary?
Will (3m 10s):
Ooh, I don't know.
Phil (3m 11s):
Someone who's good with numbers, but doesn't have the personality to be an accountant.
Will (3m 16s):
Yeah. The other one I've heard is, how can you tell the difference between an actuary and an accountant? An accountant will look at your shoes, an actuary will look at their own.
Phil (3m 25s):
You worked as an actuary. So tell us about your role and what you learned about finance and how money is managed in that sort of space.
Will (3m 33s):
Yeah. So I'm from the UK. And so after I finished university, I qualified as an actuary and my role was to advise some of the largest retirement schemes about their investments. So how much they have in stock, how much they have in bonds, et cetera. Then in 2014 I moved to Hong Kong, the same company, to advise retirement schemes, insurance companies, sovereign wealth funds across Asia. And so I was kind of dealing with like the billions of dollars clients. But a lot of them still needed a lot of the foundations about investing and advice. Really? Yeah. The big institutional investors have, kind of, trustees. Sometimes they're not investment experts or some of them are, but the key is just try and make sure they have a foundation.
Will (4m 15s):
So a lot of my role was A) trying to give them the most, sort of, best way of managing their risks, talking about hedge funds and private equity and some superstar managers.
Phil (4m 25s):
But the key was, for all of them, was to A) think long-term and B) have a foundation that you can always rely on and then deal with the sort of fancy stuff around that. And so I kept having to reinforce that message to a lot of these large institutions. And that's not just for them and I was doing that for myself. And any person who wanted to talk to me about money I was like, "All right, whatever you do, just make sure you have these foundations in there. So have your diversified equity portfolio and make sure you think long-term," so I use that. But the interesting thing was, so I'm now in Vietnam and I moved here in 2019. And when people said, "Why are you leaving your full-time job? How are you going to afford to do that?"
Will (5m 4s):
And I was quite surprised because I was working in this finance industry so everyone had the same kind of knowledge about money. But yet, it turns out very few are actually doing it for themselves. So they're advising or helping large institutions or retail clients about money. But few are, kind of, not doing it themselves 'cause they're, kind of, earning good money. So probably did thought, "Well, we are good money, we don't need to think about it." But that meant they couldn't do the opportunities that I've kind of been able to do. And that's why I'm so passionate about what I do in helping parents teach their kids, because I want kids to have this kind of opportunity, regardless of how much money they earn or how much they think they know, it's about actions.
Phil (5m 39s):
It's interesting what you say about the finance industry and people in these high paid jobs. Because I was reading an article the other day that there's people who are making hundreds of thousands of dollars a year in these kinds of roles, but are living pay check to pay check because it's all going out in school fees, lifestyle, huge mortgages.
Will (5m 57s):
Yeah. And I suppose it's a little bit of an insecure industry as well because there is money involved in this status. People want to show that they're doing well and they are the king ping of the industry. So there is this more "Keeping Up with the Joneses" kind of mentality. And there is always this, "I'll just add some more money" kind of mentality as well. So that is very, very prevalent in that industry. So that kind of, that feel or desire to save isn't, kind of, there. Because they have the money, they can just buy it and don't spend it. But it's more if there are troubled times, and we know what happens to a lot of the financial industry when there are troubled times, but people soon forget, but also it's never implanted in their mind about doing something different. Like taking mini retirements to spend with families, it's never implanted in anyone's mind, not only in that industry.
Will (6m 42s):
And if they wanted to do that, they don't have the savings, it's very challenging to do so.
Phil (6m 45s):
Were you working in the city of London?
Will (6m 48s):
Yes. City of London and Hong Kong. So very, metropolises.
Phil (6m 55s):
What, sort of, downturns did you experience personally and live through?
Will (6m 58s):
Yeah, so I went through the 2008 financial crisis. At that time though, I was just buying my first property so I was in very much a savings mode. Which I think is luckily for me, I didn't have a big investment portfolio of myself at that time. So I kind of went for it. And as I was advising, my role was actually quite secure because that's the time when most people needed advice.
Phil (7m 21s):
They needed their hands held in reassurance, did they?
Will (7m 23s):
Exactly. So actually, I was very busy at work and doing very well from that space. But yeah, as I say, I was lucky that I was in a savings mode because I was buying (a) deposit for my first apartment. But then afterwards I started investing and it was the best time to start investing.
Phil (7m 37s):
Listeners, I tend to sometimes to look backwards and look at previous crises because there hasn't been one in so long and so many people haven't experienced one and they don't know what it's like. It's something I'd like to hammer home.
Will (7m 48s):
Yeah, no, it's a really, really important point. And again, we'll talk about this probably later, but even when I talk to my kids, I want them to know what crises go on as they're growing up. So that when they're adults, it's not their first one. And so when they're investing large amounts of money, if they don't get too scared.
Phil (8m 1s):
Yeah, don't want to give them a rose-coloured glasses.
Will (8m 6s):
Phil (8m 6s):
So how was the move to Vietnam and experiencing money in the developing world? It must've been completely different to Hong Kong and London.
Will (8m 15s):
Yes. And it's been fantastic. So yeah, we moved here because we want to spend more time with our young daughters. And have a kind of a different lifestyle because in Hong Kong and London, you have a very much abundance mentality and you kind of go to a pizza restaurant and you're paying crazy amount of money just for that. And, like, we could afford it, but it still felt expensive. Not everything has to be expensive to be enjoyable. So being here has been so many pluses in that space. A) The people here are just so friendly, so accommodating, so helpful. And I think the key bit is that they're so happy, even though they don't have a fraction of what most of the people in the city of Hong Kong and London have.
Phil (8m 55s):
They get all their lives, I think that has to say, they help each other, they're curious, the kids come around and play in the streets with my kids. And so it's really good for my children to see that money isn't the key to happiness. It's about how you live your life and the friends that you make and the opportunities that you seek. So hopefully that's going to be a life lesson that sticks with them. And plus here, the food is amazing and it's all cheap. And the other bit is it's a cash economy. So that helps in terms of, again, with my daughters, as the rest of the world is going cashless and becoming invisible, luckily my daughters are still getting that experience of, we can give them pocket money or allowance in cash and smaller amounts and they can divvy it up and see that money, which I know is a challenge.
Will (9m 39s):
It's like, I've been helping people in other countries sort of manage that cashless change.
Phil (9m 49s):
Let's move on to the book, "Grandpa's Fortune Fables". What inspired you to start writing this book?
Will (9m 55s):
Will (10m 39s):
So that's where the grandpa comes into it. And the whole book is based on a young girl, kind of, meeting a new friend and sort of sharing how her grandpa learned about money and became very wealthy from his adventures to a far away island. So I had always looked mini stories and then sort of tweak them to be around that theme. But the other inspiration was my favourite personal finance book is, "The Richest Man in Babylon". So, I don't know if you've read that, but it's a fantastic book and it's all done in story format. And so I just felt stories is just such a nice way of getting a message across that's both fun, its got characters in there that they can remember and stay. And even in my previous role, when I was talking to very large institutions, the best meetings were when we did try and put an analogy or metaphor, a little story in there.
Will (11m 28s):
So if adults like stories, kids definitely love stories. So I didn't want it to be a textbook. So yeah, so that's kind of the inspiration to try and do a "Richest Man in Babylon" for kids.
Phil (11m 35s):
Oh, who wrote that book? We'll put a link to it in the episode notes.
Will (11m 40s):
Yeah, so George S. Colson.
Phil (11m 42s):
Okay. Must have a look at that. Was it a challenge making it simple for kids? Well, it doesn't sound like it might've been because you're used to telling stories even to the largest institutional investors in the world. But is it a different challenge?
Will (11m 54s):
Yeah, no, it definitely was. And that's been one of the great things about what I've been doing is I've been kind of working with my kids. So I, like, read them a story from a book and go, "Oh, I like that story. How can I, sort of, take that and put a money lesson to it? Or kind of, how, I've got this money lesson, how do I put a story to it? And my children will be fantastic. They'll be my biggest critic but my biggest fan. So if I came up with a story and they're like, "No, that's rubbish." Or you could see that they're enjoying it. And that at the time, my youngest daughter was only five when I started coming up with so many stories. And she's like, "I don't really get the money lesson," but she remembers the stories and characters and I'm like, "That's fine." For that young age, as long as they remember that, then they can get that money lesson as they get older.
Will (12m 35s):
Bit like Aesop's fables, which is one of the names, reasons of names, is I remember when I was younger, hearing "The Boy Who Cried Wolf". I probably didn't really get the moral of the story, but I love the story. And then clearly as you get older, you go, "Oh, I get it now". And that's kind of what I wanted with these stories in the book that kids remember the characters and the stories. And then someday it just clicks and it's like, "Oh, I don't want to be like Richie Raccoon or I want to be more like Happy Hannah in the stories and the book." So yeah, it was kind of a process, but my children were very much influential in that creative process.
Will (13m 22s):
Yeah. So the money like seeds, it's actually not my original idea, that's been, a number of people who've used that analogy. I've just kind of turbo-charged it. So again, “The Richest Man in Babylon” kind of references it. There's a really good younger kid's book, so for people who've got younger children, called "Save Your Acorns". Again, that's got that kind of seed analogy. But I think it's just so, so powerful because kids can visualize money as being like these seeds. And they're like, okay, they get that. You can give those seeds away and that's like spending. But straight away, they're like, "Well, what happens? What do you mean plant your seeds? What does that mean in terms of money?" And that just gives parents this opportunity to talk about savings because you have to talk to children about savings, they're not going to observe it or see it. And so then they can talk about that.
Will (14m 5s):
But then the growing of them is the investing part. And again, the younger children can learn about investing, in my mind, the better. As you know, anyone who's invested today always wishes they had started earlier.
Phil (14m 17s):
Any other techniques that you use to make it interesting for kids?
Will (14m 21s):
So, yeah, so again, I use little challenges for children. Money has to be a kind of reoccurring topic. So we use some of the characters. So one fun example is, I have a character, he's not in the book but I've used him in many of my blogs, called Scammy Sam. It's all about teaching kids about, if something sounds too good to be true, it probably is. So the kids come down for breakfast and they'll be like, "Oh, this morning, we're having pancakes with ice cream and chocolate sauce and whipped cream. Who wants some?" And then if they don't say "That's a Scammy Sam," because they know that I wouldn't do that unless we're at a hotel buffet, they get a really boring breakfast. And it's just trying to introduce these little fun bits and I recommend these little bits to kids. But also the other bit is getting parents to give pocket money or allowance to their children.
Will (15m 7s):
I think it's just so, so powerful. It's the most underrated financial education tool because that little bit of weekly money allows kids to make decisions and form habits. And if the parents can teach their kids to save a little bit of pocket money every week, it doesn't matter how small, that's a habit and it's all about actions. And again, kids can make mistakes, they can save up for something and find out they should've done more research because the toy they thought they were getting is not as good as it actually is. They can make that mistake when they're young and the money's small. Whereas most adults will have, I suppose that if we don't get any of that training, we get to adulthood, have a lot more money, make a big mistake and it's super painful. Whereas having mistakes when you're a kid, it feels painful for them, but they'll get over it and they'll learn.
Will (15m 49s):
And by the time they're adults they would've gone, "I remember when I bought that toy or I did this or that with my pocket money. I'm now much more ready for the world. "
Phil (15m 57s):
It's funny though, how some kids are intuitively, you know, even from a young age, as soon as they got money, that's all they'll do, they'll save it. They don't want to spend a cent. And other kids, as soon as I get it, they're off buying their new skateboard or their doll or whatever it is that they want.
Will (16m 11s):
Yeah. And it happens within the family as well. So you have two children and one's a saver and one's a spender. And the key piece about that is you can train kids. And I think some are like, oh, he's just naturally a spender or is naturally a saver, she's naturally a saver, but you can train kids. And one area that actually is the key difference is patience generally. So if you look at the characteristics of those children and patience can be taught and kind of needs to be taught, especially as we're talking about investing. Essentially, if you haven't got patience, you are going to be rubbish and investing. So you'd need to train your kids to be patient. So I say to parents, if you're giving your children like a chocolate bar, let them eat most of it, but get them to save just a little bit for tomorrow.
Will (16m 54s):
And if they do, give them a little reward. Again, showing that patience doesn't need to be, you restrict yourself of everything today. You just restrict yourself a little bit and you'll get rewarded for that in the future. And the more kids can see that patients is rewarded, the more financially healthy I expect them to grow.
Phil (17m 10s):
What do you believe it's so important for parents to be talking to kids about money now more than ever?
Will (17m 17s):
So now more than ever, it's just changed this cashless society. We're moving to a world where money is invisible. So they can't see money be in transactions and
Phil (17m 27s):
It's becoming imaginary, isn't it?
Will (17m 29s):
It is. And there's horror stories of kids spending thousands of dollars on these apps and they're just pressing a button. And when they ask, they're just like, "Oh, I thought it was like Monopoly money. I didn't realise it was real." And the parents are going to the credit card companies going, "There's been a mistake." And yeah, the kids just see it as a button or piece of card and it doesn't feel real. So parents need to now be more proactive in teaching their kids about money and saying that "A transaction has gone through, mommy and daddy have been working to earn this money, it's on in this account. And when you press this button, it goes out of our household into a company's books." And so that's really, really important. And the other element is the social pressure is now so much more than it was when we were growing up.
Will (18m 11s):
Our social pressure was with our friends. And most of the time your friends are in the same social economic status. And so you'd compare and you'd always find if they've got a slightly better bike. But it's very unlikely they're going to be millionaires and you're going to be not being able to afford anything. Whereas today, kids are comparing themselves to the whole world. So they go on social media and everyone's the richest kid in the world. "And why are these kids so lucky and we're so unlucky not to be able to have this stuff?" So again, teaching kids about money, about wants, needs, the value where money comes from, what actually makes you happy, is so more important than it's ever been before.
Will (18m 50s):
And yeah, kids are picking up money stuff from the age of seven. So it's so, so important.
Phil (18m 55s):
So what are the three most important things that parents need to teach to the kids about money?
Will (19m 1s):
Yeah. So in my mind, the first one is the forming of savings habit. As the research shows that many kids formed many of their adult money behaviours by the age of seven. So that's one. Every time that children get some money, no matter how small it is, for birthday, pocket money to save just at least 10% of it. So if they get $1, get them to save 10 cents. I know it can be feeling like, "Oh, is it worth it?" It definitely is because those 10 cents will add up. They'll become bigger and bigger and they'll just get into that habit. So as they start getting more or earning more and saving that 10% and they just, they just put it aside because that's just what they do. It's number one. The second is to get them to save up for something.
Will (19m 41s):
And so getting kids to say, "Right, I'm not going to have this now, I'm going to have it in the future." And that just allows them to start A) going, "Right, what do I want in the future? Do I want that or that?" Because it's moving away from this impulse spending. It's going from, I'm going to be consciously spending and it shows them to be patient. They can't have it now, they're going to have it in the future. So that's number two. And the third is to make sure they kind of know how much money they do have. And I think this is really important because the more they see how much they have and how it changes over time as they start saving, they can start to ask questions. They can get that sense of over time, these little bits do add up.
Will (20m 22s):
And if you are investing for your kids or with your kids, they'll see that money can grow. I think that is such a powerful one. And in the book we talk about this little girl and she's investing her money. And I think that's just such an important topic. Most parents aren't comfortable themselves, but I reckon if you start talking to your children about it, it's not going to help your children. It's probably going to spur on a lot of parents and adults to start investing as well.
Phil (20m 46s):
Have you found that some parents are learning things that they didn't know from giving this book to their kids?
Will (20m 51s):
Yeah. A hundred percent, lots of parents are sitting. And the best feedback is when they say "We bought this book and we're reading it together." 'Cause that's what I want. Whilst it's aged 7 to 13 so kids can read it on their own, I love it when parents are reading it with. Because most parents have never been taught about money. And so this book kind of gives them the foundations of money in the most non-condescending, patronizing way. It's fun stories. And you can kind of learn with your children. And yeah, because it talks about investing. It talks about debt, tax, charity, giving. And these topics are just generally never taught. People get different impressions of them as they're growing up. But this kind of gives a foundation. So yeah, lots of adults are reading it before them.
Will (21m 32s):
They're saying, "I bought this for my kids for Christmas but I've read it already." But the other one is that at the end of each chapter, I'd put a little question about the story or about the characters or about what they've just read. And it says "Discuss with your parents or teachers or", and it has a random character to speak to so goldfish or favourite teacher. But yeah, so kids are reading a chapter. And then I messaged yesterday saying "My child loved the book. He surprised my wife though 'cause he went and asked a question about tax and she was like, where does this come from?" So starting that conversation. And what I wanna really do is kind of break down the taboo subject of money and have the book talked about at home using characters and stories. So that kids feel comfortable talking about money rather than "We don't talk about money, money's a bad thing", which is clearly not a healthy way to grow up.
Phil (22m 20s):
Due to legal reasons and kids can't invest directly, how difficult is it to teach them about investing as opposed to saving?
Will (22m 27s):
So, yeah, so I think it's really important. And so we invest on behalf of my two daughters. Every month we put some money away and if they get some pocket money or any money, they can choose to put their money into the investment account, we do it on their behalf. And it's quite a, so they say to us, so my company is called blue tree savings, and so any money that they save, we say, "Oh, you've got this many blue trees." So they say, "Daddy, can we put some money towards our blue trees or daddy, how many blue trees do we have?" So we're doing that since they were very young. And then when it was about, they're about seven, well my oldest was seven, we were in Hong Kong and in McDonald's and I said to them, "Look, we actually own a piece of this McDonald's because we invest in a global index funds that invest in thousands of companies and one of those is McDonald's.
So you own a piece of this. You own a bit of this tray, this table. All those people queuing up for their Big Macs. They're going to give some money to McDonald's and then some of that's going to be yours." And they're like, "Wow." And they got really excited. And I was like, "Not just this one, but all about Donald's around the world." And then we went around the shopping centre and there was the Apple store. And again, "All those people buying iPhones and iPads, some of that money is yours." And for them, they just got so excited that they owned it and how much money. Granted, they didn't realise just how small the fraction that they owned, but they still got excited.
Phil (23m 48s):
That's the disappointment to come.
Will (23m 49s):
But the more they say they knew they were, kind of, more and more of these companies. And it just changed their perception of money. It's like, this is how money grows. Because when people buy a burger or buy an iPhone, the person buying gets a little bit poorer, the company gets a bit richer, the company is owned by people and that people is the people who invest. So it's just a circle and you're at the top of that kind of chain. So I felt it was so such an important lesson for them and they understood them why money grows. Because we're saying, "When we invest in McDonald's McDonald's can create new burgers or new restaurants. That means more people are going to go and spend more money, more money McDonald's makes the more money you make and the bigger your trees grow."
Will (24m 33s):
And so I felt that was really important. But using the tree analogy even further, we can then talk about storms. And so we talk about these storms that come along and this is like a stock market crash. And the tree analogy works really well because when we say there's a big storm, we don't go and chop our trees down. Trees might get broken, but we know that after a storm, the tree grows back bigger and stronger. And that's just a really nice analogy to what you should do when investing. So sometimes I show my daughters, the stock market app on my phone. And if it's green, we celebrate because that means our trees are growing. But when it's red, we're like, "Oh, storm's come. That's okay, it's a good time to start planting some more because the ground is moist and great for planting."
Will (25m 13s):
And we know that we've got this comfort. I think that just gives them such an advantage over many investors who start when they're adults, when they're playing with big amounts of money and they'd never experienced these kinds of stock market downturns in their life and don't have this kind of nice association with kind of trees growing.
Phil (25m 32s):
Anyone who's promoting a book or any kind of writing or blog, there's tools where you can go to Google and see what search term people are searching for. And you've experienced that there are not many people searching for things like "teaching investing for kids" or terms like that. That really shocks and surprises me.
Will (25m 51s):
Yeah. It's just not a big search term. And it's one of the reasons why I started Blue Tree, was there wasn't that many resources out there for parents to teach their kids about money. There are some good books, but they're not mainstream. You know? And I said to most people "What's your favourite kids book about money?" Most wouldn't have an answer or there would be a completely random book. And so I kind of looked into it. And yeah, so I've been selling my book now for a month and in terms of organic growth, it's been doing really well and lots of people are enjoying it and spreading the word and buying it in bulk. But yeah, when I've been doing the research to do advertising, yeah, the terms aren't that popular so you have to spend a bit of money.
But it's just not top of mind for so many families to say, "Right, I want to go buy my child a present for Christmas. I know, I'm going to go and buy them a book to teach them about money." And some of that is because some of the books out there are like textbooks. So if I was a child and I got a textbook in my Christmas stocking, I wouldn't be very happy. So that it's kind of how'd you get parents to say, "All right, I want to teach my kids about money"? And that's going to be the challenge. And that's why it's so great that people like yourself are helping promote this topic today. But it's more and more, we need to get governments, companies, schools talking about this so it does become more top of mind for children and families such that when people are going on to their computer and thinking about their children, they're going, "How do I teach my kids about money?"
And so, yeah, it's been a really interesting dynamic and I'm kind of learning and going through this. And it is becoming a more and more popular topic. I am seeing more and more newspapers and media starting to pick up on this topic. But it's still at it's, kind of, infancy at the moment. But I'm hoping me and others that I speak to who're in on this kind of campaign to try and get more children and families talking about money. We're going to see it become a much more popular search term in the future.
Phil (27m 42s):
So how can people find the book and get it? I believe you've only just got your hard copy in Vietnam.
Will (27m 50s):
I do. Yeah. So it's on Amazon, is the main places since I self-published. And so people who want to buy a copy, then Amazon's the best place to go to do that. But if people are looking to buy for clients or school i.e. in bulk, then please come directly to me. So it's will@bluetreesavings. If you can leave that in the notes, then I can help organize bigger ones at a discount outside of Amazon.
Phil (28m 13s):
And that's your website as well, isn't it?
Will (28m 14s):
Yeah. So bluetreesavings.com is my website where I have my weekly blogs on there, links to the book. I also have an online course to help parents who want to, sort of, digest my, sort of, nearly a hundred blogs, put the sort of key piece into a video format. So that's on my website as well.
Phil (28m 31s):
Fantastic. Will Rainey, thank you very much for joining me today.