This is the title of a book idea I developed several years ago. I’m embarrassed to write that because of the time I’ve allowed to pass doing other things instead of sending out a book proposal for it.

The book is geared toward children and teaches them about money.

I don’t remember how I learned to balance a checkbook using the registry. My parents never taught me. I must have gotten the checking account with the registry and figured it out. No one else talked to me about saving money, credit cards, insurance, or investing.

My family never talked about money. There always seemed to be money for things like food, necessities, fun, and vacations. As a kid, I got to experience other states when I traveled with my family by car to New York, Florida, Alabama, Massachusetts, and New Jersey. We went to Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, twice. Not too shabby for a middle-class family with six kids. I never had to worry about money or even thought about it. I didn’t want much. I think I knew what we could afford and couldn’t, even though it was unspoken. But more importantly, I didn’t think I deserved anything more.

I got messed up with money in my early adulthood when I learned I could get a credit card.

It was like Christmas whenever I wanted it to be! I didn’t go nuts because I wasn’t that person, but I bought things I wouldn’t necessarily buy if I had to use cash. I went through many years of never having enough because my money was sucked up by credit cards. I knew the answer wasn’t that I was buying frivolous things but that I wasn’t earning enough money to support the life I wanted to live. And just to be clear, I’m not talking about an upper-class lifestyle where I surrounded myself with expensive things to feel good. No, no, no! I am a frugal person who finds deals. Only the deals are not deals if you’re paying interest on them. It’s been a vicious cycle, and I know the only way out is not using credit cards and paying them off.

For those of us who have credit cards, were you educated about them before you got them? I bet not. I wasn’t. There was no class that taught practical, USEFUL money information. That’s where the idea for the book, Wanna Be Rich? came into play. I taught my daughter about money. She bought her first house at 24 years old with a rental unit to subsidize the mortgage. She’s financially independent. I made sure she understood credit cards. Now more than ever, young people need to know the truth about debit and credit cards since so many things are paid for using cards.

Having an education about money is as necessary as knowing how to take care of yourself. It’s just as important. We need money to survive. Yes, some choose to live off the grid, living off the land as our forefathers did, and are perfectly happy, but for the rest of us who want to live in a house with heat and air conditioning, we need money.

We can get money in several ways:  earning it, receiving it, winning it, or stealing it.

Most of us want to earn it. When we earn money, we tend to watch where it goes more closely and feel prouder and better about ourselves. That may be why people who win large sums of money spend it quickly. They never had it before, and it didn’t feel natural, so it had to go. We are creatures of habit, and our mindset dictates how much money we deserve.

If you’re a parent, please teach your children about money.

It will be worth more to them than teaching them how to use the stove. They can always buy dinner, but you can’t buy more money.

Money is not evil. Repeat that. Again. Money is a tool for us to use to have a better life. We can use it for nice living space, better food, education, reliable transportation, and vacations that help us recharge and destress. Money is good.

The problem lies in what our tiny little brains absorbed about money as children.

Just because I never heard my parents talk to me about money doesn’t mean they didn’t have conversations that I overheard but didn’t understand as a child. I know my mother always held a job and had money that quickly dissipated while shopping for clothes, house things, hobby stuff, or gifts. It seemed to go much faster than it took her to earn it. I absorbed that stuff, and it programmed my mind about money and how I felt about it.

I could go on and on about this subject but want to keep the length consistent with my other blogs. I do want to write more about this idea.

Thank you for reading this, and I hope you have a great relationship with money. It doesn’t have to rule your life. You rule it. To be continued.

To Being Rich,

Francesca