If you’ve got kids just coming out of college or starting out in their adult life, how many times have you had this conversation?

Kid:                        I think I want to buy a new TV, but I don’t have any cash.

Parent:                 You should save up for that.

Kid:                        That’s OK, I have a credit card.

Parent:                What’s the interest rate on that card?

Kid:                        Huh?

Parent:                 The interest rate.  What is the rate on your card.

Kid:                        I don’t know what you’re talking about.  I just make the minimum payment they tell me every month.

Parent:                 Oh, dear God (rolls their eyes).

This may not even be a conversation with a kid, but it may be with a spouse or adult sibling.

One of the greatest failings we have as parents (and a society) is NOT teaching any sort of financial literacy to young adults.  We’ve raised an entire generation of financial idiots.  People can’t track their money, they can’t budget, they don’t understand interest rates, and have no idea how taxes work.  A recent 2023 survey found that 78% of Americans say they live paycheck to paycheck, and as a nation, we carry a staggering $1.129 trillion (yes, I said trillion – that’s a one with twelve zeros after it) dollars in credit card debt.

Why are people surprised by these statistics? 

The management of money on a personal level is critical to success in life, yet we talk less about it than the latest Netflix series.  We require kids to take driver’s education and tell them they need a four-year degree in order to get a good job (don’t even get me started on that lie), but when it comes to talking about finances and handling their money?

Crickets.

Now, growing up, my parents never talked about money.  If I asked my father how much he made, he would have clenched up his fist, given me the “stink eye”, and told me it was none of my business, but he also never sat down and showed me how to write a check or talk about CDs or retirement accounts.  I, like most people I know, had to learn all of that on my own, and trust me, I made plenty of mistakes along the way.

I see plenty of folks who buy new houses, drive shiny and new cars and trucks, and take fancy vacations every year, but then complain that they are swamped with bills, don’t have any money, or that they’ll have to work until they are 100 years old and will never be able to retire.  Yet they’ve never heard of the 50-30-20 rule, an emergency fund, or understand how a 401(k) works.     

I’m a firm believer that we should REQUIRE high school seniors to take a year-long financial literacy course in order to graduate.  If nothing else, it will help them understand what they are getting into when they whip out that Visa card to pay for an overpriced Starbucks or sign up for a 5-year (or more) car loan.

This continuing fallacy that young adults will “figure it out” is lunacy, and before they know it, these kids (now young adults) are trapped in minimum wage jobs they hate, in debt up to their ears, and using all of their earning power to pay someone else, instead of laying the foundation for their own successful financial future.

Now, I’m not saying that they will listen (do you know any seventeen-year-old that doesn’t think they are the smartest person in the room?), but even if only one nugget of financial information percolates through their Instagram, Tik-Tok, Facetime fog, it will be worth it.

Their futures depend on it, and we should stop shrugging our shoulders about passing along life changing information about money and worrying instead about who wore what to the Met Gala or how many people are buying Taylor Swift albums.  Trust me, anyone who has a family and is struggling with their finances month-in and month-out doesn’t give a sh*t about any of that.

They are concerned about “whens”.  When am I going to be able to pay this electric bill?  When am I going to be able to set aside some money for retirement?

Financial literacy replaces the “whens” with “hows”.  This is how to set up an emergency fund.  This is how to choose a mortgage rate.  This is how to budget your paycheck.  This is how to get out of credit card debt (or not get into it in the first place).

If the “hows” come first, the “whens” get easier later on.  Wouldn’t you have killed to know some “hows” back in your own early days?  It may have changed some of your life decisions, and probably for the better.

We owe that to the next generation, at the very least.