Lacey Filipich, Founder and Director of Money School & Maker Kids Club

"I like to tell people I’m what happens when financial education goes right.

I started saving half of every dollar I earned at 10, started investing at 19 and became financially independent at 31.

But it’s not like I woke up at 10 and thought ‘I want to be financially independent!’

My saving habit formed after my mum told me about compounding when we were driving to a school fete. She explained putting cash the bank to earn interest meant it would breed more money. And that money would make more money. It would earn interest no matter what I was doing – at school, playing, sleeping.

I was hooked.

It planted a seed of financial knowledge that’s grown to a substantial metaphorical tree these days.

People often assume my parents must have been rich to be teaching me lessons like that at 10.

Nope.

My parents separated when I was eight. They weren’t well off before the split. After, they both suffered financially, as most people do when they learn two divided by two during divorce doesn’t equal one – it’s less than one. Often much less.

As my savings habit was forming, my mother was looking into academic scholarships for me, as that was the only way I’d be getting a private school education. It took her a further nine years to buy her first investment: $1,000 worth of shares.

I’d already moved 4,000kms away from home to start my engineering career by the time my father even considered his first investment.

They taught me what to do and what not to do, slowly but surely, through hundreds of incidental conversations. Just like that one about compounding in the car.

They taught me what to do through sharing what went right financially. Which wasn’t much in the early days; mostly small wins like bargains struck and value wrung of every dollar spent.

They taught me what not to do by walking me through what went wrong. They were quick to admit when they’d made a bad call, or something had sneaked up on them.

They’re still teaching me now – though these days, the teaching goes both ways!

Whether you’re fabulously wealthy or struggling to get by, you can teach your children about money just like my folks taught me.

And I hope you do. That way, your child will be looking back in the 2040’s, thanking their lucky stars for having parents willing to teach them about money. Like I’m doing right now."

(PS. Thanks Mum and Dad!)