Episode 034 – How to Financially Educate Your Children and Help them Reach FI 👨‍👩‍👧‍👦 | Brad from ChooseFI

Welcome to another episode with the one and only Brad from the ChooseFI Podcast! In this awesome episode we talk about Brad’s upbringing without financial education, strategies he’s using to educate his two daughters and whether he wants his children to reach FI.

We also talk about:

Geoarbitrage by moving within the US

Educating people towards FI

The ChooseFI Podcast and its local meetup groups

Compound interest and the power of saving

Money as a normal conversation topic in the family

Using ‘buckets’ as an educational tool!

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🧘🏻‍♂️🏄‍♀️🍹💸😎 Want to stay in the sun and surf with the brightest minds of the FI Europe tribe? Check our FI Europe Retreat 2019!

The importance of family in developing financial awareness

Brad reached financial independence 5 years ago. We discuss the role his parents played in developing his financial awareness; although they were able to provide everything he needed, they didn’t necessarily financially educate him. Brad is taking a completely different approach with his two daughters, ensuring that they are always aware of the money aspect of their lives but without micro-managing them. He tells us the strategies he uses to teach them about money management (it involves buckets 👀).

Including education into the financial independence movement

In the US (and pretty much everywhere in the world) there’s no education on basic everyday financial management, let alone financial independence. Most people follow the predefined path from college to the job world without developing the ability to manage their finances, while student loan debt can literally become killer and undermine any attempt to achieve independence at all. For this reason, Brad has started a not-for-profit foundation through the ChooseFI network: to him, financial independence is a life optimisation technique so you that once you’ve got the money side of things under control, you have the mental space to focus on what truly matters (e.g. living a good life).

Saving systematically can lead to mind blowing results

Brad sees saving as the cornerstone of achieving financial independence. He has saved systematically from the age of 22 to 35, and for him none of it was sacrifice. To him it’s not deprivation, it’s just a matter of careful management and strategic planning (moving from New York to Virginia being the main example). Saving doesn’t mean not spending: spending money is a part of life – saving is about having priorities and knowing what it is you value most. As Brad says, you can never go wrong if you’re constantly saving a significant part of your income. 💸

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Want to stay in the sun and surf with the brightest minds of the FI Europe tribe? Check our FI Europe Retreat 2019!

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