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Waterfall Today’s Child


























        TEACH YOUR CHILDREN


        FINANCIAL LITERACY





                                                         By Sabrina                                                    IMAGE BY ALEXANDR PODVALNY



        According to SASI (the South African                  HOW DO WE REVERSE THIS TREND?

        Savings Institute), the savings culture               Over the long-term, the best way to get the population
                                                              to buy into improving our savings culture is to start with
        in SA is continuing to decline. It                    the kids. Enhancing one’s financial well-being is, after all,
                                                              a long-term exercise, so – as any financial adviser will tell
        wasn’t that healthy to begin with, but                you – it’s best to start young so that budgeting and wealth

        it seems that more and more people                    creation become an integral part of one’s life philosophy.

        are living beyond their means.                        HOW TO GET THE KIDS TUNED IN
                                                              The old fashioned way of getting children to appreciate money
                                                              was the notion of getting them to do chores around the home
        A        s opposed to countries like China, where the one   and then paying them for work done. But that could involve
                 child policy prevailed between 1980 and 2015,
                                                              a lot of nagging and effort from the parents – who may have
                                                              grown up with domestic staff, so they don’t really know much
                 and Japan and South Korea, where fewer couples
                 are opting to have children, giving rise to ageing
                                                              are a bad idea – they equip kids with life skills for other reasons
        populations, South Africa has a relatively young population,   about doing chores themselves. That’s not to say that chores
        with an estimated 20 million people aged between 15 and   too – knowing how to cook, clean, tidy up, do the laundry
        34. Reports from SASI indicate that these young people   – these are everyday tasks best learnt when one is young.
        have little interest in saving their money. They are more
        inclined to tap into the availability of credit to get what   On the upside, there are other ways to get the
        they want now, rather than delaying gratification until they   kids more street-smart about their finances.
        have enough funds to make a once-off, full payment. SASI
        attributes this trend to lack of financial literacy, not only   MAKE IT A GAME
        amongst the youth, but in all segments of the population.  One of the methods to get kids more engaged without
                                                              having to nag them is getting them involved in comparative
        “We need to fundamentally stop living beyond our means   shopping. You can discuss the pros and cons of bulk
        and drive a savings culture to break the cycle of inter-  buying vs buying a smaller quantity; retail strategies
        generational debt,” says Prem Govender, Chairperson of   such as 3 for 2 offers and loyalty cards that give you
        the SASI Board. “With the credit culture prevailing here in   discounts and ‘cash back’ at the end of a cycle; as well as
        South Africa, more and more people are paying money out   how much one can save by not having to pay for those
        merely to cover the finance charges and interest on their   plastic shopping bags – not a lot, in the bigger scheme
        debt, leaving little left over as actual disposable income.”  of things, admittedly, but 100 shopping bags over a


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