Taking Stock - Please Sir, can i have my lesson on savings?

Personal finance is fast becoming part of the school curriculum for children aged five to 11-years-old, after a study found that rich kids were no better prepared than their poorer neighbours for dealing with money in an adult world.

25,000 copies of ‘Money Counts’, a resource for primary school teachers, have already been distributed to schools in England, Northern Island and Scotland, with more copies earmarked for schools in Wales in the new year, to better prepare teachers with the arduous task of teaching personal finance to toddlers.

An FSA study, ‘A cycle of disadvantage: Financial exclusion in childhood’ found that kids in general do not grasp the two sides of the ‘money coin’ namely ‘savings’ and ‘investments’.

While poor kids in the survey knew very little about banks and financial institutions, compared to their more affluent neighbours, they could at least claim to better understand fundamental money skills like cash-budgeting and saving.

Rich kids, apparently only occasionally see cash being used and are fed lame excuses by their parents for not getting the things they wanted, while poor kids are told their parents cannot afford it.