I had the pleasure of a phone conversation with my 5-year old niece, Olivia, the other night.  We were chatting about her first weeks in Kindergarten.  Apparently, Ian had brought in a pretty nifty coin collection because she talked about it for about a minute, which, if you know anything about five-year-olds, is a pretty long time for any one topic!

So that led to a discussion (albeit, short) on money.  I asked her what she knew about money.  “You buy stuff with it.” 

“If you could buy anything you wanted, what would you buy?” I asked her.

“Bubble gum, candy, and toys,” she replied.  Hmmm, I was thinking.  Time to get her mom to put her on an allowance program using KidsSave.

I knew I didn’t have much time left with this topic so I if I was going to only get one more question in, this was it:

“Do you save any of the money you get?”

The answer was priceless (pun intended!).  “Yes!  One day I want to be rich.”

And there it is.   Five-year olds know what money is for, they know it’s important, and they know that if they want to be rich, they’re going to have to save some of it.  And just when I was going to ask a follow-up question, she says, “I’m done talking about money.  Let’s talk about Halloween.”