You know what it is. That's right. It's time to talk money with your money nerd and financial coach. Now tighten those purse strings and open those ears. It's the money talk with Tiff podcast. Hey, everyone. I am so excited because I have Maya Corbeck on the line now. Maya is here to talk to us about something we haven't talked about on the podcast before, and that's getting kids started with investing. So. Hey, Maya, how are you? Hi. I'm doing well. How are you,
Tiffany? I'm doing good. Great. This has been a long time coming from when I met you at Fincon last year, but we can spare the audience the details. Let's hop right in. So, first and foremost, when we're talking about getting kids started with investing, what ages are we talking about here?
So, you know, the actual investing, I would say it would be a little bit later on when they're eight years old, but I don't think that it hurts to talk, even to our four or five year olds, and just casually mention, you know, like, if you're going to the bank to maybe deposit some money or if you're doing something, maybe if you're checking your investments, if they ask, it's really good to talk to them and just normalize talking to kids about investing and normalizing the fact that we are
investors, and one day they're going to be, too. So I would definitely start earlier talking about it and making it not taboo, but when they're about eight years old, that's when I would really start getting them more involved. Gotcha. Gotcha. Now, you mentioned just start talking about it at, like, four. So now if somebody's listening, they're like, oh, I have a four or five year old, and how do I even start this conversation? Like, what will they understand?
So it would be like, for example, let's say you are, you know, you are checking your investments, and you're like, you know, maybe on your laptop, and your kid comes in and wants your attention, and if it's nothing urgent, right? Like, it's something that, you know, maybe they could just, like, wait minute, right? So it could be a conversation like, hey, you know what? Mommy is just looking at my investments.
I'm looking at my money. And, you know, sometimes they might just walk away and they're not even interested in, like, what you're looking at. But if they start asking questions, that's usually when it's a good time to respond. So younger kids who are in kindergarten, they can actually understand, like, when we tell them that, you know, sometimes we can have money that grows and money that makes money babies, which would be the interest on our investments.
So if they ask you, like, hey, mom, what you're doing, what is it that you're doing on the computer? You could just say, like, mommy is like, looking at my money and making sure that my money is growing and that it's also giving me money babies. That's one of the easiest ways to explain it. Gotcha. I love the money babies concept. It just makes me giggle every time you say it. But it's so
true. It puts it in a way where they could kind of grasp, because, you know, if they play with dolls and things like that, they're like, oh, baby, baby. And so it's like, oh, my money has money babies. That's right. It keeps growing. There's more of it, right? I love it. All right, so let's say, for instance, we have someone listening. They have an eight or nine year old, so they're a little more advanced. How can they start the conversation about investing and actually get them into it?
Yeah. So at that age, there are a few things that they can do. Sometimes kids, when they get money for their birthdays or special occasions, like, let's say Christmas, that's the money that I, what I did with my kids is that I would actually let them spend half, but the other half needed to be put into savings account when they were around eight years
old. I would actually show them on the computer. I would, on the computer screen, I would show them the statement from their savings account and tell them, this money is just sitting there. It's not really growing. It's not giving them money babies. So we could put it into a certificate of deposit. We could buy a certificate of deposit. And that's a big word for them. So they don't know what that is. But, you
know, it's just one way to get some money babies. And you may not get a lot, but, you know, it could be one thing that we do with them first, which is what I did with my son and then with that, like, because he realized with just a regular savings account, I think he made, was it like fifteen cents a month or something like that. This is, you know, we're talking years ago when the interest rates were a lot lower on savings accounts. And then he realized that he could be making more money.
So we purchased a certificate of deposit, and then I think he got like $60 at the end of the year. And then I said to him, I'm like, well, you know, you could be making even more money if we invested into stock. And I just try to normalize that. Stocks are basically companies that we're investing in, we're investing in that
business. So I would tell them that instead of being a consumer, and I'm just going to use Apple as an example here, it doesn't mean everybody should be investing in Apple, but a lot of kids have iPads, they have phones. So instead of being the consumer of Apple, you could be owner of Apple. You could be one of many owners by purchasing their shares of stock. So at that point in time that we started slowly focusing on purchasing these
shares of stock of companies they knew. But I kind of took them after that time period, I took them to the next level, which was introducing them to ETF's and index funds, which are my absolutely favorite investment vehicles, because then I would tell them that instead of just investing in one or two companies because that's all they had money for when they invested in ETF's and index fund, they were investing in a lot more companies. It could be like
500 largest american companies. So it's almost like there's this, there are these different steps that we can take to teach our kids about investing. Okay, so first start off by just explaining what a stock is like. It's a little piece of a company. And you mentioned something about certificate of deposits, just in case we have people listening that have no idea what that is. What are those? So a certificate of deposit is basically an investment product that you can actually
purchase. And it's very safe, meaning that, you know, there's a very, very low risk of you losing your money. And in return, you actually get a certain, certain amount of money back by investing in that product. And a lot of times your money is locked in for a period of time. And that means you cannot take your money out, you cannot withdraw it. And that's one of the reasons why, you know, it's kind of guaranteed because somebody else, usually the
bank, is using that money to invest into something else. So, you know, those kind of investment products are good for people that want to make sure that they get their money back and that are very risk averse. They are just really scared of investing in stocks. And also, it could be because you are going to need that money in a short period of time for something else and you want to make sure that the amount of money that you've invested doesn't deem decrease at all because
you know you're going to need that money. So instead of just having it sit in a savings account and not really earning you as much money. It could be better to put it in maybe a certificate of deposit. We have cds, we have stocks explaining to kids what stocks are and letting them pick one that they may already be using. So, like you said, you know, if they have an iPad or iPhone, maybe they want to invest in Apple, if they play Xbox, maybe Microsoft, so on and so
forth. And then the next step is, once they do individual stocks, just to get their feet wet, is to invest them. Then the next step is to introduce them to ETF's and mutual funds. Now, once we get to the ETF's and mutual funds, how are you, like, are you explaining to them the details? Like, as far as, like, oh, these are expense ratios, you know, all of that, or how are you introducing that topic? I actually, I don't really, I haven't explained the ratios
to my kids just because they don't seem very interested. I mean, I have a 17 and a 15 year old, so I. And they invest in ETF's and index funds. But the way I explained to them is that I said, you know, I kind of compared it to what they did before. And I said, okay, you had, I forget how much. It was, like $200 or whatever, and you were only able to purchase, like, one share of,
let's say, apple. And, you know, at the time. But now, you know, for just a little bit more money, you could be purchasing shares of, let's say, 500 largest companies. If you invest in, let's say, Voo, ETF, and ETF is basically exchange traded fund. And for those of you who are listening, is essentially, by buying one share of ETF, let's say, voo, you are investing in 500 largest companies in us that are based on
the index called S and P 500. And in order to be listed on this index, the companies have to be performing really well. And if they're not, that company is taken off the index and it's replaced by a different company. So it's kind of like a self cleansing process. And then, but,
you know, that's automatically done for you. When you, when you purchase this ETF, it's almost like whatever is part of your investment portfolio, it's taken care of, because these companies are, you know, they're at one point in time, like, they're part of the index, the S and P 500 index. And at some point, maybe they're not because they're not a well performing company. So all that's being
done for you. And the beautiful thing about ETF's, which is what I always tell my kids, is that the fees, the management fees are a lot lower than I know. You mentioned mutual funds, like mutual funds have higher management fees because there is actually a person that's managing what is included as part of that mutual fund. You know, what stocks make it up and what bonds make it up. But here, it's like, it's very different with ETF's and index funds. It's just self cleansing process,
and the fees are very low. Gotcha. Gotcha. Now I want to, because you have a book out, and it's called from piggy banks to stocks, the ultimate guide for a young investor. And when we had met at Finkan, you gave me a copy, and I love it because it's like a little word book, and it has pretty pictures and things like that. But if you can let our audience know just some of the things that they would get with the book, how that can help their children,
so on and so forth. Yeah, absolutely. And thank you for bringing that up. So the book is actually, when I wrote this book, I wrote it for the younger me, because I just want everybody to understand I didn't grow up with this stuff. I'm a first generation immigrant who actually immigrated from a communist country, so there was no stock market there, and my parents couldn't even teach me this even if they wanted to. So I had to learn this on
my own. And I'm a CPA. And a lot of times people say, oh, you are CPA, you just. You learned this. But I didn't learn this in school. I had to learn it on my own. And the beautiful thing about stock market, what I realized after learning it, is learning about it on my own, is that it's not as complicated as we're led to believe. There's a lot of complex jargon that just makes it sound like it's this complex thing, and you need
to be a genius. It's really not. Even the famous investor, Peter lynch, said, like, you just have to finish grade four math in order to be able to invest. So the book is actually written in a language that a ten year old can understand. And when I was writing it, I had all these families test it. So it was parents and kids that were going through it and giving me
feedback so that I can make it more user friendly. And it was actually the parents that were telling me that they were learning so much from the book that they wish they had a book like this when they were younger. So the reason why the book has a lot of pictures, and it's written in a ten year old language is because it's really meant to be non intimidating. And I like this is literally investing 101. It explains the basics of investing
and in such a way that anybody can understand it. And I feel like because we didn't learn this when we were younger, as adults, we need to learn it now. And it's okay to learn it in a, you know, in a book that's full of pictures and colors. And it's okay because we didn't learn it when we should have. So let's learn it now and make it easy because it's really not that complex. Gotcha. Gotcha. Yeah. Thank you so much for that. So you would say the book is for,
let's say, eight, nine and up. I usually say, like, ages ten and up, but I did have people message me on instagram. You know, there was a grammar who told me he purchased this for his grandson who's five years old. And it was actually like his daughter sent him pictures and said, oh, you know, it's whatever the book you sent him, whatever my son is learning, it's actually clearly paying off because the little kid was. I forget what it is. Again, I posted this on my instagram. It's one of
the highlights. But the kid was like a five year old was talking about investing and about asking about his stocks. And it was marvelous because you would never expect somebody that young to talk about the stock market and, you know, investments. Yes. That is so awesome. And like I said, I have the book. I might actually go ahead and get my youngest son started on it now because he's about to turn ten in June. So it's like perfect timing. So, yeah, I love it. I thought it was so cute when
you showed me. I was like, I gotta get you on the podcast to talk about this. So I appreciate you coming on and giving us a tips about getting our kids started with investing. Now, if people wanted to learn more about you or find out more about your book, how could they find you? So the book is available on Amazon and any bookstore on, on their website. And it's called from piggy banks to stocks. The ultimate guide for a young investor. And I'm usually hanging out a lot on
Instagram. My handle is teach kids dot money, and I usually post a lot of free tips on how to teach kids about money. And I'm happy to answer any of your questions. Feel free to message me there. Gotcha. And I'll make sure I have all of those links in the show notes. So if you didn't catch anything, just check the show notes. It'll be there. Thank you so much, Maya, for coming on the show today. I truly appreciate all the gems that
you dropped. And like I said, y'all, that book is so cute. I'm definitely kidding, but I appreciate you coming on and letting us know about how to talk to kids about investing. Thank you so much for having me on the show, Tiffany. Bye. Thank you for listening, joining and being a part of the Money Talk with TIFF
podcast this week. You can check Tiff out every Thursday for a new Money talk podcast, but if you just can't wait until next week, you can listen to previous podcast [email protected] or follow tiffany on all social media platforms at Moneytalk with t. Until next time, spend wise by spending less than you make a word to the money wise is always sufficient.