Money Lessons from a Two-Year Old

For those of you who may not know, I have a two year old son named Nicholas who I adore and is by far the most important thing in my life. More important than this blog, more important than promoting my new book, far more important than my day job, and right up there with saving money. And the only reason why I say that is because saving money allows me to provide him with the best life I can possibly create.

Having said that, it is amazing how many money/life lessons there are that I have learned from him. Granted, he certainly doesn’t sit down with me and outline them in the form of a lecture. Far from it. More, it is in some of the simple ways that he acts and some of the off-the-cuff things that he says.
Once I looked a little deeper inside of these, I really took them to heart and realized what valuable lessons they really are.

Here are just a few:

“I can’t do it.“-A while back, whether it was climbing up on the couch, or learning to walk, or bouncing a basketball, his first response was always “I can’t do it.” Before I could convince him otherwise, it was starting to affect his ability to want to try to do new things. He was starting to instill in himself this belief that there were actually things out there in life that he could not accomplish. With a little coaching and positive reinforcement, I got him to stop saying that. He now approaches any challenge with the gritty determination of someone much older than he.

Lesson: You really can do anything in life.

“Try.” – Well, this kind of naturally follows from the first lesson. After I got him to stop muttering the “I can’t do it” phrase, he realized that most of the time, he could accomplish anything by just trying. Now, the couch that he couldn’t climb up on is conquered easily, and the basketball that he couldn’t bounce very well a few weeks ago, he can now keep going for as long as he wants to (and toss it in his little kiddie basketball net when he’s done!)

Lesson: Most of time, all you really need to do to accomplish anything in life is to try. To honestly try.

“It’s Mine.”-Although when he utters this phrase in a selfish fashion I try to discourage it and teach him the virtues of sharing, sometimes, I actually promote this mindset. For example, sometimes when he is combing through his toy box, he will say this “It’s mine” as though to say, this toy is mine and so I’m going to keep it in a good spot and make sure that I take good care of it so nothing happens to it. Now that is an idea that I think is great to have, especially in the mind of a two year old.

Lesson: We work so hard to bring good things in our life, why is it so hard to take care of them once they are there?

I wrote these out as more of being life lessons, and they are, but they are especially true when applied to our finances. If you’re struggling to pay bills, drowning in debt, or trying to get just a little bit ahead of the game, most of the time what is holding you back is the mindset that you are somehow incapable of getting to the next level. Anything can be accomplished!

Which goes to the second lesson. How do we get to this next level? Well, the best way to do that is simple. Try! Yep, just try. I have come across soooo many people out there who are just too afraid to take that first step, too hesitant to step out of their comfort zone that they wallow in their current financial state for absolutely no reason. It was how I lived my life for a long time until I decided to do something about it.

And finally, most of us out there work so hard for our money, and then it’s like we decide to just sit on our collective asses as it rolls out of our lives unnecessarily, as though there’s nothing we can do about it. One of the simplest lessons I learned over the years is this-if you work hard to bring money into your life, why not work at least a little hard to keep it there? A simple concept, but one that is majorly overlooked.

And all of this I leaned from a two year old boy!