Teach kids how car financing works with simple lessons on borrowing, real costs, and smart choices, plus get our Toy Financing Game to make money skills stick
Cars are everywhere in our mini millionaires’ world.
School runs, driving on holiday, even trips to visit Granny and Grandpa. Some like to feel it go fast, or make a loud noise, or perhaps slip in behind the wheel pretending to drive while the car is parked in the driveway.
What they don’t see is the paperwork behind the steering wheel: The initial loan (plus interest), the insurance, the pain at the pump every time we put in petrol…
The cost of owning a car has increased drastically over the last 10 years, outpacing inflation by nearly 40%.
But there’s a teachable moment here amongst the financial implications of private vehicle ownership.
Instead of waiting until our kids have signed their first car’s offer to purchase, we can use cars as a simple, everyday way to talk about borrowing, trade-offs, and what “affordable” really means.
Every big purchase is a choice between “now” and “later”.
Car finance can look like “free access” to a brand new car right now.
But here’s the thing, buying a car is not just a once-off price; but it’s actually a long-term commitment.
In South Africa, vehicle and asset finance is one of the major categories of consumer credit, alongside home loans and credit cards, showing just how common car debt has become. 
You can explain it to your mini millionaire like this: “When we take out car financing, we’re saying yes to this car now, but no to some future choices, because part of our money is now earmarked for a car repayment every month.”
Takeaway: Purchasing a car on credit is a long-term commitment.
Teach “total cost thinking”, not just “sticker price thinking”.
Kids usually hear, “This car costs R300 000.”
But that’s merely the dealership’s sticker price, not the real cost.
In reality, South African drivers face petrol costs, car insurance, licence fees, tyres, services, parts, and other consumables, all of which start adding up fast, with the additional annual cost of running a car reaching tens of thousands of rands, even for smaller cars.
But what this presents is an opportunity for conversation with your mini millionaire. Whenever you see a car advert, ask them, “What else would we have to pay for each month to keep this car on the road?”
Takeaway: Learning to count the real cost helps make wiser choices later.
Instead of a lecture on interest, turn their next big want into a pretend car finance deal.
Pick a toy, game, or outing and set a “purchase price”.
(Bonus points if it’s a toy car…)
Then agree on: a deposit, monthly “instalments” deducted from their pocket money (juuuust like a debit order), and a simple extra cost for “interest” if they choose to pay it off slowly instead of saving up for it first.
The real lesson here is when your mini millionaire sees how they end up with less pocket money in future months because they are paying off the toy, game, or outing.
Takeaway: Kids grasp how financing works faster when they can see and feel repayments in real life.
To make car financing easier for kids to understand, we created a simple hands-on activity called The Toy Financing Game.
Instead of explaining interest and instalments in theory (yawn), this worksheet lets your mini millionaire experience how financing works using something fun like a toy, game, or even an outing.
They choose an item, decide on a deposit, add a bit of interest, and then work out monthly “repayments” from their pocket money.
The magic moment is when they see how those repayments reduce their future spending. It’s a playful, practical way to teach real-world borrowing and budgeting.
