How to teach kids to use money to create opportunities, with a mindset to cultivate, a habit to form, a tip to try, and a free Seed Money Plan
If you were to ask your mini millionaire about the real reason we have money, we’re pretty certain they’d say it’s to buy stuff…
And they’re not entirely wrong.
But money can also do so much more than disappearing at the tuck shop or at the Crazy Store. It can open up doors of opportunity.
A little cash can become the ingredients for a batch of rusks baked from Grandma's secret recipe, to learn a skill, or even investing in their first small venture.
South Africa runs on this instinct already. Everything from spaza shops to weekend hustles, car park boerie rolls to matric dance lifts, we know how to turn an opportunity into profit.
So if you can help your mini millionaire learn from an early age that money is a key, not just a treat, you can hand them a head start.
Money can be a seed, not just a sweet.
Kids see money as a one-way ticket to get that thing they really want. And then poof, it's gone.
But luckily, the reframe is pretty simple: some spending vanishes, while some spending grows.
R60 to spend at the tuck shop could rather be spent on the ingredients for a batch of brownies to sell during break. And those brownies could bring in R120, maybe more.
Those brownie ingredients are actually an asset, as it’s something you own that makes you money. The lesson is helping your mini millionaire spot which kind of spending they're about to do, before the money even leaves their hand.
Takeaway: Ask whether their money disappears or grows on this spend.
Let the Sow Jar answer the question.
If you've been reading Mini Millionaires for a while, you’ll likely have read about the Sow Jar. It’s the Jar you set aside for investing and growing rather than spending.
The habit worth building is the question that fills it. Before any money goes anywhere, you need to ask your mini millionaire: "could this grow, or open a door?"
Ask that one question often enough and it stops being a rule you enforce and becomes the way your mini millionaire thinks about every rand.
Takeaway: One question, asked repeatedly, turns saving into instinct.
Run a tiny venture this weekend.
Pick something small your child can make or sell this weekend, like koeksisters or amagwinya before school, cold drinks at a sports match, or a car wash for neighbours.
You float them a small amount to get what they need for the first one, be it the ingredients for koeksisters, cold drinks, or even the soaps, cloths and chamois for the car wash.
They sell (or wash), pay you back what you lent them, and they keep the profit. (Plus, as a shareholder in their business, you might be well within your rights to check the quality of those koeksisters…)
And that’s when the real learning starts. Instead of spending all of it, they put some back in for a bigger batch next time. Small ventures are a great way to teach the financial skills and confidence that textbooks just can't.
One weekend, one full loop, and boom, opportunity made from scratch.
Takeaway: Borrow small, sell stuff, pay back, reinvest, repeat.
This week's free resource helps your mini millionaire turn their tiny venture plans into action.
The My Seed Money Plan walks them through the whole loop: what to sell, what they need to make it, how many items they can make, the price to charge, and the profit left once they've paid you back.
It's the seed-not-a-sweet mindset on a single page, and it makes that first little hustle feel completely doable.
Print it, fill it in, and get selling.
