![]() ![]() POC: And did you write the book as you were teaching them? Tell me about the sequence. So, move back about six years, so my kids were pretty young, they were about five, six-years-old, maybe seven. my daughter now is 14, my son is 13, and Blake is the baby, he is now seven. POC: How young were your kids when you started teaching them? It is actually the story of me teaching my children about managing money and what money can do. Kids love bears and so that is how The Four Money Bears story came to be. Let’s create something that an elementary school would understand.” I said, “Okay, there’s only four things you can do with money – spend it, save it, invest it or give it away. In my first book I talk about the five steps to financial success: you have to plan accordingly, spend cautiously, save diligently, invest wisely, and give generously. MG: We both had young children at the time. I’d been blessed to spend 20-plus years in the financial services industry and decided that I wanted to write a book, I wanted to share my Mac nuggets and a lot of the different things that I’ve experienced in my time in the industry.Īnd after writing the first book, one of my clients came to me and said, “Mac, I really like this first book for adults, would you be open to writing something or creating something for children?” I said, “Well how young?” She said, “Well, elementary school.” I had my practice in Houston and it was just sitting inside me. The first book was called Motivate Your Money and I wrote it for adults. ![]() So The Four Money Bears is actually my second book. Tell me how you came up with the concept of the four money bears and how you use them to teach kids. POC: Well, let’s dive right into The Four Money Bears. I’m looking forward to sharing the story of The Four Money Bears and our journey to help children with children’s financial literacy. Mac, thank you so much for being with us today and talking to us. Mac and The Four Money Bears will be joining us today on CEO stories. The money bears help Mac, who is a CFP, author and founder of FinLit Tech, teach kids about financial literacy. We have all heard of Goldilocks and the Three Bears, but what about Mac Gardner and the Four Bears? The Four Money Bears, to be precise – save, spend, invest, and give – represent the four things we can do with money. POC: Welcome to CEO Stories for This is Capitalism. And Banker Box Turtle, Lender Lion, Omnibus Owl, and Crypto Cat will be some of the characters joining the Four Money Bears and Mac himself on the journey. Gardner says FinLit Tech’s goal is to build a bridge between financial literacy and financial technology, and he’s going beyond books, creating tools, apps, games, and other materials that schools and businesses can use to help people of all ages achieve financial literacy. The ideas are presented in a way that is palatable to children but also in a way that makes them relatable for adults who are also keen to improve their financial literacy. ![]() Investing may be the most difficult idea to teach children about, but one way Gardner does it is by connecting the idea of investing to owning not just a sneaker that they could buy (i.e., spend), but that they could buy a piece of the company that makes the sneaker, and that in the future, that one piece may be worth a lot more than it is today. ![]()
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