Hello There,

Welcome to another edition of Mini Millionaires.

We absolutely love hearing from you about your family’s Mini Millionaires journey, so please keep those messages coming.

In this edition, we’re talking about: How to teach kids the long-term cost of borrowing.

Borrowing money can seem like a quick and easy fix, that’s pretty harmless in the short-term. Many people think “I can just pay it back later.”

But borrowing has some long-term costs and impacts associated with it - it’s essentially using future money to pay for something right now.

Let’s unpack this week’s mindset, habit, and tip, as well as a (free) resource to help the lesson stick.

Borrowing can feel pretty harmless in the short term. 

“I can just pay it back later.” 

But the real cost isn’t actually the loan itself… 

For kids, borrowing might look like an advance on pocket money or a small loan from a sibling, but the principle is the same: Every “yes now” can turn into a “less later.”

Debt trades tomorrow’s freedom for today’s fun.

Borrowing feels like a shortcut, but it locks future income into past decisions. 

South African consumers need 68% of their take-home pay to service debt, which means most families are already spending tomorrow’s money today. Kids can easily fall into this pattern if they see debt as normal. Helping them understand that borrowing is not free, but that it costs them choice, independence, and peace of mind, goes a long way in developing a healthier money mindset.

Takeaway: Encourage them to ask: “How will this choice affect future me?”

Practice waiting, not borrowing.

Most borrowing happens when people want something immediately rather than saving up for it. 

Building the habit of waiting is the antidote. The famous Stanford “marshmallow experiment” showed that children who could delay gratification often had better life outcomes, from academics to health. 

The same principle applies to money: kids who wait and save learn that patience preserves freedom. Instead of reaching for credit or a loan, they practice enjoying the anticipation while their money grows.

Takeaway: Teach kids that patience grows freedom — “If I can wait, I won’t owe.”

Let them feel the squeeze of repayment.

Set up a simple exercise: let your child “borrow” R50 from their pocket money with a repayment rule — they owe R5 extra each week until it’s paid back.

So if they normally get R50, the next week they’ll only get R45, then R40, then R35, as repayments eat into their money.

Suddenly, the “free R50” feels very expensive. This makes the long-term cost of borrowing visible and personal, without real-world consequences.

You can also check out a previous Mini Millionaires edition: How to teach kids about debt.

Takeaway: Show kids how debt shrinks their future choices by letting them experience it safely at home.

Market Day is the perfect chance to turn a fun school project into a money lesson that sticks.

Using Fintr’s Market Day Debt activity, kids work out the cost of making their goods (like cupcakes), and then face a choice: save up for ingredients or borrow from a parent with 10% interest.

When the sales are done, they see the difference in their pockets.

Borrowing cuts profits almost in half, while saving keeps the reward intact. It’s a simple, hands-on way to help kids feel the real cost of debt before it matters most.

Fintr4Schools is a gamified digital learning platform that brings the Economic Management Sciences (EMS) curriculum to life. 

Last week, we completed the Sowing module on our Fintr4Schools platform at one of the schools we partner with.

The Sowing module is about all things investing, where kids learnt about diversification and the power of compounding. The task they had was creating their own fictional portfolio of 5 brands they like and tracking their stock prices. 

We loved seeing kids grapple with the different currencies of their favourite brands and then figuring out how to convert them to rands. 

In a few of the classes, there were one or two kids who already had Easy Equities portfolios and wanted to use the stocks they had there, leading to a bigger class discussion about Easy Equities and other platforms to buy stocks. 

The rest of the kids who didn’t have Easy Equities accounts were so intrigued by the possibility that they could own real stock of their favourite brands. 

This is the power of Fintr4Schools and how it makes EMS a real-world, practical experience!

Join the Fintrverse today and help raise the next generation of financially savvy South Africans.

Last week, we asked what’s the best way for kids to get money, and it seems housework is the way to go… 

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 👜 Generous Grannies and Grandpas FTW

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💸 A monthly allowance or pocket money

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 🧹 Put ‘em to work around the house

🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ 💡 If they have a cool business idea, I’ll help them start

⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ 🦷 The tooth fairy that visits our house seems to be loaded

What you said: 

“Many of today's children develop a sense of entitlement because we, as parents, often overcompensate for our own childhood lacks. In our attempt to provide them with everything we did not have, we inadvertently teach them to expect everything without understanding its value. This is a double-edged sword: we are not only to blame for creating this expectation but also for failing to teach the fundamental lessons of financial literacy and earned reward.”

Marcus

Wow! What a powerful insight, Marcus. It requires an ‘unlearning’ journey for both parents and kids. Perhaps figuring out what are the things we can reasonably “overcompensate” for (perhaps sending them to a better school than we did), versus something that could be detrimental (getting them every new toy under the sun).

What’s the mindset, habit, or tip you want to try this week?

What worked, what didn’t? Or is there something that’s got you and your mini millionaire excited? 

We’d love to get your thoughts, so hit reply to this email and let us know what's on your mind.

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