I was playing with my child the other day, a game many mothers have played many times before.. ‘Shops’. I have to admit, anything shopping related perks my ears up, but this type of shopping involves soft toys, wooden fruits and a toy laptop as a POS machine.
-
Jump To
Setting the shop up, as you do, a line of ‘products’ all nice and neat, until a very excited and quick shopper comes barging into my store, taking down every product into their basket (which is a plastic tool bag) and ends up at the checkout to the cashier who happens to be me ‘mum’.
“How is you day today?” I say, trying to stay in character, you have to take these things very seriously, everything must seem realistic in these situations (I say as I randomly move my arm across the conveyer belt and yell out ‘BEEP!’)
Then, it is time for payment. Holding out my hand to my customer I remark “That will be $20 please!” Waiting to receive my cash payment, I was extremely shocked what my customer decided to do next.
My customer, holding out their hand flat, proceeded to place their hand on mine and said ‘BEEP!’…
I have to say, I was a bit of a stunned mullet at that moment. I couldn’t really process and believe what just happened. Since when have kids upgraded to cashless paying?! Upon wondering about this as my customer exited my store, I suddenly realised that these children are the ‘cashless kids‘ generation.
Rise of the Cashless Kids
Of course it would be cashless, I mean, every time we go shopping we pay cashless, when it is their birthdays they don’t get money in a card, “I’ll transfer money to their account” say all the aunties and uncles, piggy banks are going extinct (they seem to look so sad and lonely sitting on shelf at the $2 shop waiting to be bought…with cashless money…ironically).
If they saw a $50 note floating around under a park bench I am sure this generation would take a photo of it to social media wondering what on earth this strange looking paper with someones head on it is.
Gone are the days where getting a gold coin to buy lollies at the canteen. $2 could seriously get you some good chocolate freckle stash! Or those delicious eucalyptus lollies kids would guard with their lives, hiding them in your school skirt exchanging them in private behind the school lockers only to be told ‘Shhh don’t tell the group or they all want one!’.
Canteens have gone cashless too! Looking at the menu for my child’s school, I was seriously wondering if the website had some typo on it or something when it said ‘Account’ where you pay your child’s lunch online. When was this a thing?? What has seriously happened in the past 15 years?
Gold coin donations are always fantastic for charity or collecting money for good causes, but when students come up to me after me asking politely every week, ‘Gerald, have you happened to get your gold coin in?’ what do you say when they look at you at a loss and say, ‘I don’t have it’. Like, what do you say to that? “That’s alright Gerald, here is a treasure map I found on my travels earlier, It says that it leads to a treasure chest full of gold coins!”
How do we approach this cashless generation?
But in all seriousness, what do we do about this? Do we do anything at all? Do we just ignore the fact that the plastic money from educational stores won’t really be needed in the future? Even Monopoly has gone digital! They clearly were onto something.
When I think about cash, I think about those movies like ‘Rat Race’, the modern one with John Cleese, with the case filled with money in the train locker. Would there even be a movie if the same storyline was repeated and the money was all electronic? More ways for kids to figure out a way to hack the phone to access the funds rather than waste time travelling halfway across the country for a suitcase.
I remember opening up my purse as a child and seeing nice, new and crisp $50 notes gifts for my birthday, propped up next to each other next to a zipped compartment full of coins. You almost didn’t want to spend it because you valued it so much. You made choices as to how you wanted to spend it. You knew once you spent it, it is gone.
This generation of ‘cashless kids‘ are going to be less reliant on having bags or heavy wallets to carry around. Even phone cases have pouches and tabs you can keep important cards like your Eftpos card or your drivers license. Come to think of it, even these will become obsolete as cashless payments from your phone can be processed with an easy tap replacing the need for any cards in the future at all.
Downloading an app from Service NSW holds an electronic version of your drivers license meaning even less possibility to carry anything but a mobile phone when you go out. Scary when you think of it, but these conveniences are definitely something quite enticing for cashless kids these days.
The inevitable future for cashless kids
So I guess what this comes to is although it is the future and it is one that this generation of cashless kids will be forced to engage in, it just shows how important it is to teach children the value of money. It is especially important, when you cannot physically see the money and it all is virtual. It is really easy to spend money you cannot see.
Making connections between ‘physical’ cash and ‘invincible’ cash can be quite difficult for parents to teach young kids about. Although it is inevitable that these cashless kids will be more reliant on using ‘invincible’ money in the future, it is just important to make the connection between ‘physical’ money, to allow children to be aware that it exists and still circulating as a form of payment in everyday society.
Forming connections between ‘physical’ and ‘invincible’ money
Some ways you could make these connections to the cashless kids generation could be,
- Giving your child a piggy bank. Get you child to collect money and place it themselves in the piggy bank.
- Putting real money in an envelope for a gift (birthdays, Christmases etc)
- Attend a bank with your child and withdraw money. Let them watch the process and explain to your child how you do this
- Use an ATM and show your child the connection between what is available in an account on the screen and the money you physically withdraw
- Open up an online bank account for your child and assist them to deposit physical money into it at a bank branch
Forming understandings around ‘invincible’ cash
Another valuable lesson you can teach your children about when it comes specifically to ‘invincible’ cash could be,
- Depending on your child’s age, download your banks app onto their phones (or your phone) to teach your child to regularly check their accounts
- Teach your child about bank fees and what happens if you withdraw more than what is available in an account
- Teach your child to spend within their needs, for example, discuss the dangers of credit cards and how they can lead into debt
- Teaching your child about interest rates and the different types of bank accounts that exist
- Things like Afterpay, Klarna, Latitude and other pay later schemes although can be good and beneficial is like having a credit card without having a credit card, these are other things we need to ensure is discussed with our children.
Ultimately I think we can’t avoid the fact that these cashless kids will be super reliant on the digital age to access and use their funds, preparing them in advance how to manage, process and value money the same way as you would physical cash will be a challenge but something we also as adults need to be aware of.
Don’t be scared to discuss money with your cashless kids, they could surprise you!
Have you got any experience or tips on discussing money with children? What advice would you give your own children from the cashless kids generation? What would you have done differently if you could go back and discuss money with your children? Feel free to discuss all these in our comment section below!
Want to read more of our blogs? Check this one out – 16 New and Untraditional Jobs of the Future – What You Can do to Guide Your Teenager’s Career Choices
