Over-40s like me never had money lessons – here’s what our children need to learn

I don’t remember ever being officially taught about money. At least, not beyond my dad’s exclamation of: “It doesn’t grow on trees”, as he stomped around the house turning the lights off in rooms my sister and I had left. But I think the unofficial lessons were there. Pocket money docked if my room wasn’t tidy; mum helping me work out how much spending money I’d need for our summer holiday, and taking me to the Post Office to convert the crumpled one and five pound notes I’d liberated from my piggy bank; reminding me, when I wanted to blow it all on day two, about having to make those francs or dollars or drachma last the week. As well as my parents’ absolute aversion to what they called “buying on tick” or using credit or a finance deal (much better, and less risky, to save up), lessons like “putting a little away for a rainy day” were absorbed by osmosis. Shorts School, however, was a different affair. Growing up in Fife, I have a very strong memory of a lady from the Dunfermline Building Society visiting my primary every fortnight. She wore a straight black skirt and looked far more “office-y” than any of our teachers. Pupils were able to bring their deposit books in and she’d write down whatever was handed over and stamp the page – almost like a customs agent stamping a passport. And that was it. That was our financial education. I have no recollection of anyone ever explaining how a pension worked, or what the pros and cons of renting versus a mortgage might be. In my final year of high school, I remember being handed a funding form along with my university application, and basically told to get on with it. As it happens, my family situation meant that I was entitled to a full grant, which back then meant that as well as the course being free of fees, the government actually gave students of lesser means money to help with costs. I am sure in primary school we must have been encouraged to play shop, practising addition and subtraction by totting up purchases and counting out change. But if we did, I can’t remember it. Leaving university as a newly-minted graduate with big dreams and no idea how to make them happen, I didn’t really understand house price appreciation being your friend when it came to mortgages. And while I knew that higher APR on car finance was worse than lower, I wasn’t equipped to navigate the fine print of a deal with any sort of confidence. It didn’t dawn on me that it was also in the credit card issuer’s interest for me to make only the minimum payments each month. And although I understood the concept of compound interest, I wouldn’t have been able to explain it without getting tongue-tied. As I think back to my own financial education – or lack of – I am so pleased that soon financial literacy is going to become a mandatory part of the curriculum in England for all children in all schools and at all ages. Teaching the difference between want and need, how to budget effectively, guarding against scams and fraud, the difference between good credit and bad, navigating modern financial products like pensions and insurance – these are vital life lessons and will serve all pupils well, no matter their background or subject interest. The decision to deliver most of the lessons through the broad base of citizenship classes, as well as a few through maths, should ensure a better reach than through subject-specific delivery alone. It is very easy to look back with rose-tinted spectacles and think that everything was better back in the day, but it’s important to recognise progress and give praise where it is due – or, in this case, long overdue. I wonder how much better off I’d have been in my teens and twenties, how much earlier I might have made it on to the property ladder or how much improved my credit score would have been if I’d had that sort of instruction. As someone who has always had at least one job on the go from the age of 12 – and often two or three – I was never without a pay cheque coming in but how the money was spent is a different matter. You can’t instruct away the follies of youth – and I will never regret prioritising a three-week trip to Australia for a friend’s wedding over saving for a house deposit, or choosing to pay for an operation for my dog that wiped out my own wedding fund. But getting the day-to-day calls right? Well, those would have been lessons worth learning.