Building Family Financial Literacy: Starting the Conversation 

You may want your family to share some values when it comes to financial literacy. To gain this shared understanding, it’s important to have ongoing conversations. By discussing topics openly, your family can come to an agreement about your shared values. This helps to create a structure for making decisions and setting priorities about these values. It’s important to involve your children in these conversations to they are included in shaping your family’s values.  

Take this opportunity to have this first conversation. Below are some questions that can guide your conversation. You don’t have to talk about all questions during this first conversation. We suggest starting with the first two or three. Throughout the year, we’ll suggest other times to continue this conversation.  

1. What are the most important things in our lives?  
2. What are some activities that we enjoy doing together as a family?  
3. How do we currently spend our time, both individually and as a family? 
4. How can we make sure we’re giving enough attention to different areas of our lives (e.g. health, relationships, education, fun, etc.) 
5. Are there areas of our lives that need more or less attention?  
6. What family traditions or routines are meaningful to us?  
7. How do we want to treat each other and others outside our family?  
8. What goals or dreams do we have as individuals and as a family?  
9. What are some of our individual interests vs family interests? 
10. How can we support each other’s individual interests while maintaining family togetherness?