Editor’s note: This article was first published in October 2011. The availability of the series online, the “Grow Your Own Business Challenge” contest and its $5,000 prize refer to that time.
Don’t worry. Warren Buffett isn’t going to stop being an investor or set his companies aside to show off his acting skills. But you will be able to see him in a cartoon series called Secret Millionaires Club, in which Buffett teaches children everything they need to know about money.
Buffett collaborates now and then with the show’s creators, because he thinks teaching financial habits from an early age is an excellent idea. The series won’t teach children (at least not yet) how to analyse a company’s stock charts or read a balance sheet, but it will teach, in a fun way, ideas such as the importance of keeping spending in check, of having a good reputation, and of choosing your friends well.
Each episode tackles a money topic and offers some useful life advice that the sooner a child learns, the better. Some of the lessons are:
- The best investment you can make is in yourself.
- The more you learn, the more you’ll earn.
- Find something you love doing, and you’ll never have to work a day in your life.
Part of the series can be watched online at SMCKids.com. To get children more actively involved in developing ideas, projects and, above all, business skills, the programme has created a section called the “Grow Your Own Business Challenge”, a contest in which children have to develop their own business idea.
The finalists will have the amazing opportunity to present their ideas to Warren Buffett himself, and the winner will receive a $5,000 prize.
It’s an excellent initiative: if we can open children’s minds to money from an early age, we’ll save ourselves many of the headaches we tend to run into as adults.
Further reading
Featured image: Celeste Lindell, CC BY 2.0, via Flickr.
