I’ve spent a few months now talking to 11 to 19-year-olds about money, and one thing has come up again and again.
When I ask why they’d want to be a billionaire, they don’t say “so I’d feel secure” or “so I could look after my family.” They say power. Control. Influence. Freedom. They want to be billionaires so that no one can tell them what to do.
That stopped me. Because underneath it is a generation that feels controlled. That doesn’t feel free, or trusted to make decisions about their own lives.
And then there’s the older, simpler thing. The lack of it. Not having money has always carried a sense of powerlessness, and a bit of shame with it. What’s changed is that a teenager now carries the evidence of what they don’t have around in their pocket all day. The school trip they can’t go on. The friend showing off a new MacBook on Instagram. The shiny world they can’t seem to break into, lit up on a screen in a too-small bedroom.
The sense of inadequacy goes deep. One day, they think. One day I’ll be rich, and then they’ll all look at me, and I’ll do whatever I like.
You might ask what any of this has to do with financial planning. Here’s the link. Where does that young person’s first pay cheque go? To Apple, almost certainly. Not to the boring person in a suit explaining that if he hands over a chunk of his wages now, he can have a comfortable life at 63.
That’s the whole problem in miniature. Money, for most of us, was never really about the money. It’s about feeling safe, feeling free, feeling like enough. If we want the next generation to save, we have to understand that first.
It is about the money. And it really isn’t.