Donna Nicolof: Paua Wealth Management Founder and CEO on the new financial literacy curriculum for schools

The latest addition to the school curriculum will have kids learning about money. 

The Education Minister's making financial literacy a compulsory topic for Years 1-10. 

Several financial organisations, banks, and charities have partnered with the Government to deliver lessons on investment and taxes. 

Paua Wealth Management CEO Donna Nicolof told Kerre Woodham this is one of the single best initiatives implemented by the government. 

Nicolof has taught financial literacy in both Primary and Secondary schools, and she says the earlier children are taught, the better.  

She said she’d read some research on breaking the poverty cycle by teaching seven and eight year old children the basic concepts of budgeting and saving, and in her experience, they’re absolutely able to pick this stuff up.  

Kids are able to understand concepts like the differences between needs and wants, budgeting, saving, and living within your means – things Nicolof says sets them up to make better decisions in life. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:06):
You're listening to the carry Wood and Morning's podcast from
News Talks ADB.

Speaker 2 (00:11):
The government's ensuring financial education is central to a refreshed
schools social Science's curriculum. Education Minister Erica Stanfords announced it
will be a core element for years one to ten
as of next year. The new curriculum will cover banking, earning, spending, saving,
adding concepts like budgeting, investment and taxes as the children

(00:32):
get older. Joining me now is Donna Nikolos, the CEO
and founder of Power Wealth Management. She's also volunteering in
schools teaching financial literacy. Good morning to you, Donna.

Speaker 3 (00:43):
Good morning Carrie.

Speaker 2 (00:45):
So presumably having taught in schools, you see a need
for this sort of education. Oh.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
Absolutely. I think this is one of the single best
initiative of this government has had, and I congratulate Erica
on implementing it. It's long overdue from my perspective.

Speaker 2 (01:07):
Can it be taught? Though? I was speculating before, like
I'm hopeless with money, and it doesn't matter how much
I've got or how little I've got. It comes in,
it goes out. You know, there's just no The only
good thing I do was that I don't take on debt.
Can you teach young people how to be good with money?

Speaker 3 (01:28):
Absolutely you can, and the earlier you start, the better
off they will be. So just to give you some perspective,
I worked in Australia for a large part of my
career and taught financial literacy and high schools. Yeah, and
when I moved back to New Zealand over ten years ago, now,
I started teaching in primary schools because I'd read some

(01:52):
research on breaking the poverty cycle in New Zealand by
teaching kids at age seven and eight the basic concepts
of budgeting and saving. So the reason I did that
was to test that for myself, and kids at that
age are absolute sponges and they can absolutely pick this

(02:13):
stuff up. It's not difficult explaining the differences between needs
and wants, budgeting, saving, as you say, Carrie, living within
your means. They are concepts that these kids can understand
and it sets them up to make better decisions in life.

Speaker 2 (02:30):
There are some things that you can teach that need
to be taught, like understanding contracts and understanding why high
interest purchases on tick are a really dumb idea when
the asset supposedly like the new genes or the new
car or the clunker of a car is depreciating by

(02:53):
the day, and I guess that if that's spelt out
to kids, then that's something that they will take with them.

Speaker 3 (03:01):
Oh yes, absolutely. I mean even I'm one person and
I do this as my you know, give back to
the community. And literally the time I've spent is in
different schools is two to three days a year. But
just to give you an example, one of the schools
I teach at that I've been back to a couple

(03:24):
of years in a row, the kids recall around, you know,
needs and wants, budgeting, the benefits of compound interest. I mean,
you know, key we savor when they can access it.
What they can access it for is just incredible. And
I've always done it on the basis that if I

(03:45):
can impact one person's life and change how they think
about money or get them interested in finance, which a
lot of people aren't unfortunately, then it's worth the effort
that you put in. So I'm absolutely delighted that you know,
now we've got app based platforms like Banker that can
roll these programs out at scale, because this will be

(04:08):
an absolute game changer, not just for our children, but
for society going forward, because one of the other things
I've observed in schools is that some of the teachers
aren't equipped around financial education for themselves the parents. We've
skipped a generations. So I've done classes for parents of

(04:29):
kids of you know, educated teachers. We've got a real gap,
and you know, people aren't born with this knowledge. And
I've heard a lot of commentary around, you know, people
saying pushing back on this and saying, you know, it
should be the parents' responsibility. Well, that's all well and good,
but some parents aren't equipped to have these conversations.

Speaker 2 (04:51):
No, that's true. And it's interesting that there are some
people living on a benefit be it the superannuation or
the DPB, who can not only budget effectively but save
money from a what seems like a really small amount
come out into their accounts, and yet there are others
earning huge amounts of money who are living paycheck to paycheck.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
Yeah, that's exactly right. So I think the earlier you
start by educating people around, you know, living within their means,
basic concepts around budgeting and saving creating wealth for themselves,
I think you know that that's a massive bonus.

Speaker 2 (05:34):
What is the impact on society by having a financially
illiterate nation.

Speaker 3 (05:41):
Well, I mean, you know, that's a question for the
banks as well, because what you can expect by having
a more literate generation is less credit failures, less businesses
that fail. Industries will be more productive. There's the whole
range of flow on benefits. You know, people won't take

(06:03):
on credit or debt that they're not in a position
to pay back. Credit cards are a classic example. You know,
why pay those high interest rates if you don't have to.
They should only be used in emergencies and only if
you can pay it back within the month. There's a
whole bunch of you know, financial decisions that you end

(06:26):
up in a vicious cycle of debt that is really unhelpful.
And once you get on that treadmill, it's very difficult
to get off.

Speaker 2 (06:35):
Yeah, it is. It is. I remember, you know, being
a single mom and working as a waitress, and you know,
it didn't say like now, it doesn't seem like a
lot of money. Back back then it did and if
you needed to pay i don't know, a parking fine,
or you needed to pay for repairs to the car,
it was it was such a big hole to try

(06:57):
and get back on top and get some breathing space,
because it chokes you when you're drowning in debt.

Speaker 3 (07:06):
Absolutely it does. Yeah, and that's why people should always have,
you know, some money set aside for those things like
a rainy day fund or you know, for emergencies, because
those things do come up. But you know, I think
the good the good thing about this announcement is financial
education is so key to every aspect of how we

(07:29):
live our day to day lives. And it's really real.
And you know, we talk about the housing crisis in
New Zealand, the prices of property and how are our
kids going to afford to buy a house? You know,
this is educating them at a young age around saving
for those goals whatever they may be. There may be

(07:49):
a house, they may be overseas, travel it, overseas education,
whatever that is. But start them as early as.

Speaker 2 (07:57):
Possible and that's well. And Labor was going to do
this as well. So I mean clearly you know, both
main parties see the benefits that you see as well, oh.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
Which is terrific. I mean, I think this initiative is
actually party agnostic, and I mean I'm delighted personally that
it's finally been approved and it will be rolled out
in school. And we've got amazing, you know, programs that
have been developed here that we can use at scale,
and I hope other governments, you know, particularly in Australia

(08:33):
take similar initiatives. I think we will see the benefits
of this initiative for years to come.

Speaker 2 (08:41):
Lovely to hear from you, Thank you so much for
your insight, Don nicolof CEO and founder Power Wealth Management.

Speaker 1 (08:46):
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