A STUDY ON

THE
MONEYSENSE
HABITS
The Prelude
The study was done to validate the concept of the
book “What We Don’t Teach our Children about
MoneySense”

Avinash Kulkarni
authoravinash@gmail.com

1
The Prelude

After I had started working on the book “What We Don’t Teach our
Children about MoneySense”, it was important to validate the
relevance of the topic….

I worked on this simple questionnaire with 5 questions, and

collected the response from a random sample of 270+
respondents.

The objective of the questionnaire was to understand how people

went ahead with their money management, when did they begin
with savings, investments etc.

The direct questions in the questionnaire, lead to some straight

answers, that validated the concept I was working on.

Thanks to all the respondents who had respondent to the

questionnaire.

www.avinashkulkarni.com/moneysense-for-children/ 1
The Questionnaire
Dear Parents,
Please answer these questions, and you may want to be frank
about it….

1. At what age did you get serious about money management

(planning, savings, investments, need for your future etc.) for
yourself / family.
Answer: ________ years

2. When did you start saving & investing money for your future?
Answer: At the age of ________ years

3. Did you learn about the personal finance management in school

or college?
Answer: Yes / No

4. Would it help if you teach your children about money

management or personal finance management at an young
age?
Answer: Yes / No

5. How do you think learning about MoneySense will be the benefit

our children?
Answer:_______________________________________________

Thank you - *Get the latest report of this study, on

www.avinashkulkarni.com

www.avinashkulkarni.com/moneysense-for-children/ 2
Did the above questions ring a bell?

What if you could manage money, invest and grow your money,
while you were young….

What would have been the possibilities? Could it have changed

your life for better?

In the Indian context, Lakshmi is the Goddess of wealth. We all

pray, but we hardly teach our children how to manage money or
create wealth.

Only in states like Gujarat and Rajasthan where a large population

is into business and trading, the people induct their children into
business while they are young. They usually try to inculcate these
learnings in their children about managing business.

But what about the rest of us….

Now, when these questions were asked to a larger group, through

a google form questionnaire… it wasn’t a surprise to see the
responses.

The respondents to the questionnaire were a random sample of

270+ educated, in job or doing business, moms, dads, and families.

And here is how it looked…

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Q1: At what age did you get serious about managing personal
finances

after 40 yrs
1%
< 20 yrs
10%
36 yrs ~ 40 < 20 yrs
yrs 20 yrs - 25 yrs
26%
20 yrs - 25 yrs 26 yrs ~ 30 yrs
22%
31 yrs ~ 35 yrs
36 yrs ~ 40 yrs
31 yrs ~ 35 26 yrs ~ 30 after 40 yrs
yrs yrs
25% 16%

Insights
 Only 32% of the respondents were serious about their money
management before the age of 25.

The rest 68% got serious about their money management after
25 years.

This shows that learning and initiating personal finance

management was not given importance during our early years
of Life.

 52% respondents got serious about their personal money

management only after 30 years. They have lost out on a huge
opportunity to build their corpus or build a portfolio.

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2. When did you start saving money for your future?

after 40 yrs < 20 yrs

1% 10%

20 yrs - 25 yrs < 20 yrs

36 yrs ~ 40 yrs 22%
26% 20 yrs - 25 yrs
26 yrs ~ 30 yrs
31 yrs ~ 35 yrs
36 yrs ~ 40 yrs
31 yrs ~ 35 yrs
25% after 40 yrs
26 yrs ~ 30 yrs
16%

 Only 10% respondents started saving money when they were

less than 20 years.

 And a whopping 52% started saving money when they were

between the age of 31~40 years.

They had already lost anywhere between 8~18 years of their

earning time when they could have made a difference, a major
impact for THEMSELVES.

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3. When did you start investing?

less than 20
20 yrs - 25 yrs
yrs
5%
1% 26 yrs ~ 30 yrs
5%

20 yrs - 25 yrs
After 40 yrs 26 yrs ~ 30 yrs
25%
31 yrs ~ 35 yrs 31 yrs ~ 35 yrs
15%
36 yrs ~ 40 yrs
After 40 yrs
less than 20 yrs
36 yrs ~ 40 yrs
49%

 74% of respondents started investing after 36 years.

Considering that an individual begins his earnings at an average

age of 23 year, they have lost out on a precious 13 years of
their lifetime not investing.

The Opportunity Loss by not investing during their early years

of earning, would have been quite high.

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4. Did you learn about the Personal Finance management in
school or college?

90.00%
79%
80.00%
70.00%
60.00%
50.00%
40.00%
30.00% 21%
20.00%
10.00%
0.00%
No Yes

5. Would it help if you teach your children about money

management or personal finance management?

80% 76%

70%
60%
50%
40%
30%
20% 15%
9%
10%
0%
May be No Yes

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 Summary

Seriousness about managing money for most of the

respondents 68% prevailed only after 25 years.

52% of these respondents started working on their savings

and investments after the age of 30.

74% of respondents started investing after 36%. Have they

not lost this opportunity of a life time?

79% respondents mentioned that they did not learn personal

finance is school or college.

76% of the respondents were of the view that Teaching

MONEYSENSE to Children would help them manage
personal finance better…

This was a very encouraging validation to my attempt of

taking up this subject, and hence the book…

Teach your children MoneySense….. help them lead a

fulfilling life and not living a life finding the means to live…

Click here to buy

https://www.instamojo.com/inspirationgurukul/what-we-
dont-teach-our-children-about-money-/

Cheers,
Avinash

www.avinashkulkarni.com/moneysense-for-children/ 8