What Cycling at Night Taught My Kids About Money
- Will Rainey
- 4 days ago
- 4 min read
A few weeks ago, I asked my daughters a strange question:
“Would you ride your bike through the forest at night with NO lights on?”
They both immediately said:
“No way!”
I asked why and they gave the answers you’d expect:
“You can’t see properly.”
“You might crash.”
“You wouldn’t know what’s ahead.”
Exactly.
They might see the small patch of ground directly in front of their wheel with light from the night sky but unlikely to see:
the sharp corner ahead
the fallen branch across the path
the muddy puddle
the steep hill coming up
They’d spend the whole ride reacting at the last second.
Could they still reach their destination? Maybe. But it would feel stressful, risky and exhausting. In many cases, they would get lost or crash and simply wouldn’t get to where they wanted.
Financially Cycling in the Dark
Then I asked them another question:
“What has this got to do with money?”
They were quick to say that many people don’t look ahead when it comes to their money which is like cycling in the dark. They were right again!
I explained that some people simply deal with money situations as they appear:
a surprise bill
a broken washing machine
school expenses
a car repair
rising food prices
Everything becomes:
“Uh oh… how do we handle THIS now?”
Instead of planning ahead, they’re constantly reacting and potentially crashing. It’s not just about crashing. It’s also about not knowing where you are going.
When it comes to money, many people focus on having enough to survive until the next pay day and not looking much further ahead. This again can be quite stressful.
One of the most powerful things when it comes to money is having a money goal and thinking about how to achieve that goal. Whether that is saving up for something specific or building up savings to generate an income (interest or returns from investments).
This focus allows them to consider what they need to do to achieve their goal and consider what is going to knock them off course. As a result, they are much more likely to reach where they want to get to.
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Turning the Lights On: Tracking Money
Budgeting and tracking money can sound boring. There’s no instant excitement. No flashy rewards. No dramatic transformation overnight. But personally, I believe it’s one of the most important money habits people can develop.
Why? Because it’s like turning the lights on while cycling at night.
You can suddenly see:
where you’re heading
what problems might be coming
where you may need to slow down
and the best route to reach your goals
Without that visibility, it’s very easy to drift into financial stress without even realising it.
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not talking about tracking every single penny or becoming obsessed with spreadsheets. That would be exhausting.
For me it's about seeing where our money is each month. On the first of the month, I log how much we have in each account. The difference in the total between one month and the next helps me understand if our money is going in the right direction.
Sometimes it seems like it's going off track and I invest a bit further:
“Wow… we spent THAT much on that?”
That usually leads to a conversation with my wife about whether we think it’s genuinely improving our lives or whether it’s just money disappearing without much value. If something doesn’t feel worthwhile, we often cut back and redirect that money elsewhere.
Of course, there are also expenses I’d secretly love to reduce… especially anything involving our cats… but I’ve accepted defeat on those!
I try to teach my daughters the same habit. At the end of the month, when we update their Money Tracker, we reflect on what they spent their money on and ask simple questions like:
“Was it worth it?”
“Would you buy that again?”
“Do you wish you had saved more for something bigger?”
There’s no judgement, just helping them to learn from the past and look ahead.
Teaching My Kids to Think Ahead
One challenge with teaching kids about money is that they don’t yet face many unexpected expenses. But that doesn’t mean they can’t start building the habit of thinking ahead.
Each month, when I update my daughters’ money trackers, I love hearing questions like:
“How much will I have in the future?”
Or comments like:
“I need to buy my friend a birthday present this month, so my savings might go down.”
That may sound small but it’s actually a huge shift in thinking.
They’re beginning to connect today’s decisions with tomorrow’s outcomes. I genuinely believe that gives them a massive advantage in life.
That’s why I believe tracking money isn’t just a “nice idea”, it’s one of the foundations of being good with money. Not because it makes people perfect but because it helps people avoid cycling through life financially in the dark.
If you’d like to help your own children start tracking their money, you can check out my blog:“Money Tracker for Kids”
It includes the free spreadsheet I use with my daughters to help them visualise:
saving
spending
investing
and watching their money grow over time.
And finally…my upcoming children’s book, Frankie Fortune, includes a very funny scene involving Frankie attempting to cycle in the dark. Let’s just say… it doesn’t go particularly smoothly.
If you’d like to hear more about the book release later this year, make sure you subscribe to this blog.
👉 What to read next to help kids learn about money:
Do your kids know these companies? (Interesting)
How to teach your kids the most important sales skill (Popular)
Age-by-age guide to teaching kids about money (Essential)
Thanks for reading,
Will
P.S., I really appreciate all the reviews of my book Grandpa’s Fortune Fables. If you have read it, it would mean a lot if you could leave an online review. It really does help the book reach more families.
