Teaching kids about money should be entertaining and age appropriate. Using terminology they understand and playing entertaining games can help teach them about budgeting, investing, saving, and even negotiating.
Teaching grown-ups about money works the same way – keeping it simple, real, and doable. That way, they can easily share these friendly money tips with their kids, guiding them to handle finances responsibly and build wealth for the long term.
Take it from our Dreamer this episode, Maya Corbic, a certified public accountant and the founder of the Wealthy Kids Investment Club. In this episode,.
She shares insights on teaching financial literacy to both kids and adults, and empowering parents to raise financially independent children.
Maya is the author of "From Piggy Banks to Stocks: The Ultimate Guide for a Young Investor”, a book that breaks down investing concepts, making it easy for children to grasp essential skills while staying engaged.
In this episode we discuss:
If you enjoyed today’s episode, here’s what you can do to support me and help more Dreamers discover the podcast:
Connect with Anne-Lyse:
Teaching kids about money should be entertaining and age appropriate. Using terminology they understand and playing entertaining games can help teach them about budgeting, investing, saving, and even negotiating.
Teaching grown-ups about money works the same way – keeping it simple, real, and doable. That way, they can easily share these friendly money tips with their kids, guiding them to handle finances responsibly and build wealth for the long term.
Take it from our Dreamer this episode, Maya Corbic, a certified public accountant and the founder of the Wealthy Kids Investment Club. In this episode,.
She shares insights on teaching financial literacy to both kids and adults, and empowering parents to raise financially independent children.
Maya is the author of "From Piggy Banks to Stocks: The Ultimate Guide for a Young Investor”, a book that breaks down investing concepts, making it easy for children to grasp essential skills while staying engaged.
In this episode we discuss:
If you enjoyed today’s episode, here’s what you can do to support me and help more Dreamers discover the podcast:
Connect with Anne-Lyse:
Note: We use AI transcription so there may be some inaccuracies
Anne-Lyse Wealth: This is the Dreamers Podcast, episode 1 33. Today is January 30th, Hello, welcome to the dreamers podcast. I'm your host, Annie's wealth. I'm so excited to be here with you today for the OG listeners. I know it's been a minute since you've heard my voice and, uh, I wanted to say happy new year. I was told that we can wish people happy new year all the way until January 31st.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: So better late than never, but I'm excited to get into today's episode.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: Welcome to the dreamers podcast, where we dive into the journeys of people who have taken an unconventional path to build wealth with purpose. I'm yours and Lee's wealth. And today I'm speaking with Maya Corbrick. My Corbett is a certified public accountant who for the past decade has been teaching kids and adults financial literacy, and she's been empowering parents to raise their Children to become financially independent adults.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: We definitely need financially independent adults. Maya and her husband started their lives together. They paid off 60, 000 in debt. And they also paid off their mortgage and became debt free at 32. She's now on a mission to educate every child to become financially independent.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: She's the founder of the wealthy kids investment club and the author of from piggy banks to stocks. Maya, welcome to the dreamers podcast.
Maya Corbic: Thank you so much for having me here. I'm so excited to
Anne-Lyse Wealth: be here. we were just talking before we started recording. We met last year I think around the same time at FinCon.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: So it's good to be able to catch up with you again. And, I can't wait for the dreamers to hear more about your story. I always like to start from the beginning. So can you, take us back? What's your money story?
Maya Corbic: I'm a first generation immigrant. I actually immigrated from war torn Bosnia, to Toronto, Canada, with my parents and my brother.
Maya Corbic: we lost everything in the war and we immigrated with two suitcases and 50. And, I lived in government shelters, government housing. My mom went to food bank just to make sure that, we had something to eat. I also hustled when I was a teenager. I had two part time jobs just to pay for, you bus tickets.
Maya Corbic: and then, I ended up doing the traditional route with respect of, gaining that wealth and getting into a better financial situation. So I did, you know, what a lot of people were told, went to school, I got good grades, I got into one of the best universities. I worked really hard, started working for like one of the top accounting firms that ended up paying for my CPA designation and I became a CPA.
Maya Corbic: And, during all that, obviously, because of the circumstances, I had to figure out how to manage money properly because there really wasn't enough to go around. And when I became a CPA, I also had some of my own clients on the side that I was helping out. And some of them had six figure salaries, but they still could not make ends meet.
Maya Corbic: And they were still struggling. And I just couldn't understand that, especially because, I was forced to get by on so little. So I just couldn't understand how come these people were not being able to make their ends meet. And I realized, the issue stemmed in the childhood.
Maya Corbic: And it wasn't really their fault. It's just because nobody ever taught them about money. They didn't learn it in school. They didn't learn from their parents. And when I was 32, when my husband and I paid off all that debt in our mortgage, our kids were six and four years old. And it really made me think about what are my children, going to learn about money in school?
Maya Corbic: How are my children going to get educated about money? So I started looking into, the school system into the curriculum and Trying to understand what are my kids going to learn and back then, because I've been doing this for like 11, almost 12 years now. there really wasn't much there.
Maya Corbic: now the schools are starting to introduce financial literacy a little bit more, but back then there was really nothing, even in terms of the resources, it was quite limited. So, I wanted to do something else with my life. I wanted to, make a change. And so this was my change. This was why I decided to do what I'm doing now.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: Well, there's definitely lot to unpack there. I think I was listening to a previous podcast interview that you did where you mentioned that prior to actually moving to Canada, right? Prior to moving to Canada, because of, the war going on in Bosnia, you and your family actually were living, pretty well over there and were part of the upper middle class.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: And so you went from that to, living in, government shelters and things like that. And it makes me think about what's going on right now. there's so many different wars going on around, the world, whether it's the Middle East, Ukraine, Russia, Africa, it seems that.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: it's going crazy right now and so many people are impacted are, displaced and I would love to hear, like, what are some of the. Lessons that you learned during that transition from Bosnia to Canada.
Maya Corbic: thank you for asking that question because that's the immigrants journey.
Maya Corbic: And, there are a lot of immigrants in Canada, a lot of immigrants in the United States, and a lot of us go through this kind of stuff. So, one thing I noticed when I first came to North America was the abundance. and I hope this doesn't come across the wrong way, butwhen I say this, I also refer to my Children who are born here, and I think people who are born here didn't even realize how much abundance we have, even though you know it is hard, people are having difficult lives.
Maya Corbic: But if you. have a chance and opportunity to travel and go somewhere outside of North America. They are parts of the world where people are living on a lot less in a lot more difficult circumstances. So, going back to, you know, me in Bosnia growing up, likewe were, I guess, upper middle class, but.
Maya Corbic: Even in comparison to upper middle class in North America, we did not have that much, right? Like we were the upper middle class for that region, for Bosnia. So coming to North America, it was eye opening. There were so many opportunities. You could make money. I also come from a country that used to be communist and socialist.
Maya Corbic: So government owned everything. We did not have a stock market. My parents never invested money. and, nobody really talked about being an entrepreneur or starting to earn money for themselves. It's kind of like you were just given a job based on where you, finished in school and that was your job for the rest of your life.
Maya Corbic: So you were really, really limited to how much money you could make. The reason why my parents and I, like why we lived a little bit better is because my parents are highly educated. So that really helped them get better jobs, but know, coming to North America. Yes, it was hard. There was a language barrier because I didn't speak any English.
Maya Corbic: Neither did my parents, culturally, it was hard because it is very different, and then also mentally and emotionally, there is that whole, aspect of, you going through war. Thankfully, I was. I was a child and I was shielded, but my parents have seen a lot. They've been through a lot.
Maya Corbic: my dad had post traumatic stress disorder. And I feel that a lot of these immigrants that actually come from these war torn countries, they actually, as an immigrant, they test you physically to make sure that you're healthy, that you're not going to be burdened on the healthcare system, what they don't test is the mental state of everybody coming in.
Maya Corbic: I was doing a podcast recently. I was giving an example. I said, I, for example, I love to watch fireworks. I don't like to hear them because those are gunshots.again, like I didn't witness what some people witnessed in the war. My parents saw so much more.
Maya Corbic: They went through a lot. so it's like you're coming here and you're just trying to start a life, but you still have this in the back of your mind and, you've dealt with so much. And it's really, really hard. but. that's the resilience that all immigrants have and then there's that part of hunger because you see the abundance and you're like, okay, this is all for grabbing.
Maya Corbic: Like, I can do this. I can't complain. I just have to keep going. And, you know, that's why, like, sometimes I tell my kids to when they, Come home from school. My son was telling me they were talking in his class. And he's like, Mom, there's about 60 percent of the kids who are immigrants. And those are the kids that are the hardest working kids.
Maya Corbic: They work so hard. They get really good grades because they, want to get ahead.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: Well, thank you. Thank you so much for sharing that. it's beautiful to see. how the story unfolded, right? And how, you later on became a CPA and now you're helping other people build wealth.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: I'm curious to know though, what motivated you and your husband? I think at the time you were 32 years old to pay off your mortgage.
Maya Corbic: I think it all really started with our debt because we had that 60, 000 debt and, it was partially student loans, partially car loans. my husband had a motorcycle when we got married, so there was a motorcycle that there was all this different debt that made up that 60, 000 and.
Maya Corbic: I just remember like trying to pay it off. And honestly, I didn't even know what I was paying. I was like, I understood my debt, but I didn't know his debt. I was like, what is this? And what is that? And being an accountant and I have to be organized.
Maya Corbic: Like, that's the only way I function. So I needed to organize this debt. And I basically suggested that we consolidate that debt. Now there's different debt payment methods. That one worked for me just because of my personality. So, we went to the bank, we ended up getting a bank loan. I cannot remember exactly what the rate was.
Maya Corbic: And so with that bank loan, we paid off all this little debt. And so we had one bank loan to focus on. And literally it We're both very competitive people. So it was like us against this debt. So we just attacked it like crazy. Every time we had extra money, we would put it on. And then once we paid it off, we just really felt empowered.
Maya Corbic: Like it felt really, really good. We felt validated. We felt like, we could keep doing this. So we decided to focus on the mortgage because that was the next thing that was holding us back.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: So were you investing while you were paying off the debt? Yeah.
Maya Corbic: So, mean, it's so funny. I always knew that investing was important.
Maya Corbic: I did not know much about investing. I was always trying to learn. I just never and it's funny. Actually, we talked about my book and I'm just going to throw this in quickly. the book that I wrote, I wrote it foryounger me. Okay. I wish this was something that I had because I was trying to learn, but it really is intimidating and confusing.
Maya Corbic: So instead, what we did is we hired a financial advisor and He was okay, advisor. He didn't charge us crazy fees. after him, we ended up having somebody else, but with the first guy, our investments were making three or 4 percent a year, so it was, yeah, yeah. nothing crazy, but at least we were investing.
Maya Corbic: We were not investing much, but we were investing something. And people say, Oh, you wasted your money there. But I'm like. I could have invested on my own, but I could have also lost that money because at that time, I really didn't know what I was doing. So I guess it was okay. What we did, it worked at the time.
Maya Corbic: we also started investing on behalf of our kids as soon as they were born. We opened up, an education plan, which would be equivalent to 529 plan in the States for both of our kids. And then also any money that our kids got for their birthdays or whatever, especially when they were very, very little, we just ended up investing, in a trust account for them through that advisor.
Maya Corbic: So we did all that. but of course, you know, now that I know what I know, of course I would have probably maybe done things a little bit different. I would have invested more, there's that whole math calculation. Do you invest or do you pay your mortgage? And mathematically, yes, it makes sense to invest.
Maya Corbic: But if you are like me, in my early twenties and 30s, I didn't know anything about investing. So that mathematic calculation could have gone the other way because I didn't really know how to properly invest. So for me, what I did know is that I could pay off that debt. I could pay off that mortgage and that was a safe route for me to do.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: think about, years ago, right? When you were paying off your mortgage and you were learning about investing, what are some of the things that you did to educate yourself? So you could now. Be able to not only invest, but now you're at a point where you're actually also helping other people, teaching them fundamentals when it comes to investing.
Maya Corbic: Yeah. So I mean, it took forever for me to learn what I'm trying to teach people, especially what I wrote in this book. it took decades. To get there. And a lot of times people say, Oh, you're a CPA. This is easy for you. But as a CPA, I didn't learn investing. I learned accounting, right?
Maya Corbic: Those are two different disciplines. remember like I would read books periodically, but honestly, I would lose interest.
Maya Corbic: don't want to trash any books out there. I mean, they're really great books, but it's like, I would fall asleep. I'm sorry, like, that's just the reality of it.
Maya Corbic: And I mean, that's why I wrote book because I'm like, This is a kid's book, but a lot of adults told me that they like it because they're learning from it, alongside their kids because they're like, I finally understand investing because it's written in a language that's for the 10 year old.
Maya Corbic: It has lots of pictures, lots of diagrams. it's super easy. So the big books were great. but I just. I would lose interest. Like, I would literally have to force myself to read them. There was one book that I really, really liked, though, and I highly recommend it. It's The Simple Path to Wealth by J.
Maya Corbic: L. Collins. and when I started reading that book, at the same time, I was actually doing a lot of, Just research online. I was really learning a lot about ETFs and index funds. And that's when things finally started to click. Cause I realized that I am long term investor. My kids are long term investors.
Maya Corbic: Investing is not complicated. And, a lot of times people think of investing as gambling. Or they think of investing as trading. Day trading is completely different. Day traders, they sit in front of their computers. They're watching their computer screen and the market. It's very stressful. But if you're investing, and most of us are long term investors, I'm like, there's just an easy way to invest.
Maya Corbic: That's when I discovered ETFs and index funds. And this is what I want everybody to know. There is an easy way to invest if you're a long term investor. And you can do it by yourself. Or if you don't. Have the courage to do it by yourself. You can still hire an advisor, but you can ask intelligent questions because you're able to educate yourself, right?
Maya Corbic: And that education, that financial literacy leads to resilience and, having those intelligent discussions with your advisor.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: Yeah. The Simple Path to Wealth is definitely a great book. I remember one of the other books that was very instrumental for me was, Smart Couples Finish Rich. Have you ever read that book?
Anne-Lyse Wealth: Oh, I've never read that book. also, that's when I was like, okay, it looks like, we don't have to complicate things. We can just. ATF and, be done with it, right? as someone who's been teaching, I think, for over a decade at this point, parents and kids about, money and building wealth, I would love to hear, from your perspective, how soon can we start teaching our kids?
Maya Corbic: I usually suggest that we start teaching kids around age four. So if you notice that your child understands that money is used as an exchange to purchase things or for services, then you know it's time. Or if you see them play store. or, you know, they're playing with money or like a bank machine or something.
Maya Corbic: Pretend they have credit cards or debit cards or something like that. that's usually a good sign that it's time to start. And with four and five year olds. I just like to introduce the concept of needs versus wants so that, know, that's something they understand. I actually taught it just to kindergartens.
Maya Corbic: I used to go to schools and do workshops and, they understand that, needs are things we need for survival and we need to spend our money on needs first before we spend it on wants and that wants are things that we don't need for survival, but those are nice to have. And I usually like to, you tell the younger kids that, when you go to the store with your parents, it's not that the parents don't want to buy you things.
Maya Corbic: It's just the parents have to spend money on needs first, and if there's money left over, maybe they can spend it on the wants. And so I'll, tell them, you know, if next time you go to the store with your parents, go around the store and point to things, you is this a need? Is this a want,
Maya Corbic: I'm drinking Starbucks right now. This is definitely a want, right? go around and points to things. and so there are a lot of different activities that you can do with your kids when they're younger. So how old are your kids now? 16 and 14.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: What are some of the things that you're teaching them about building wealth?
Maya Corbic: we implemented allowance really early on. and I suggest that everybody who implements allowance is that you don't just hand money over because that's not the point. The point is that if you hand money over, you want to teach them to do something without money, right? So, one of the things that we, had with our kids is that it was mandatory for them to save 50 percent of their allowance.
Maya Corbic: And that went into their savings. And eventually it was invested the other half was used for donating and for, short term savings or spending, like if they wanted to buy something and then we would teach them, you how to like research the best deals, how to use coupons, how to negotiate.
Maya Corbic: this happened a couple of times. It's not so much now that they're older because they don't want birthday parties, but when they were younger, they wanted some birthday parties. So I would actually introduce the concept of budgeting and have them be.
Maya Corbic: In charge of their own birthday budget and I would help them. So they actually understood that whole concept, how budgeting works. I just recently got them their own credit cards. So they are authorized users of my credit card. they haven't started using them yet. the credit card company didn't lower their credit limit.
Maya Corbic: They actually kept it as my credit limit. So they haven't used those yet, but I want to teach them how to use these credit cards. properly under my supervision so that they know that, credit card is a tool. It can be great or it can actually like really, really have negative consequences for you if you're not using it properly.
Maya Corbic: know, if you're using it properly, it can build your credit. it can help you in the long run. But if you are, misusing it, it can really have negative effects on your future. So I want to teach them that, they've been learning a lot of things. especially when it comes to like investing and I try to introduce everyday lessons.
Maya Corbic: Like if I'm going through something or if I'm doing something like negotiating a cell phone bill. when they were little, they were within the earshot. So they could hear me negotiate. now that they're older, they don't really want to listen to me talk to another person on the line, but I'll be like, afterwards, you know, if we're having dinner or if we're driving, I'm like, Hey, I negotiated my cell phone bill.
Maya Corbic: this is how it went. Like, this is what I did. This is what I asked for. I'm just telling you this just so you know, like one day you're going to be negotiating your bill. And then usually like they listen, I keep it short. I don't really preach because they don't like you preaching.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: I love that.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: definitely feel like, real life examples, things that are actually tangible it goes a long way. And also just, you kids learn a lot by observing. So if they see you do something, it actually is probably more impactful than you talking about something that you do not apply.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: So, I love that. And I love what you just said about I mean, back in the days, allowing them to manage their own birthday party budget. And I'm definitely taking notes because I think that's something that I'm going to implement for sure. I like to talk about, negotiating and teaching how to negotiate because honestly, as adults, that's something that most of us struggle with.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: Right. And as a result, we leave money on the table. So what are some of the ways that parents can help their kids? Start negotiating and get comfortable with it.
Maya Corbic: it's so interesting because, every time I talk about the concept of negotiation on my Instagram account, I get a lot of hate.
Maya Corbic: Because people feel very uncomfortable with it. And a lot of times, actually people are really mad at me that I was teaching my kids to negotiate with business owners or like vendors, because they're like, Oh, these are small businesses that are barely trying to make their ends meet. why are you teaching your kids to negotiate with them?
Maya Corbic: But negotiation is a two way street. If you don't want to sell something, you don't have to sell it. So, my husband is really good at negotiating. He's a salesperson at the end of the day. I mean, he has his university degree, but he ended up into a business for himself. And any business is really like, you need really strong sales to make any business work.
Maya Corbic: So I learned a lot from him. And even to this day, I feel very uncomfortable negotiating. but I also know that I've left so much money on the table because I always think that people will recognize the value. Let's say that I bring. So. I've been circumstances where, I was an employee and I worked very, very hard and, I remember when I was in an accounting firm, we had this utilization report that was showing because we're billing by 15 minute increments for every client and it actually shows like, out of the time that you worked, how much have you built?
Maya Corbic: So it shows you utilization. I was always one of the top people, but I always had hard time negotiating my salary, my position. and. I've seen the negative effects of that. So it really kind of jaded me in that way. And I didn't want that for my kids. I'll just give an example here. we actually have this fair that happens in our town every summer.
Maya Corbic: And it's a lot of fun. They have rides and, they have a lot of these little. Small business vendors, the setup stands and our kids were very little at the time, but, we ended up taking them there. And I remember telling them, I said, listen, guys, like every year we go there, I buy you one of those bracelets, that, you can do like unlimited number of rides.
Maya Corbic: Right. But then I see that think the first year I did it, they were doing all these rides afterwards. It's just after, a few years, they were kind of like, man, they would do one or two rides. And I'm like, mathematically wasn't making sense for me to buy this.
Maya Corbic: So I said to them, I'm like, this was going to happen. you guys have some spending money. And at that time, they had their little wallets, but if we went somewhere and they wanted to bring their spending money, I would bring it. I would put it in my purse. So I said, we're going to bring your money, bring your spending money, and I'm going to buy the burgers, the fries, the ice cream, whatever, but you guys, if you want anything, you want a toy, you want to go on these rides, you guys spend your money.
Maya Corbic: So it was a whole different experience. We went there and they kind of came where the rides area is, and then. They were going from ride to ride. They're looking at it. They're like, is this worth our money? And then they're like, okay, there's one ride that we really, really like we want to do.
Maya Corbic: And so they go to the operator and they're like, how many tickets is that? How much the ride? So I'm just going to convert the tickets to the dollar value. I think it was like 2 per ride. They asked, how long is the ride?
Maya Corbic: And he said, it's two minutes. And they were like, what? You want $4 for two minutes for the two of us? Are you crazy? What is wrong with you? They were like, yelling at the guy. I was like, guys, it's okay. I'm like, you can't, he just works there. So you either pay or you don't, you have a choice.
Maya Corbic: So in the end they said, okay, fine, we'll pay. So they each pay $2 for this ride. They went on it and after that they were done and they wanted to see what the, vendors have. So we started going to the vendor tents and, I remember like my daughter, she wanted this ball. it was an interesting ball.
Maya Corbic: Like was basically one ball, but it was. Composed of small, tiny little balls that were, held by this mesh. she's like, I want that, but it costs, I think it was like 5 and she only had 3 left. So we're like, well, sorry, honey, you have to save up for it. and she's like, but they're not going to be here.
Maya Corbic: can't save up for it. So my husband said to her, but you know, you can negotiate. And she's like, what is that? And he's like, well, you can go to the vendor and say, listen, I only have 3. Would you be willing to sell me this ball for three dollars and see what he says? And she's like, I can't do that.
Maya Corbic: And he's like, no, it's like, it's okay to ask. The worst thing can happen is that he says no. So she summoned her little courage and she actually asked that she's like, can you talk instead of me? And we're like, no, so she summoned courage and she actually went to the vendor and she said, I only have 3 and I can only pay you this much for this ball.
Maya Corbic: So she's like, would you be willing to sell me this ball for 3? And he said, yes. So she walked away with this ball and she was so happy and it was, I think, a great lesson in negotiating. But some people get upset because, you know, they say, but that vendor is an entrepreneur and you took advantage of him and you could have given your daughter 2.
Maya Corbic: And I think it just depends on what you're trying to teach. And I don't know, to me, I thought that was a good lesson, but.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: Yeah, I think, it's a great lesson. Yes, you could have given her 2. It makes me think of, one time my daughter, we went to the store to fix a bike and she decided that she wanted little ring for her bike.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: And she was like, Hey, can you pay for it? I'm like, Oh no, you know, you have money. and you know, you have to plan for expenses. So, If you're really serious about it, then think about, the next time and bring your money and you can buy it. And next time she was serious, she brought her money.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: And, know, it's interesting when we give our kids the power to actually make the decisions, how different the decisions they, make can be. earlier you said, how When your kids realized that they had to pay for the rides, their attitude changed. And I also noticed that with my kids.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: So now when we go out, we don't just buy things just to buy them. And typically if there's something that they want, they have their own money that they can manage. And most of the times they don't want it as bad, right?
Maya Corbic: Because it's their money. Yeah. Yeah.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: my six. Well, she's seven now, seven year old.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: She wanted to buy, some type of unicorn toy. And I was like, okay, we use this, app called green light where, you know, they can save, for. Different things, rainy day, toys and all that stuff. And she got to a point where she had enough money and was like, Oh, it looks like you have enough money.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: Do you want to buy it? She's like, no.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: But yeah, you those lessons, are important. Sometimes, you know, it's easy to just give them the money. But if we are looking to teach them, to make better decisions, think it would be a mistake to just give them the money whenever they need it.
Maya Corbic: Yeah. And allow whenever they want it, right. And allowance is really a teaching tool because you're just transferring responsibility of purchasing something from you onto them.
Maya Corbic: Now they're the ones deciding whether or not they should buy it. when they're asking you to buy it, they don't know what your budget is, how much money you have, but when they're the ones deciding, they know exactly how much money they have. And then they can make a informed decision.
Maya Corbic: Like, do they really want this or not?
Anne-Lyse Wealth: Right. Yeah. And so on your Instagram page, you talk about making, our kids millionaires. Do we need millions to make our kids millionaires? Oh, absolutely
Maya Corbic: not. Yeah. So that's another thing too. I find it so sad that a lot of us were fed lies.
Maya Corbic: Not maybe directly, but indirectly sometimes by the communities that we grew up in the environment. a lot of times people think you need to be rich to invest or to become a millionaire. or only men invest, like we can all invest. Investing is out there for all of us. And, I really encourage everybody to start.
Maya Corbic: Learning a little bit more about ETFs and index funds. I love those. They're such great investments. And if you're a long term investor, if you're investing for long term, you for your retirement or to buy a home or if for your kid, like, to have a goal like 20 or 30 years from now, you're a long term investor.
Maya Corbic: So ETFs and index funds are great for that. You could literally invest. and I like to post, about this. You could invest like. 10 a week. if you just keep doing that, you could become a millionaire. Your child can become a millionaire because the long time horizon and the compound interest, they do the heavy lifting of the wealth creation.
Maya Corbic: So this is available to all of us. We just have to know about it and, start early enough.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: So earlier you said that you talk to your kids, right?
Anne-Lyse Wealth: They're 16 and 14, 14. You talk to your kids about investing, like what are you teaching them about investing? How are they investing?
Maya Corbic: when they were little, we started investing on their behalf, which I already mentioned, but, the way I started really kind of introducing them to investing, it's not like a direct process.
Maya Corbic: it took several steps. So the first step was, we were saving the money in a piggy bank. Then it was like, oh, let's open up, a savings account for you. And by the way, you don't just give them a debit card and now they're. In charge of this money and they can do whatever they want. you're still in charge.
Maya Corbic: A lot of times parents reach out when I tell them to, know, open up a savings account for their child and give them a debit card. Like, that's not what I mean. So opening up a savings account, you put that piggy bank money, that you saved. it's there. And then, know, you can show them on the.
Maya Corbic: Bank statement, how much money they have. Of course, they're not going to understand the whole bank statement. It's going to take years for them to understand how the numbers move on the bank statement, but just show them that figure and then show them the next month. And then they can see that they're earning some interest.
Maya Corbic: When I was doing this with my kids, the bank interest, for the savings accounts were, it was very low. So I remember my son saved up, I think it was like 1, 000 and in one year, I think he earned, was it 60 cents, something like that, 60 cents. It was ridiculous. So I said to him, I'm like, you know, you could actually earn more money.
Maya Corbic: your money can make money babies. So they can have money babies and we can have a lot of money babies. and that only happens if we invest your money. So I mentioned stock market and he was a little bit nervous about it. instead we actually ended up investing his money in a term deposit for one year and he ended up earning, I think it was like 15.
Maya Corbic: So he could actually see that he made more money. And then we started talking about investing in like stock market ETFs and index funds, but also in the meantime, When it was their birthdays or Christmas, I would buy them in addition to their regular gift, I would buy them a share of stock of a company that they knew and understood.
Maya Corbic: So, by the way, none of this is investment advice, but just to give an example, a lot of kids have. Phones or they have iPads. what I mean by phones, I mean iPhones, instead of them being consumers where they're just consuming and buying all these things, they can be owners. So my kids for example, they have Apple shares.
Maya Corbic: And so now they know they own Apple. They also own a part of Disney and it just makes them feel really cool. And they're proud of it. And especially when they were younger, now that they're older, they're more like, Oh no, we love ETFs and index funds. And if they get any dividends, they're just like, no, reinvested into ETFs and index funds.
Maya Corbic: It's just better. So that's
Anne-Lyse Wealth: what we do. so for parents listening right now, who are wanting to help their kids become financially Responsible and independent adults, what are some actionable steps that they can take to do that?
Maya Corbic: So I would say, this very simple step that everybody can do use real life, events.
Maya Corbic: So whatever it is that you're doing right now, are you purchasing a new car? Take your kid along. They are going to listen to the negotiation and. What's going on, with you and the salesman, they may not understand everything, but you can kind of recap it a little lightly, you know, say, Oh, this is what we did.
Maya Corbic: this is how I save money. If you're going shopping, you Thanksgiving is coming New Year's and Christmas is coming. you want a beautiful new dress. Tell them, how are you buying this dress? Are you saving money? How are you saving money? Or maybe you're just like, you know what, I wanted to buy a new dress, but I'm looking at my bank statement and it just makes more sense that I maybe use a dress for my closet that I already have.
Maya Corbic: So I'm making a good financial decision, or maybe the financial decision is I will borrow from my sister or my friend cause I'm only going to use that dress one time for this one special occasion, right? Like we're going to swap clothes. So talk to them, what you're doing, how you're saving money.
Maya Corbic: and then if you want to educate yourself to become, better with money, bring them along, tell them what you're learning. And when you're talking to your kids, try to talk to them, in a way that they would understand. So pretend like if you have a 10 year old, pretend you're 10 years old.
Maya Corbic: How would a 10 year old explain something to another 10 year old? Okay. that's, the first step. That's the easiest step that everybody can do.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: And so also you wrote a book about this, right? From piggy banks to stocks, the ultimate guide for a young investor. tell me about the book.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: What does the book do? Yeah. So the
Maya Corbic: book actually teaches the basics of investing. It's literally, as I said before, I wrote this book for my younger self. Because it explains, it's like investing 101. It's like investing for dummies. Originally I wrote it for the kids and then I had these testers, these families, go through it with their kids and the parents actually came back to me and they said, thank you.
Maya Corbic: I'm finally not intimidated by investing and stock market because, I actually understand it now. Like, before I would like hear things in the news and I just didn't understand it. Like now it actually makes sense. So it's written in a language that 10 year olds can understand. it's got lots of beautiful pictures.
Maya Corbic: it's not like long, boring paragraphs. It's super short, but it goes like, it talks about I guess, intimidating investment jargon. It's like, what's a stock ticker symbol? What's a dividend? What's a dividend aristocrat? what's a brokerage?
Maya Corbic: how do you know, when to buy a stock? it talks about, like, different kinds of investments that you can do. What's a bear market? What's a bull market? So it literally Goes into all sorts of stuff. And there's also an answer key in the back, because there are some areas where you can do a little bit of like work.
Maya Corbic: And then there's also glossary at the very beginning, for some terms that are even like, they're also discussed later on in the book, but it's helpful to have them up front. Love it.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: Awesome. So, Maya, I always end the interview with a round of rapid fire questions.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: In five words or less, describe your wealthy life,
Maya Corbic: family, health, happiness, friends. That's four. travel five.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: what's the best book you've read recently?
Maya Corbic: not recently, but my favorite book is Atomic Habits by James Clear. I absolutely love that book.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: What's one part of your daily routine you can't live without?
Maya Corbic: I love to go for walks. I'm like a dog. I need to be let out at least once a day.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: What's your favorite financial tool or app?
Maya Corbic: I don't necessarily have one, but a tool would be just investing. Investing is a way of like making money. So it's a tool. What do you want your legacy to be? I just want to like educate as many kids about money as possible so that when they grow up, they can say I am financially independent because I was smart about money and the way I've made.
Maya Corbic: Money decisions early on, and this was easy, and I'm going to pass it on to my
Anne-Lyse Wealth: Children if there's one thing that you can pick that you did to improve your wealth, What would that one thing be?
Anne-Lyse Wealth: pay off my debt.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: Well, Maya, thank you so much for being with us today, sharing your incredible journey and insights. Please tell the dreamers where they can find you. So
Maya Corbic: you can find me on Instagram. I hang out there a lot. I try to post a lot of helpful tips for parents on how to teach kids about money. My Instagram handle is.
Maya Corbic: It's teach dot kids dot money. it has a blue check mark. Make sure you follow me. there are a lot of scammers out there that pretend to be me, so make sure you follow the right account. and I also have wealthy kids club, which is, you can find it on wealthy kids dot club online, that helps families learn how to become successful
Anne-Lyse Wealth: investors.
Anne-Lyse Wealth: I love it. Well, thank you so much, Maya. Thank you for having me.