I RECENTLY RECEIVED an email from a friend asking, “What financial advice would you give to your younger self, now that you’re older?” I had to think for a while. But once I sat down to reply, I realized my attitudes about personal finance were already well-developed by the time I was in my 20s. I also realized my financial beliefs had been shaped, in part, by growing up in a family where money wasn’t exactly plentiful.

IT’S LONG BEEN an idea that’s captured my imagination: Get a child invested in the stock market at a young age and then leave compounding to work its magic. If stocks notch four percentage points a year more than inflation—which many would consider a conservative estimate—$10,000 invested at birth would be worth $230,500 at age 80. That sort of success would, I suspect, give a significant boost to parental popularity.
When my kids were born,

MY SISTER JUST HAD a baby, our family’s first grandchild. That officially makes me a PANK: a Professional Aunt, No Kids. This often-overlooked demographic takes an active role in the lives of children they’re close to. They spend not only time, but also money: 76% of PANKs lavish more than $500 a year on each of their nieces and nephews, resulting in some $9 billion in annual purchases.
The opportunity to buy adorable items for baby Henrik is not lost on me.

WHERE DOES A TEEN turn for advice on money? I went to my late father. My conversations with him are burned into my memory like software on a computer.
“Do what you love and make it pay.” “Give your all enthusiastically.” “You can get whatever you want if you are willing to work for it.” “What you make is important, but what you do with what you make matters more.”
When I was 15,

LIKE MOST PARENTS, my wife and I spent time and money building a happy and balanced childhood for our four children. That encompassed things like vacations, cub scouts, church, music, and youth soccer and baseball. But it also included trying to pass along values like hard work, thrift, generosity and education. We never hesitated to speak about our finances around the dinner table, although we only shared specific numbers when the kids got older.

IN EARLY 2005, when Hannah was age 16 and Henry was 12, I took them out to a local diner and told them exactly how much financial help I’d provide. I would make sure they graduated college debt-free. I would seed a retirement account with $25,000 and a house-down-payment fund with $20,000. On top of that, I’d give them $5,000 upon graduation, plus another $5,000 toward the cost of a wedding or at age 30,

ADULT MONEY HABITS are set by age seven, according to a 2013 Cambridge University study. Want to get your kids on the right track? Three things should scare the hell out of you.
First, parents teach kids about money all the time, often without knowing it. “Turn off the lights.” “Let’s go shopping.” “We will save if we have something left over.” It’s unavoidable. The subject of money is as omnipresent as the air we breathe.

WHEN I WAS IN MY 20s, with two young children to provide for, I had neither an emergency fund nor nearly enough life insurance. I knew both were important—but I simply didn’t have the money to spare.
Make no mistake: Launching a financial life is daunting. Most twentysomethings have modest incomes, and yet they’re supposed to save for retirement, buy a car, build up an emergency reserve and put aside money for a house down payment,

IT’S ONE OF THOSE indelible teenage memories: visiting the Bank of Baltimore in suburban Washington, DC, in the late 1970s.  I would hand over my babysitting or lawn-mowing money to the bank clerk, who would slide my green bank book into some magic typewriter. After a joyous clatter of keys, my bank book would be returned, and there would be recorded not just my deposit, but also the latest quarterly interest payment.
My children and stepchildren—ages 10 to 27—all have bank accounts.

THIS IS GRADUATION season at colleges across America. Got a kid heading into the workforce this year? Here are three pieces of advice you might pass along.
First, deal with your financial goals concurrently, not consecutively. In other words, don’t save for the house down payment in your 30s, the kids’ college in your 40s and then turn your attention to retirement in your 50s. If you do that, it will be almost impossible to amass enough for a comfortable retirement.