Kiwi Wealth CEO Rhiannon McKinnon. Photo / Dean Purcell
Kiwi Wealth CEO Rhiannon McKinnon. Photo / Dean Purcell
Kiwi Wealth CEO Rhiannon McKinnon knows only too well how good money habits can set you up for a good retirement and she’s hoping a children’s book produced by her and her team will help young people learn about putting money aside for the future.
McKinnon, who has three youngchildren, said the idea for the book came about after the KiwiSaver provider began looking at ways it could help lift financial literacy in New Zealand.
“One of the things we have noticed when we are working really hard to educate our customers around finance and KiwiSaver is that the level of financial awareness in New Zealand remains something we can all work on together.
“As we got under the hood of it and thought about where do those lessons start we thought it’s all very well trying to teach someone as a KiwiSaver provider but it certainly helps if they emerge into adulthood with a good sense of financial literacy.”
She said research from Massey University pointed to the importance of what parents teach their children at home.
“And it just got us thinking about going all the back to the beginning about helping parents have really good conversations about money with their children. And demystifying it a bit.
“So we thought a fun children’s book could be something that we could work with.”
Kiwi Wealth chief executive Rhiannon McKinnon says the book is aimed at teaching children about money.
McKinnon said the book, called Mia, Her Superhero and the Chicken Coop, was a team effort.
“The idea around the chicken coop comes from a colleague of mine. He had moved out of the city into the Wairarapa and his 7-year-old son was keeping chickens, saving his pocket money and so forth. The kernel of the idea for the story came from one of those real-life experiences and then the little girl is somewhat loosely based on my daughter.”
It doesn’t have an author but instead uses the nom de plum Ruru the wise owl.
“The nom de plume we used - because it was a bit of a team effort - so made sense to use one.”
McKinnon said it was based on the name that her children used to call their late grandmother.
“Various iterations of names that went to Lulu became Ruru when the kids couldn’t pronounce it properly. And when we realised that’s the name for an owl in Te Reo Maori and wisdom that comes with it, it really stuck. So that was the inspiration behind the nom de plume as well.”
She said the key lesson in the story was to “save some of your money so you can buy things that you want later on”.
“At the beginning, Mia spends all her money on lollipops and has a great time and then she is forlorn she can’t buy anything more meaningful. And then a superhero pops out of an egg and says if you don’t spend all your money you can save for something better.”
McKinnon believes it has already helped her own children change their habits a little.
“My kids have a little bit of pocket money given to them each week and it is interesting watching their spending and saving habits and I’ve watched my 5-year-old save up for something recently and we did present the book in the middle of the saving so maybe it helped.
“I have never seen a kid so chuffed as this 5-year-old who bought the treasure chest he wanted with the kinetic sand which he had saved up for.”
She’s not trying to claim the book will help teach a child the need to save for retirement.
“That’s probably a bridge too far but I do think that good money habits start very very young and understanding how to budget - everyone has to learn at different points in life.”
She said it was common for people to struggle with the delayed gratification of saving for retirement.
“That is a struggle for a lot of adults even when you set off at 18 or even for me in my 20s and 30s I found it a struggle to think about retirement. Retirement is such a very long-distance concept. I think we do struggle to engage people to talk about something that is happening in 40 years to them.”
McKinnon said she had mixed feelings around the setting that allowed people to take their money out of KiwiSaver for a first home deposit.
“I think it really sets you back in your retirement so I question whether that’s a good idea for long-term retirement savings. But I do think it really helps as a KiwiSaver provider to have meaningful conversations with people in their 20s and 30s about savings because it is something that is much sooner for them.”
