Educating kids about money is a great idea – especially if it stops them falling prey to payday lenders

A pension is a reward for getting up every day and going to an office, where you will have to share fridge space with the type of people who leave passive aggressive notes about quinoa

I come from a northern family of savers: my mother thinks I’m extravagant; my partner thinks I’m tight fisted (Getty)

Martin Lewis, the friendly money guru off the telly, has backed an initiative to bring financial education textbooks into schools from this autumn.

I’m not sure exactly how this would work but the general idea is to introduce children from quite a young age to the concept of “financial capability” and eventually equip them with the skills to navigate their way though banking terms and conditions, the difference between net and gross, debit and credit and what the letters APR actually mean.

I think this is a brilliant idea. I was 19 and living away from home when I had to ring my older sister to ask why my bank statement was mostly written in red ink. Apparently, I was overdrawn and I needed to learn to budget and not spend my entire student grant on fags and cider.

We all have different attitudes to money. I come from a northern family of savers: my mother thinks I’m extravagant; my partner thinks I’m tight fisted.

All I know is that I’m 58 in an industry that isn’t that keen on older women and I haven’t got a pension. I need to be mean and I need to have savings, otherwise I’m going to end up in a skip eating cat food.

The trouble is, none of us know how long we’re going to live and I don’t think there are many middle aged freelancers who don’t lie awake at night, muttering “If I live till I’m 90, then I need to divide what I’ve got by approximately 30, which means I can just about afford half a tin of beans every other day”. Whoop.

This will then lead to panic and insomnia which will inevitably in turn lead to accidentally browsing the Zara sale and buying a floral jumpsuit, which will obviously have to be sent back.

I genuinely think it’s a great idea to introduce children to the idea that certain types of jobs have pensions and that a pension is your reward for getting up every day and going to a place of work, called an office, where you will have to share fridge space with the type of people who leave passive aggressive notes about not touching their quinoa.

On the other hand kids, there are alternative jobs, which don’t give you a pension, but which you might enjoy more… decisions, decisions. Do you want to join the morning commute of BO and bad breath, or would you rather stay at home in your dressing gown? I opted for the latter and these days I spend a lot of time in said dressing gown waving my neighbours (who did the former), off on cruises.

Of course the world of money is made harder to understand because there is no fairness and the rules are slippery. Work hard and you will be rewarded, yes, but get famous and you will be rewarded more? Hmmm, oddly enough, the Martin Lewis-backed project coincided neatly with a recent study that shows you will earn more money going on Love Island than going to Oxbridge. Now obviously this is a ludicrous claim that should be followed very quickly by the disclaimer “maybe”.

But it’s the kind of headline that young people gravitate towards. What’s the point in slogging your guts out for all those boring exams with no financial guarantee at the end of it, when even the briefest appearance on a reality show will give you a shortcut to the high life? Even if it is fleeting and relies on you being able to live out your life in swimwear.

The fact is, there are no hard and fast rules to making money. Yes you can do a sensible degree in PPE or maths and get a good job in banking or you can roll the dice, do an arts degree and be a poverty stricken writer for the rest of your life, (lets not forget the average British author earns £12,500 a year) – unless you write a bestseller of course, in which case welcome to your mink palace and your gold top hat.

And it’s not just a question of earning money anyway, it’s a case of being able to hang onto it and realising that sometimes you have to accept that something is too expensive and that you can’t afford it and most importantly you don’t need it. This is the hardest thing for kids to learn, especially when it seems like the rest of the world is kicking them in the face with a new pair of trainers.

At the risk of sounding preachy, I think the most important thing that kids can learn about finances is about the true cost of borrowing and how some payday loan companies seem to exist only to fleece the most vulnerable.

When I was very young, I learned to count with coloured beads. If even very small children could be taught that some people will charge you thousands of beads just to borrow three or four beads then it could save a lot of heartbreak in the future.

Forget the textbooks Martin, bring on the coloured beads.