This is an excellent exercise to “break the ice” at family get-together.

Start by asking a question…

What is living well?

Everyone brainstorms ideas for 10-15 minutes, or in advance.

Then, everyone gets a chance to share their answers.

While each individual shares, have the group agree:

• to stay quiet
• to make notes if they are having trouble staying quiet
• to write down the best ideas they hear

After everyone has shared.

• Get a white board
• One-by-one
• Share a great idea

Our summary list below.

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I played this game with my kids (10, 11, 14).

They had some really good ideas!

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In the middle of the list…

Focusing on what you need not what you want

Needs are much easier to fill than wants.

In fact, the definition of our wants is they can rarely be satisfied.

The observation (of a child) led us quite nicely into the next discussion.

Without telling the kids what the numbers were

• We flipped the white board
• I read out monthly cash burn, in round thousands
• We stacked the numbers (Jan to Sept)
• Each kid added up the numbers
• We grossed up to a full year projection (multiply by 4/3)

They were surprised at the family burn rate.

We flipped back to the list and asked ourselves…

How much money is required to live well?

My list has been the same for a very long time.

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I walked them through my definition of living well.

We ended with a reminder

Talking about family money, outside the family, can create unnecessary issues (for them, and me)

I asked them for an example and they came up with Muffy from Arthur – if you know the kids’ show then you’ll know they picked an excellent example.

…and I left it at that.