If you’re a FIRE parent, one of your biggest concerns might be raising a spoiled and entitled child who takes hard work and money for granted. If this happens, it may feel like a significant failure—not only for your child’s future but also for society, which would have to contend with the consequences of their behavior.
To counter this, you can instill a strong work ethic and appreciation for money in several ways. For instance, assign daily chores to teach responsibility and the value of contributing to the household. Encourage them to tackle hands-on tasks, like home maintenance or landscaping, to build resilience and practical skills.
Additionally, having your child work a minimum wage service job in high school and later can be transformative. It teaches them the challenges of dealing with difficult customers and the effort required to earn even a small amount of money.
Parents Can Act How They’d Like Their Children To Behave
Since children often model their behavior after their parents, your actions will strongly influence their perspective on everything from hard work to spending to how to treat others with respect.
As a father, I try to lead by example through frugal habits, such as wearing simple clothes until they’re worn out and always finishing the food on my plate. I also make a point to discuss the cost of things with my children—for instance, explaining the expense of a sports lesson. This helps them understand that not taking it seriously is ultimately wasting money.
But I recognize the contradictions in my lifestyle—I drive a moderately expensive car (though it’s 10 years old) and live in a costly home. These inconsistencies make me worried about fostering entitlement in my children. As a result, I’ve been working on finding a balance between living well as an adult and not overindulging for the sake of my kids’ upbringing.
That’s when I stumbled upon a solution! If you’re also concerned about your children developing a sense of entitlement, consider helping them feel poorer than they actually are. By doing so, they may grow richer—not just financially, but in compassion and empathy as well.
An Unexpected Welcome: Feeling Poor At Summer Camp
One of the great things about interacting with other families is seeing how differently people approach spending money. Without perspective from others, it’s hard to know how we’re doing.
Some parents I know drive $120,000 Tesla Model Xs while living in relatively inexpensive apartments, completely disregarding my house-to-car ratio guideline. On the other hand, I’ve met parents worth tens of millions who still live in modest apartments and drive beaters.
Ultimately, how we spend our money is a personal choice. Don’t let me or anybody else tell you what to do. I only offer guidelines for those looking to achieve financial independence faster.
Expensive Pokémon Cards Everywhere
I had an eye-opening moment during my son’s outdoor nature summer camp. To my surprise, several kids brought large binders full of Pokémon cards. The camp was entirely outdoors—why were they bringing Pokémon cards instead of exploring nature?
But what really shocked me was the value of these cards. Some of these 7-9-year-old kids were carrying binders worth hundreds, if not thousands, of dollars! How is this possible at such a young age unless their parents are spending heavily on them?
My son, who brought no cards to camp and owns maybe eight cards gifted to him as party favors, felt excluded. So did the other kids without cards. This was likely the first time my son also felt poorer compared to his peers.
Great! Feeling excluded is something minorities experience regularly, which often drives them to find ways to adapt. Similarly, feeling financially behind can spark the motivation to catch up to others by working harder.
When I moved to Virginia for high school, I often felt like an outsider—the new Asian kid from Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. It was an awkward experience, but it did push me out of my comfort zone to make friends. Living in a modest townhouse and walking to school didn’t help my popularity either. But that experience fueled my desire to succeed.
Son Surprisingly Didn’t Want More
I expected my son to ask if I could buy him packs of Pokémon cards after seeing other kids’ binders when we got home. My prepared answer would have been, “I’d rather use the money to buy food for dinner so we may live another day. How about you?“
But he didn’t ask. Instead, he just observed their binders from a distance and decided to play with the other kids who didn’t have cards. Phew—maybe all my talks about money and acting frugally are starting to pay off.
Pokémon Go Mobile Game – A Great Way To Help Kids Feel Poorer
Although my son isn’t into collecting cards, he has taken an interest in the Pokémon Go mobile game after hearing about it from his friends. My wife and I started casually playing the game together back in July 2016 when it first launched, then forgot about it for years until recently when other children and parents showed interest.
The game includes an element of effort and strategy—battling gyms to earn coins. These coins let you buy items like raid passes, bigger storage, and lures to get rarer Pokémon. However, earning coins takes time and persistence, as you can only get up to 50 coins a day by conquering gyms. With many items costing 100–5,000 coins each, the grind can be slow.
Alternatively, players can skip the effort by spending real money to buy coins—a key part of Niantic’s business model. Like many other free-to-play games, Pokémon Go thrives on in-game purchases, enticing players to exchange money for convenience and faster progress.
This dynamic provides a great teaching moment about value and effort: working for rewards versus paying for shortcuts. The reality is, players do a mix of both, and getting ahead in life is also a mix of both.
The dilemma is figuring out the right ratio between effort and shortcuts to feel good about your play and your life. It’s different for everyone.
Spending $4.99 for 550 coins is not going to break our bank. It would save me an hour of time over the course of a week conquering gyms. But I refuse partly because adopting the broke mindset gives me the motivation to earn.
Don’t Like Spending Money To Get Ahead
I have a hard time spending money or leveraging my connections to gain an advantage. It takes away the sense of accomplishment when you’ve done something on your own. As a result, I often suffer unnecessarily due to pride. Here are a few examples:
- I refused to spend $200 to hire someone to teach my son how to ride a bike. Instead, I went to the blacktop with him 14 times, holding and guiding him from behind until he got the hang of it. My lower back was killing me after every session. It also took longer for my son to learn than the other kids whose parent’s paid for lessons.
- I didn’t ask alumni friends to write letters of recommendation to help our family get into a couple of preschools. We ended up being rejected from six. The only preschool we got into was pure luck—we kept running into a teacher from that school, who was on parental leave, at the park and got to know him. Thanks Andrew!
- I didn’t start Financial Samurai until I got an MBA and had 10 years of finance experience in 2009. Having credibility is important. Meanwhile, back then, there were 26-year-olds without much wealth publishing books on how to get rich. Many of them are now incredibly wealthy, while I am much less so.
Put yourself in my shoes—if you’re a personal finance writer, the idea of spending real money to buy fake money to get ahead in a game probably wouldn’t fly either!
Too Much Pride Getting In The Way
This stubbornness to do things on my own has shaped the way I approach life. But I’m starting to realize I may also be passing this same inflexibility on to my children. While resourcefulness and grit have their merits, a more balanced approach could be better for all of us in the long run.
After all, battling gyms and earning free coins takes time—and time is money. Wouldn’t it make more sense to spend $5 to save an hour of time, especially if you’re not having fun? Of course, it would. The other parents are efficiently allocating resources, treating this game as just another form of entertainment.
Will Never Catch Up To Other Children
When we meet up once every two-or-three months for a group raid, I let my son borrow my phone to battle the various gyms. He doesn’t have a phone and won’t get one until high school. So he’s stuck with my progress.
Inevitably, other kids show him their collections of rare Pokémon they’ve caught, sparking his desire annd FOMO. But since we don’t play as often and don’t spend money on coins, catching up is impossible.
Feeling poorer compared to other kids is a good reminder that you can’t always get what you want. Instead, you must accept that there will always be people with more.
Understanding Relative Wealth Is Important
Exposure to wealthier children and families can motivate them to hustle harder for what they want. In turn, those kids who have more may also develop more empathy for those kids who have less. What a win-win!
Seeing other kids have more is also an excellent lesson for adulthood. We know there are plenty of wealthy parents who pave the way for their children—buying their way into elite colleges, gifting them cars and homes after graduation, using connections to get plum jobs, and so forth. And then, of course, there are naturally highly intelligent and hard-working adults who far surpass their peers based on merit. That’s just the way the world works and we must all learn to accept it.
If children learn to understand the concept of relative wealth early on, they may grow up less envious and more accepting of life’s inherent inequalities.
Finally Broke Down And Spent Some Money
As I wrap up this post after a month of pondering, I finally decided to spend $19.99 on 2,500 Pokemon coins. And you know what? I don’t feel bad at all since I just wrote about earning active income for wants.
The purchase saves me time and provides entertainment for my children and me. It actually feels great to treat myself to something unnecessary once in a while. Maybe I’ll budget to spend $19.99 in the game every winter holiday. That’s it. Moderation.
The thing is, just don’t tell my kids that I took a shortcut! This secret is just between you and me.
Readers, do you think feeling poor as a child helps instill a greater appreciation for what they have and motivates them to grow richer later in life? Or does it risk fostering envy and resentment toward others? Also, does anyone else wrestle with guilt over spending money on online games? Why is that, especially when it’s just another form of entertainment?
The topic of spoiling children has been on my mind for a while, but it resurfaced after we bought our new house. If you’re a parent considering upgrading to a nicer home, be prepared—you might also start worrying about creating a distorted reality for your kids.
Related Posts About Parenting And Money:
A Massive Generational Wealth Transfer Is Why Everything Will Be OK
How To Get Your Parents To Pay For Everything Even After You Become An Adult
Confessions Of A Spoiled Rich Kid
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Source: Feeling Poor As A Child May Help Them Grow Rich In Many Ways
