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Teen Titans Go! Money Lessons

2 Comments / Money Smart Kids / By Brian

Note: This article may sound like an advertisement, but it isn’t. I’m simply a fan of the Cartoon Network show Teen Titans Go!

I’ve worked from home before my kids were born. It was easy for me to watch television with my kids. When we discovered Teen Titans Go! it was simple self-preservation for me. I was desperate for a new show. I had enough of watching the “Fat Controller” berate Thomas the Tank Engine and his friends for not doing their job, while ignoring the employees who are on the train.

While we’ve tried a variety of other shows, one of the first ones that stuck was Teen Titans Go!

For those who don’t know the Teen Titans Go! characters, they are five teenage superheroes. However, instead of saving the day, they are usually doing something silly. For example, they find out what the Tooth Fairy is really doing with all our teeth. (Spoiler: He eats them!)

Each of the episodes below, I’ve watched at least 3 times. Some of them are probably in the double digits by now. Kids love reruns, right?

There are over 300 episodes of Teen Titans Go! The episodes cover a lot of mundane adult topics. For example, the episode tonight is about trademark law. There’s an episode tomorrow about health insurance. Clearly, these are the kinds of topics that weigh deeply on your 9-year-old’s mind. Don’t worry, kids love it because it is so silly. You’ll love it as you nod and say, “It’s so true!”

At least one of the writers is a big fan of personal finance. The Teen Titans have about a dozen episodes that center on personal finance topics. Let’s dig in and see what money lessons we can learn from them.

Top Personal Finance Lessons from the Teen Titans

Money is Whatever Currency We Choose

In the episode Two Bumble Bees and a Wasp, Robin (of Batman fame) tries to teach the rest of the gang about money:

“Money is not to be wasted on things that bring you happiness and joy! Money is to be hoarded until you have enough money that your money makes more money.”

I’m not sure too many children are going to pick up on that last point, but it certainly caught my attention.

Turning to a cartoon representation of money we get this lesson:

“I am paper, but I am also money. All I am is an agreed-upon representative of credit. Something you trade for goods and services! So I can be anything.

They go on to ask whether money can be a pineapple. (Actually, pineapples have historically been used as money.)

After Beast Boy insists that money is evil and rips up a dollar bill, Robin decides not to pay anyone until they respect money.

Flash forward to a day later and Beast Boy has a pizza. Robin would like a slice and offers to buy one with a dollar. He soon learns that the rest of the team has agreed that the new currency is bees.

Yes, bees. I told you it was a silly show.

It’s a good episode to build a foundation about how money works. It’s also useful to start a conversation about cryptocurrency.

It ends with this hilarious song and dance:

If you are interested, there’s a complete script of Two Bumble Bees and a Wasp here

Focus on Health and Wealth

In the episode, Think About Your Future, Robin announces that he’s buying all the Teen Titans expensive jackets.

Raven has an epiphany:

Raven: Aren’t you guys worried about wasting money?… So we have some later?
Starfire: But the later is not until the later. Currently, it is the now.
Raven: I know, but aren’t we going to get old one day?
Beast Boy: Yeah, but later.
Cyborg: And it’s the “now” right now.
Raven: Oh, okay, that makes sense.

So they buy the jackets. And then they celebrate with pizza, but not just any pizza it’s “extra-large, extra-extra cheese extra-extra-extra pepperoni, plus “large jugs of the soda” and “a gallon of ranch dip.”

Raven once again warns that perhaps they should eat healthier to avoid health problems later. Again, the rest of the gang doesn’t care about “later.”

The scene ends and we jump ahead to 70 years later.

The gang is old with many health problems. They can’t afford their medications because they don’t have any money.

They suddenly realize that Raven was right. So they do what anyone would do. They build a time machine and send their old selves back to talk to their teen selves into making more sensible choices.

That brings us to this clip about learning how to eat healthy, starting a 401k plan, and an explanation of compound interest.

Everything goes perfectly… too perfectly. The rest of the episode isn’t educational, but it is entertaining.

Again, if you are interested in the script, you can find it here

Building Wealth with Rental Properties

No cartoon is dumb enough to create an episode around a boring topic such as building equity from rental properties. No cartoon except for Teen Titans Go!

With episode after episode about silliness, the writers created, Finally a Lesson.

The best part of the episode is Robin explaining rental property and how to build equity:

If you can’t watch it, here’s Robin’s explanation:

“Equity is the amount of a property you truly own. It’s the difference between your loan balance and your property’s market value. If you sold your property and paid off the bank, the value of your equity is what you’d walk away with. When you build equity, you increase the net value of your asset. One way to do this is by paying off your mortgage.”

The episode takes them through all the steps. First, they find the right property – a run-down apartment building. Then they get to the financing, which involves getting 20% for a down payment. They do it the way that “everyone else does” ask someone else for that 20%.

Then we get to the other fun parts of securing a rental property… the loan process. There’s an explanation of credit scores, securing the right lender, filling out the paperwork, and getting a good faith estimate.

The gang is starting to get very bored, but Robin assures them they’ll be very satisfied in the end. For now, they have to turn their attention toward fixing all the problems with the building.

There’s a fun twist, but finally, Robin gets us to the satisfying end, “It takes decades to actually build equity, but in 30 years, it will provide a modest cash flow to pay for our numerous old people medications.”

For a cartoon geared towards kids, it’s as good of an overview that you’ll get. As my kids have gotten older and started to ask why we have rental properties, I just cue up the episode on the DVR (or Hulu) and ask if they have any specific questions.

You guessed it, the script is available here.

Avoiding College Debt #1

In the episode Who’s Laughing Now Beast Boy gets underarm hair, signaling that he is becoming a man. That means finding his spirit animal, which is “like college for dudes who turn into animals.”

With that, we are off on a Teen Titans Go! tangent questioning the value of college.

Raven: Uh, isn’t higher education usually really expensive?
Robin: Yes, but if he chooses the right spirit animal it will open a lot of doors for him.
Beast Boy: That’s right, Robin, my man. And then me and my hairy pits will be on easy street.
Cyborg: Whoa, whoa, whoa. While spirit animals are great, they aren’t necessarily for everyone. I’d hate to see you saddled with so much debt and in this economy, whoo! Personally, I think spirit animals have just become big business. Focus more on sports and partying, than education. Now with the money you’d spent on a spirit animal have you instead considered investing in, say, a rental property? Or what about looking into a training school?

Beast Boy: Whoa, check out those bears. Nice. That’s what I want my spirit animal to be!
Cyborg: But the cost of being a bear is astronomical. Maybe you should find a two-year community spirit animal, like that old donkey. Then transfer to the bears. In the end, you get the same spirit animal.

Beast Boy gets accepted by the bears and talks to his friends.

Robin: But how are you going to pay for this? I got some government loan of salmon and honey.
Raven: Whoa, that’s a lot of salmon and honey. It will take forever to pay that back.
Beast Boy: Once I’m a bear, I’ll be rich.
Cyborg: While data shows having a good spirit animal leads to a better paying job, there’s no guarantee those spirit animals are going to give you the experience you need to make it in the real world.

When things don’t go well with the bears, Beast Boy realizes that he made a mistake.

Beast Boy: I think you’re right, Cyborg. I should have bought a rental property.
Cyborg: Booyah. Told ya.
Raven: Well, consider it a lesson learned.

The last line is a reference to the rental property episode, Finally a Lesson that I covered above.

The episode goes off on a silly tangent, like all the episodes, before circling around to one last wise thought.

Cyborg gives a last shaming to the bears after defeating them:

That’s what you get for convincing people to spend thousands of dollars just to learn things they could figure out for free. Leave them with an amount of debt and a useless piece of paper that reads, “Diploma.” They’re pedaling a dream that doesn’t exist anymore.

The script for this one can be found here

Avoiding College Debt #2

In the episode Teen Titans Vroom, we get another lesson about college debt and career choice. This time it comes from villain Dr. Military. Dr. Military isn’t really a bad guy though, he’s a victim of the student loan system. Let’s start with this witty banter about his career choice:

Dr. Military: Actually, I’m a… veterinarian.
Titan: Everyone knows that’s not a real doctor.
Dr. Military: That may be the perception, but it took me ten years to earn my veterinarian degree. And statistically, it’s more difficult to get into veterinarian school than med school, which means I had to work twice as hard for half the respect and money of a so-called “real doctor.”
Titan: Sounds like you should’ve been a people doctor, bro.
Dr. Military: Enough. If I wanted to listen to someone criticize my career choice, I would have called my parents.

Now let’s get to the root of Dr. Military’s evil doings:

Titan: Please, give up the evil scheme, Dr. Military. You do not have to do this.
Dr. Military: Actually, I do. I need the ransom money to pay off my massive school loan. The high cost of veterinary school combined with my low salary as an animal doctor has put me in quite the financial bind. My evil plan is the only way out of this crushing debt.

My 8 and 9-year-old boys don’t know much about college yet, but this will be something we can revisit as they get older.

How Taxes and the IRS Work

In Fat Cats (Season 7, Episode 22), the Titans win a big cash prize, but then learn that they have to pay taxes on it. This allows the writers to explore what a tax-free world looks like. It isn’t pretty:

It’s a great introduction to kids about why we have taxes.

Pyramid Schemes Will Make You Broke

I almost didn’t include this episode, but my wife mentioned that I should. I know quite a bit about MLM/Pyramid schemes and I didn’t feel this episode addressed the topic very well. However, many adults can’t understand pyramid schemes, so I can’t expect the Teen Titans to teach kids this complex topic well. As usual, my wife is correct and it’s just my own extensive writing that artificially raised expectations.

The Teen Titans Go actually have a very good description of a pyramid scheme in this 2 minute clip:

The key money quotes almost always come from Robin and this is no different:

Robin: This is a pyramid scheme!… Not that kind of pyramid! A pyramid scheme is an unsustainable business model, that promises payments to participants, based on the amount of additional people they enroll in the business, instead of focusing on the sale of goods or services to the public… As you can see here, the exponential growth of the “business”, will eventually cause the entire operation to collapse, leaving the participants at the bottom of the pyramid bankrupt, while those at the top walk away rich…
Starfire: I do have the question. Did the mummies build the pyramids?
Robin: There are no mummies! It’s not a literal pyramid!

Almost everyone in MLM doesn’t understand this concept and still go meetings to learn how to show the plan or enroll people in the business. In fact, the people who make the most money in every MLM are the people who have the largest downlines of enrolled people, not sales of goods or services to the public.

Beast Boy joins and makes Pyramid Scheme money which leads to this awesome song:

Of course, the rest of the gang (sans Robin) want all the money, so Beast Boy enrolls them as “money deputies” with himself as a “money sheriff.” Robin warns them, “You are participating in a fraudulent business” and “This pyramid scheme is going to leave you broke, Titans.”

Everything spins out of control and gets mixed in with mummies wanting their money back and the Teen Titans not being able to deliver. They get out of it with some silly stuff that doesn’t make sense, but by this point, they’ve addressed the topic fairly well.

Once again, you can find a transcript of the episode here

Final Thoughts

I really don’t know how much financial information my kids are absorbing from this, but I know that they remember nearly everything they see.

I’ve watched my share of cartoons and I can’t think of any other general cartoon that covers half of the financial topics in Teen Titans Go! There are still a lot of episodes that I haven’t seen, so I might have missed a few money lessons.

If Teen Titans Go! isn’t your thing, maybe you should try a different money television show.

Where are the surprising places you’ve found money lessons? Let me know in the comments.

Teach Your Grade-Schooler About Money

Recently, I wrote about how to teach your preschooler about money. It included a lot of basic things like recognizing coins have different values. Once they get to elementary school, they can start to tackle bigger money issues.

Before I get into the money part, I need to address one elephant in the room. There doesn’t seem to be a good name for children ages 6-10. They aren’t preschoolers and they aren’t tweens. I found a couple of places calling them grade-schoolers, so I’ll go with it.

One of the great things about this age is that you can do so many things that you couldn’t for a preschooler. Let’s look at some of the things:

Savings and Spending

By grade school, kids often have an allowance. That means they can make more of their spending decisions than a preschooler. My kids started to want more complicated things. Sadly, the days of decorating a big cardboard box like a rocketship and flying to the moon isn’t enough. They wanted to save up for a Nintendo Switch and the latest Pokemon games. Now I spend most of my time trying to pry them off of video games. That’s a topic for a different blog or article.

Unfortunately, with the example of the Nintendo Switch and Pokemon games, we couldn’t shop around and try to stretch a dollar. We got one a few months before COVID hit and considered ourselves lucky that we got one at all.

Earning Money

Grade schoolers can do extra chores around the house to make some extra money. My kids help out with the dog boarding business that I run at home. It’s only fair that I give them some money. Unfortunately, it’s uncommon that kids can reasonably help in your professional life.

There are other things that kids at the upper end of this age range can do. They may be able to babysit a younger sibling for a short time. They may be able to bake some pastries for a bake sale.

A lemonade stand may sound antiquated but it can work. Our area has limited the places where lemonade stands can be. I guess they didn’t want kids pestering the tourists. We run a virtual lemonade stand using a version of a lemonade stand game I played as a kid. This is a great way for kids to about supply and demand.

Other Financial Education

This age group is a great time to teach kids money with televsion. Some episodes of Teen Titans Go make learning about real estate investing fun. Other shows like Warren Buffett’s Secret Millionaire Club are greatly focused on personal finance.

Additionally, you can start to share the family finances with your kids. You don’t need to share everything, but you can share some of the necessary expenses that the family has.

How To Teach Your Kids About Money

Leave a Comment / Money Smart Kids / By Brian

I am passionate about several things, but two of them are teaching kids and money. Teaching kids comes with the territory of being a stay-at-home dad. I couldn’t have gotten through 15 years of money blogging if I found financial literacy a chore.

There are so many ways to teach kids about money… perhaps too many. I started outlining this article and found more and more ways to teach valuable money lessons. It’s easy to go overboard, remember that young children need to just be children. Money management should be near the bottom of their priority list. That’s why many of the suggestions below focus on things that kids find fun.

Table of Contents

Set a Good Example

Whether you like it or not, your kids are watching you all the time. They see a lot of the everyday ways that you use money. I know my frugal and investing habits came from my mother. As a young child, I remember rare triple coupon shopping at the grocery store. As a teen, I would also read the copy of Kiplinger’s Personal Finance magazine that came to the house. That was a good way to learn about financial topics such as corporate earnings and interest rates.

Consider giving your kids an allowance. They’ll create strong money habits if they are allowed to make their own money mistakes. One of the core ideas is to have a “give, save, spend” piggy bank, such as this one. It’s a fun way for them to sort where all their pennies should go.

Check Out Money Books for Kids and Parents

There are two main ways to teach kids about money with books, give them one or read one yourself. I recommend doing both.

The best book to give a kid to teach them about money was written in 1989. It’s If You Made a Million. It’s written for kids and introduces them to coins, saving, spending, investing, compound interest, mortgages, and even financial independence. It does it with excellent illustrations. I wrote a review of If You Made a Million here.

If you are looking for a second book, I helped fund one on Kickstarter. I got my copy recently and it is very good. It is M is for Money by Rob Phelan. You can pre-order it now.

Finally, if you are looking for a book to help you teach your kids about money, get Make Your Kid A Money Genius (Even If You’re Not): A Parents’ Guide for Kids 3 to 23 by Beth Kobliner. It’s a great read from cover to cover. What I love about this book is that it covers teenagers and young adults. Older kids benefit from financial lessons too.

Listen to some Kid Money Podcasts

I have to be honest, I’m not a podcast person. I think it’s because I can’t listen to one thing and write about another at the same time. I’ve found two very good money podcasts for children.

Kids, Money, and More

This is mostly for very young kids, such as kindergartners. It covers the basics of how to save, being mindful about your spending, and giving. Anisa Kurji and her two sons take you through a money journey in about 10 minutes (or less). It’s perfect for the ride to school. There are only about 10 episodes, but that might be enough to mix in to change the routine every couple of weeks.

Million Bazillion

This podcast tackles interesting questions like why we need money and how it came about. Most of the episodes tackle one question. Each episode is about 22 minutes long, so you could plan for this on long car rides. This is a good speed for my 9-year-old.

It’s sponsored by Greenlight, which is a debit card for kids. I haven’t heard too much about it, so if you have experience with that, let me know in the comments below.

NPR’s Planet Money Summer School

There are two seasons of Planet Money Summer school that are perfect for teaching teens about money. Season one is about macroeconomics. Season two covers the basics of investing.

Teach your kids about money with television

I know, kids watch too much television these days. It’s good to have limits. However, if they are going to watch television anyway, you can use it to advance their financial education. There are two shows that I think you should focus on.

Teen Titans Go!

That link goes to a list of about a half-dozen episodes that focus on personal finance. There are more than 325 episodes of Teen Titans Go! so it’s usually not about personal finance. However, there’s an episode about building wealth with rental properties. That covers the importance of good credit history and credit score. Another episode teaches the value of money with a weird analogy of bees being the currency.

Warren Buffett’s Secret Millionaire Club

Did you know that Warren Buffett’s entrepreneurial lessons are available as a cartoon for kids? Yep. You can watch over twenty episodes of his group of young teens learn money lessons. It’s free to stream, with no subscription service to buy. Usually, I mix this in as a treat on days that I’ve had to homeschool as a break.

Schoolhouse Rock: Money Rock

Schoolhouse Rock taught me parts of speech, how to multiply, and how a bill becomes a law. I trust Schoolhouse Rock to teach my kids about money.

Looking for more ideas? See our main article on how to teach your kids about money with television.

Money board games with the family

Every reader has to be familiar with Monopoly, so I won’t waste words covering it. You are also probably familiar with the game of Life. It wasn’t until playing that with my kids recently that I realized it can teach the importance of having a high-earning career at an early age. Perhaps the best of the mainstream money games is Pay Day.

The best board game to teach your kids about money is The Allowance Game. You earn money for doing things like mowing the lawn, but you can lose money if you break a window. Like all the other board games you use play money which is good for learning math concepts like addition and subtraction. This one adds coins to the mix which is great for learning decimals.

For more check out our best money board games.

Online courses to teach your kids about money

When COVID-19 hit, parents and kids turned to online learning. It wasn’t as good as being in the classroom, but many kids now have improved computer skills. That makes online courses for teaching kids about money a perfect fit.

MoneyTime – Financial Literacy for Kids

I reviewed MoneyTime at the link above. It’s designed for kids ages 10 to 14, but my oldest battled through it when he was 8 and it went okay. He’s 9 now and his math skills have improved a lot in the last year. Unless you’re an evil parent writing about kid money, I would stick with those recommended ages. If I were to build a personal finance curriculum for kids MoneyTime would be a core component.

Choose FI Foundation

The Choose FI Foundation has another money course for kids designed for kids in the 3rd to 5th grade. I haven’t gotten the opportunity to review this yet, but I have a 3rd grader now, so hopefully, we get a chance over one of the school vacations this year.

Both of these courses cover important topics like the danger of credit cards and bad debt.

Video games can teach kids about money

One of my earliest memories of learning about money comes from the classic video game Lemonade Stand. There are ad-supported free versions online and versions in your mobile app store of choice. It’s a great way to learn about supply and demand, but it will probably get old after a few hours.

If you are looking for a 2021 version of Lemonade Stand, I suggest Pizza Company by Osmo. Osmo makes video games come alive in the real world. You set the tablet in a stand and a mirror redirects the camera in front of the tablet. Kids build things in front of the tablet and the Osmo game interprets it on the screen. It sounds complicated but it’s so easy a 4-year-old can get it. The Pizza Company game is better for kids age 7 or 8 though. If you are curious about the Osmo learning system, I wrote a review here

When I was in high school my graphic calculator had a game called Dope Wars (it also goes by Drug Wars). Due to the content (i.e. illegal drug trafficking), it’s best for older kids. Essentially the game taught you how to buy low and sell high. Wired has a history of the game which is 40 years old this year. You can get a version on the Google Play store here.

Looking for more? Kimberly Palmer from NerdWallet covers four money conversations to have with your kids which come up from playing Minecraft and Roblox. My kids love these games, but I don’t understand them.

Final Thoughts on Teaching Kids about Money

Research shows that kids develop their money behavior from a young age. Unfortunately, financial literacy is not taught in many schools. That leaves it up to parents to fill in the gap. With the above resources, you can mix and match the education necessary to build a foundation for a great financial future.

Teach Your Kids About Money with Television

Leave a Comment / Money Smart Kids / By Brian

Does it make sense to teach kids about money with television shows? At first, it may make sense to avoid it. Some argue that kids watch too much television these days. It’s good to have limits, but I think television can be a useful tool.
My opinion is, if they are going to watch television anyway, teaching kids financial literacy is a good use of that time. I’ve put together a few shows that can help form (or supplement) their financial education.

Teen Titans Go!

Teen Titans Go! has 7-10 episodes that cover many important personal finance lessons. Since there are more than 300 episodes of Teen Titans Go! use this guide to look up the specific episodes on Hulu.

There are very few other places where you’ll find an entertaining episode about building wealth with rental properties. One episode covers the importance of good credit history and credit score. Another episode teaches the value of money with a weird analogy of bees being the currency – a perfect starter to talk about cryptocurrency. There’s also an episode with an analogy of taking on too much student loan debt to go to the dream college instead of making the fiscally smart decision.

Warren Buffett’s Secret Millionaire Club

Warren Buffett has a cartoon teaching kids entrepreneurial lessons. There are more than twenty episodes of his group of young teens learning money lessons. It’s free to stream on Kartoon Channel at the link above. No subscription service to buy!

School House Rock

Decades ago, School House Rock famously taught millions of kids how a bill became a law and how parts of speech work. I don’t remember seeing their lessons about money, but my local library had a DVD that was pure gold, Schoolhouse Rock: Money.

It’s another great way to teach your kids about money with television and you can watch all 8 money lessons on YouTube! These videos aren’t the best quality.

If you have a Disney+ subscription, you can get perfect quality by looking up School House Rock and skipping to season 6 for all the money lessons. The other seasons cover a variety of different topics that are worth your time too.
If you have a Disney+ subscription, look up School House Rock and skip to season 6 for all the money lessons. (While you are there check out all the other seasons.)

The short songs cover money management, economics, taxes, the national debt, investing in stocks, and dollar-cost averaging. There’s a little history of money, explaining how barter and coins work.

Cha-Ching Money Smart Kids

There’s a very complete curriculum of money education available at Cha-Ching Money Smart Kids. The lessons consist of 3-minute videos and PDFs designed for teachers (classroom activity) and parents (family activity).

Dr. Alice Wilder, the creator, is known for Blues Clues, Tumble Leaf, and Super Why, one of my favorite shows for teaching younger kids how to read.
Forbes gave Cha-Ching Money Smart Kids a good review.

Shark Tank

Older kids may appreciate Shark Tank. While some topics may be boring to kids, there are quite a few episodes with kids who are entrepreneurs. My oldest saw an episode where a kid started a dog treat business that was very successful. He wanted to start cooking right away.

Biz Kid$

Biz Kid$ is a show designed to teach kids everything about personal finance. You can find some clips here. Those clips come with a lesson plan. All the lesson plans are available in English, but some are available in Spanish as well.
There are a few free streaming episodes on Vimeo.
Unfortunately, if you want to watch all the episodes, it is quite expensive. It seems like the pricing is geared towards school districts. Each 28-minute episode costs $5 to buy or $2 to rent. It would cost about $350 to buy all 71 episodes. You can buy a subscription to stream seasons 1-3 for $30/mo. You’d have to buy another subscription to stream seasons 4-6 for another $30/mo.
So if you were really good about binge-watching 71 episodes, you could do it for $60. That’s a tall order.
I haven’t taken the time to watch this series yet, but I hope to at least watch and review the free episodes soon.

The Toy Box

I’ve never seen this show, but I’ve read some interesting things about it. It sounds a little like Shark Tank where kids (and toy experts) are judges of toys. I’m not sure how much personal finance it will teach, but it sounds like it would be a fun show.
You can buy each of the two seasons of The Toy Box for $15 on Amazon. I can’t seem to find it available for streaming on any major platform.

Final Thoughts on Teaching Your Kids Money with Television

There are a lot of resources out there. I think it makes sense to start with the free ones like Warren Buffett’s Secret Millionaire Club. We’ve watched most of them and, while it isn’t our kids’ most favorite show, it’s among their favorite learning shows.

Money Smart Kids