Is your pre-teen saving every penny for the latest, wildly expensive sneakers? Does your youngest wonder why you can’t just “buy more money” at the store? These moments, familiar in so many of our households, are powerful, teachable opportunities waiting to be seized. As parents, we are on a mission to empower our children and build a legacy of generational wealth, and that journey begins with financial literacy.

While younger generations are more open to talking about money, a real knowledge gap persists; a recent Bank of America report found that only 30% of Gen Z feel knowledgeable about investing, even though many feel optimistic. This is an opportunity to close the gap—shifting from simply saving to actively building wealth and financial understanding.

One of the most effective and engaging ways to do this is to start a family investment club. Here’s how you and your family can build a strong financial future together.

Setting Your Family’s Financial Mission

Before you download a single investing app or pick a stock, the first step is to bring the family together for a foundational conversation. This isn’t just about pooling money; it’s about creating a shared vision and purpose to guide your decisions and motivate everyone. This sets the tone for the entire venture, transforming it from a simple financial exercise into a meaningful family project. By grounding your club in a collective mission, you teach your children that money is a tool to achieve goals, support values, and build a better future for yourselves and your community. This mission becomes your guiding principle, reminding everyone why you started this journey in the first place, especially when you encounter the inevitable ups and downs of investing.

Define Your “Why”: More Than Just a Piggy Bank

The power of a family investment club lies in its shared purpose. Sit down with your kids and ask the big question: “What do we want to accomplish together with this money?” The answer will be different for every family, and that’s the beauty of it. Perhaps the goal is to save for a dream family vacation to a place you’ve all wanted to visit, creating memories that will last a lifetime. It could be a long-term fund to help with college expenses or even a down payment on a first car.

The goal could also be learning a new skill together, like understanding how businesses grow. This is where you align the club with your core family values. While financial education alone cannot close the racial wealth gap, research from the Brookings Institution highlights the importance of addressing asset-based inequities and improving financial awareness. Initiatives like this club can support in driving meaningful change. This is your family’s financial mission statement, a powerful declaration of your collective goals and values.

Keeping It Simple: Goals and Contributions

To ensure your club gets off to a strong start and stays consistent, it’s crucial to begin with simple, manageable goals. You don’t need a large amount of money to begin this journey; in fact, starting small is often better. A monthly contribution of just $10 or $20 per participating family member is more than enough to begin and build the habit of regular investing. The key here is consistency over quantity. This approach makes the process accessible and less intimidating for everyone involved, especially the kids.

It also directly addresses a widespread challenge; with the FINRA Foundation finding that only 27% of U.S. adults could pass a basic financial literacy quiz, setting simple and achievable goals is vital for building the confidence needed to make informed decisions later in life. Tailoring roles and goals to each child’s age ensures everyone feels included and empowered.

How to Start a Family Investment Club and Invest as a Team

Once you have your mission and contribution plan, it’s time for the exciting part: learning about investing and making decisions together. This is where the theoretical lessons about money become real and tangible. The goal is not to become Wall Street experts overnight but to demystify the world of finance and build a foundational understanding as a family unit. This collaborative process teaches invaluable lessons about research, risk, and reward. By creating a structured yet fun environment for making investment choices, you empower your children with the skills and confidence to manage their financial futures. This section breaks down how to introduce core concepts and choose investments with growth potential that reflect your family’s unique identity and values.

Investing 101 for the Whole Family

The investing terminology can feel intimidating, but the core concepts are surprisingly straightforward when broken down. You can start by explaining that a stock is simply a tiny piece of ownership in a company you know, like Apple or Nike. When the company does well, the value of your piece can go up. An ETF, or Exchange-Traded Fund, is like a big basket that holds tiny fragments from many different companies, which helps spread out your investment and reduce risk.

The most important principle to teach is long-term growth, emphasizing that investing is not about getting rich quickly but letting your money work for you over many years. This education is urgently needed; according to the 2025 TIAA Institute–GFLEC Personal Finance Index, U.S. adults correctly answered only 49% of financial literacy questions on average, highlighting a persistent gap in basic financial understanding. Family clubs are a direct and powerful way to reverse that trend for the next generation.

Choosing Investments That Reflect Your Values

One of the most powerful aspects of a family investment club is the ability to invest in things that matter to you. This teaches an essential lesson: money can be a tool for building wealth and a better world. Start with “Familiar Favorites,” which are stocks in companies your kids recognize and interact with daily, such as Netflix, Disney, or their favorite video game maker. This makes the concept of ownership immediate and relatable.

Next, introduce ETFs for Team Diversification, explaining it with the classic saying, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket.” Finally, explore Community-Focused Investing, which shows kids that their money can have a positive local impact. For instance, zoning reforms Philadelphia are creating unique opportunities for smaller-scale property investment, like adding rental units to existing lots. Exploring these avenues can be a tangible way to build wealth while contributing to your neighborhood’s growth and stability.

Making Decisions as a United Front

The decision-making process is where your family club truly becomes a team effort. Turning research and choices into a fun, structured activity ensures everyone has a voice and feels a sense of ownership over the club’s direction. This is where you build communication skills, learn to respect different opinions, and practice making collective choices. The key is to create educational and enjoyable rituals, transforming what could be a dry financial task into a highlight of your family’s month. These shared experiences are where the most profound learning happens, building a portfolio, stronger family bonds, and lasting memories.

• Host a “Stock Pitch Night”: Gather everyone for a special meeting once a month. Let older children present a two-minute pitch for a company they researched. Make it an event with snacks and a “boardroom” atmosphere, followed by a formal vote to decide on the next investment.
• Use a “Voting Jar”: For younger kids who may not be ready for research, you can pre-vet two investment options. Explain each one simply, then let them cast a marble or token into the jar of their choice to vote. This gives them a tangible way to participate in the decision.
• Track Your Progress Visibly: Create a large chart on a poster board or use a shared digital spreadsheet to track your investments. Color-code your holdings and update them together each month. Celebrate the wins with a high-five, and more importantly, discuss the dips as learning opportunities for building long-term resilience and patience.
• Appoint Official Roles: Give everyone a title to foster a sense of responsibility. Your teen could be the “Chief Research Officer,” a middle child the “Portfolio Tracker,” and the youngest the “Keeper of the Vote.” These roles give every member ownership over the club’s success.

More Than Money: Tracking, Learning, and Giving Back

The true success of your family investment club isn’t measured solely by the numbers in your portfolio. The most significant returns are the life lessons and values you cultivate along the way. By expanding your club’s mission beyond simple growth, you can teach your children about responsibility, community, and the real purpose of wealth. This final phase of the process is about cementing the soft skills that will serve them for the rest of their lives—long after they’ve flown the nest. In this context, you link financial understanding with being an engaged, thoughtful, and impactful community member. This is where you turn lessons about money into a legacy of empowerment.

The Expanded “Three Jars,” Save, Grow, and Share

Many of us are familiar with the classic “Save, Spend, Share” money jars for kids. We can adapt this powerful visual tool for our investment club to instill a deep sense of community responsibility. As your investments generate profits—even small ones—decide to allocate a portion of those earnings into a dedicated “Share” fund as a family. This fund becomes a tangible representation of your family’s commitment to giving back. You can work together to choose a local charity to donate to, support a school fundraiser, or even help a neighbor in need. This practice reinforces the critical lesson that wealth is a tool for impact. 

The Real Return on Investment

While your club’s financial growth is a fantastic goal, the invaluable “soft skills” your children develop are the real return on this investment. Through this process, they learn patience as they watch their investments grow over time and delayed gratification by choosing to invest rather than spend immediately. They develop critical thinking skills by researching companies and public speaking during stock pitch nights. Most importantly, they learn collaboration by working together to achieve a shared goal.

These foundational skills build confidence and prepare our children to become the next generation of leaders. Organizations like The Greenwood Project, a non-profit dedicated to creating career pathways for Black and Latinx students in the financial industry, share this mission, proving that early exposure to these concepts builds future leaders.

Building Your Family’s Financial Legacy, Together

Starting a family investment club is about so much more than stocks, returns, or portfolios. It is a collaborative family project that demystifies money, strengthens communication, and forges unbreakable bonds around a shared, empowering goal. You are teaching your children to see money not as a source of stress or mystery, but as a tool they can master and use to build the life they envision for themselves and their community. This is a practical, hands-on masterclass in financial responsibility, teamwork, and long-term thinking conducted from your home’s loving and supportive environment.

By taking these steps, you raise financially savvy kids and nurture a mindset of ownership, collaboration, and empowerment. You give them the confidence and knowledge to make smart decisions, see opportunities where others see obstacles, and understand their power in shaping their future. You are giving them the tools to build their financial legacy. Now, get to building.