It is said that financial management (FM) should start early. There are now books and talks about FM for kids. Not a bad idea indeed: I still recall a carefree and happy childhood, paying scant attention to money. It came as a mild surprise when I reflected on the cost for taking the GRE, which I wasted after achieving a best-among-peers score, by not applying for any US grad schools after all.

Children should indeed learn early about wealth and poverty, affluence and wastefulness. This surely goes well beyond mere money matters. Someone is affluent when he's got more than what he wants, and certainly wasteful if he throws away much of what he acquires. Smart resource management is equally applicable on a personal and a global level.