Who Wants To Be A Millionaire? Our Kids.

Over half of UK kids (51%) think they’ll be a millionaire one day according to a survey of 3,000 six to ten-year-olds by Tesco Savings.

The recession has clearly not put a damper on children’s optimism about their financial futures. Boys remain the more confident: while millionaires account for only for 0.5% of the UK adult population*, 57% of boys aged six to ten expect to reach millionaire status one day.

This same financial optimism among UK kids stretches into other areas, with 46% thinking they can do a better job at managing the family finances than their parents. They also proved to have a good grasp of their parents’ savings habits.

The kids were almost spot-on in guessing that 40% of adults are currently saving for their holiday, 20% are saving to make home improvements and 17% for a new car. However, 5% will certainly be disappointed to hear that their parents aren’t putting their hard earned cash aside for their children’s inheritance and a further 8% that their parents aren’t saving for computer games.

When asked about their parents financial habits, mums come out top, with only a third rating dad as better at managing money. The majority would also opt for their mum to save their money on their behalf, while only a third would trust dad to look after their money for them.

Asked what their thought their parents would do with a £1,000 windfall, over a third believe they’d spend it on a holiday – by far the most popular response. However, the recession has clearly had a greater impact on adults, with over half saying that they’d save it or use it to pay off debts.

Jeremy Sutton, Head of Tesco Savings, says, “Our kids are certainly confident about their future and in their own understanding of family finances. Good financial habits are important to learn at a young age and, while their future ambitions may seem unrealistic, it is impressive to see how well even very young children understand what their parents are saving for. In fact, it was the older age groups which over-estimated how much their parents were saving for their future inheritance and education.”