What does financial literacy look like for a family?
For a family, financial literacy means knowing your money well enough to step in if you had to: where things are, who to call, and why decisions were made.
November is Financial Literacy Month in Canada, and this year's theme is Talk Money. Most of what gets taught under that banner is useful: how to budget, how debt works, why starting early matters.
There's another kind nobody teaches. It's knowing your own family's money well enough to step in if you had to.
Picture a daughter at her parents' kitchen table, trying to help. She knows there's a will. She thinks there's life insurance. She isn't sure which bank, which drawer, or who her dad's advisor is. Her parents did the planning. They just never walked anyone through it.
That isn't a failure of planning. It's a gap in the conversation.
Three questions worth talking about
You don't need a family meeting with an agenda. You need a few honest questions, asked at a normal moment.
- Where would someone find our will and insurance policies?
- Who should get the first call if something happens?
- Is there anything in our plan that might surprise the kids?
The first is about where. The second is about who. The third is about why, and it's often the one that matters most. A parent may have a good reason for leaving the cottage to one child and the investments to another. If that reason lives only in their head, the family has to guess.
Write the answers down
Talking helps. Writing it down is what lasts. The answers to these questions belong somewhere the family can find them later, in words they'll understand.
That's what the Trusty Estate Binder is for. Families capture their assets, plans, people and wishes in the Trusty app, with their advisor's support, and it all comes together in a printed binder that lives at home. It holds the where, the who and the why in one place.
Start with one question
You don't have to answer all three this month. Pick one, and ask it at dinner this week.
If you work with a financial advisor, ask them about Trusty. It's offered through advisors, as part of the relationship you already have.
People also ask
What is Financial Literacy Month?
Financial Literacy Month runs every November in Canada, led by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. This year's theme, Talk Money, encourages Canadians to have purposeful conversations about money.
What should a family know about their parents' finances?
Where the will and key documents are kept, which accounts and policies exist, who to contact for help, and the reasons behind any decisions that might surprise them.
How do you start a money conversation with your parents?
Start small and specific. "If something happened, who should I call first?" is easier to answer than "Tell me about your estate."
