The newest family CFO? Gen Alpha

Gen Alpha may still be in elementary and middle school, but they have an estimated $100 billion in spending power. Born between 2010 and 2024, they're not only defining the way young consumers spend but also influencing how their entire family makes financial decisions—sometimes in unexpected ways.

"Many people are hiring coaches or tutors to make sure that kids have the best skillset to go to college," says Richard Wiese, former host of the PBS travel show "Born to Explore," and parent of three teens. "Part of it, I think, is driven by the anxiety of parents for their kids to succeed."

Gen Alpha wants parents to know what matters to them, as much as parents want to teach kids how to make smart spending choices. And with more direct spending power (and digital fluency) than previous generations, this creates an environment full of teachable money moments for both.

Axios reports that nearly half of household spending is now influenced by Gen Alpha. That influence shows up in everyday decisions—from where families eat to how much they spend on video games or lessons tied to kids' passions. "The big expenditures are tutors, coaches, and then travel experiences, eating out, Ubers," Richard says of his family. He adds that he sees many kids grow up with little sense of what things actually cost, calling it one of the biggest failures in how many teach lessons about money today.

Amid economic uncertainty, Gen Alpha's ability to influence spending is a powerful tool. According to Fast Company, 69% of parents say they learn about brands from their Gen Alpha kids, and 71% have changed their own purchasing decisions after learning about brands from their child.

The same study also reports that 95% of Gen Alpha kids are earning money in some form themselves, with many earning an average of $52 per week, which is up from $45 per week just two years ago. That's $2,704 per year, a significant sum for kids that age.

For example, one of Richard's sons is a growing TikTok influencer and has earned a substantial income since he began posting videos. Through clicks, sponsorships, and brand partnerships, his son has saved upwards of five figures for himself at just 16 years old, which changes how both his teen and his family think about spending.

As kids gain more direct access to money, they’re also becoming more discerning about the value of purchases. They are especially concerned with wasting their money on something that won’t feel worth it.

Last year, Dr. Marcus Carter, a human-computer interaction researcher and Future Fellow at the University of Sydney, and his colleagues conducted a study on Gen Alpha spending behavior. The study found that when given a small debit card, a majority of children purchased digital items—like purchases on Roblox that help them level up faster or go further in the game. But Dr. Carter and his colleagues also found that the kids thought carefully about how they were spending the money.

“What platforms like Roblox reveal about how this generation consumes is striking: these kids are not naive or impulsive,” Dr. Carter says. “The children in our research were sophisticated, strategic spenders who assessed value, compared pricing tiers, tracked conversion rates between virtual currencies and real money, and would ‘grind’ for hours to avoid paying for items they felt were overpriced.”

Each child talked Dr. Carter and his fellow researchers through their spending choices in real time. “Children's primary experience of harm was not about spending too much, it was about being misled,” he explains.

As young people encounter more opportunities to spend, earn, and even speculate, questions about what and who to trust are surfacing earlier than ever. As that challenge grows, organizations like Charles Schwab Foundation are placing greater emphasis on expanding access to high quality investing education for students nationwide.

The children in the study used words like scammed, tricked, and lying to describe misrepresented in-game purchases, especially when multiple layers of virtual currencies made understanding the real-world cost challenging. 

These moments—when kids feel confused, misled, or burned—are ripe opportunities for parents to teach their children about the weight of certain purchases, how value gets obscured, and how money might be better spent.

In Dr. Carter's study, parents were involved in the decisions to varying degrees, but what was most striking wasn't how closely they monitored spending, but how comfortable they were with the idea of buying digital items in the first place.

"A significant number approached their child's in-game spending with a baffled skepticism about the items themselves, struggling to understand why their child would spend real money on a virtual hat or a cosmetic skin," Dr. Carter says.

As important as it is for parents to educate their kids on making financial decisions, for them to have an impact, parents also have to learn from children about spending in the digital landscape, and what kind of purchases this new generation is drawn to.

"A parent who does not really believe a digital item has genuine value is not well-positioned to help their child think critically about whether a particular item represents good value," Dr. Carter explains. "If more parents had been able to meet their children on that ground, treating in-game purchases with the same seriousness they would apply to any other discretionary spend, I think we would have seen children better equipped to identify when they were being misled rather than simply being told that digital spending is inherently wasteful."

Rather than lecturing, approaching conversations with understanding makes teachable money moments more impactful. Richard says that working with kids on saving, investing, and financial decisions helps them create a better understanding of their choices, rather than making the decisions for them.

Richard aims to let his social media influencer son lead some of the financial decisions himself, whether that's negotiating brand deals or posting a certain amount of content to maximize profitability. The idea is to put the power in the hands of Gen Alpha to become decision-makers themselves.

"In trying to provide the best life for our kids, sometimes we do them a disservice by not letting them fail," Richard says. "I'm there for support, but it's been so much deeper and richer for my son to make financial decisions himself, and I see that this will have benefits for him later in life when he's involved in another business."