Hey there! It's Talk About Money Tuesday, my favorite day of the week!🤑

If you've been saying, "I can't believe how expensive everything is now," you're not alone. From groceries and gas to airline bag fees and restaurant meals, so many families are feeling the pain of higher prices.

While it's frustrating trying to stretch your cash even further, it also presents an opportunity to teach young people that money doesn't exist in a vacuum.

When the cost of fuel goes up, it costs more to transport food and other products from one place to another. Businesses often respond by raising prices to cover those higher costs. And then families have to make adjustments to their household budget in response.

Understanding these connections helps children and teens understand some of the reasons why their allowance or other spending money doesn't go as far these days.

Let's get into the bigger picture behind the prices they see every day.

Money Stat

46.5%

Folks who love eating (or cooking with) fresh tomatoes are experiencing shell shock when they buy the vegetable that is technically a fruit. That's because the price of tomatoes in May was up 46.5% from a year ago, according to data from the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

What's behind the price hike? Bad weather in Mexico, where most of the fresh tomatoes Americans eat come from. And the tomatoes from Mexico that have arrived in the U.S. since July 2025 have been hit with a 17% tariff.

Prices are expected to drop later this year when domestically-grown tomatoes are harvested. But until then, maybe BLT without the T? 🫠

Get in the Zone

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Money skill: How to read a grocery receipt

Why it matters: Most families toss grocery receipts in the trash, but those tiny slips of paper can be powerful financial literacy tools. A grocery receipt can reveal spending patterns, highlight price increases, and help young people get a real-world lesson in budgeting and comparison shopping can pay off.

Try this: ➡️ Review a grocery receipt together after a shopping trip and identify the most expensive items. Explain why those items cost more than others, and note whether you buy them regularly or every now and then. This can help your child see how individual choices at the store add up over time and shape your overall spending.

➡️ Show older kids how sales, coupons, and store brands can affect the final total. They'll see that all of these tools can be used to make their money go further, especially when prices are up.

➡️ Compare a current receipt to one from a month or two ago. Ask your child why they think certain items increased or decreased in price and what that might mean for your family's budget. They may even notice a price hike for their go-to snack and suggest something less expensive for you to buy that they like just as well.😅

The Language of Money

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Use these youth-friendly definitions as you talk to young people about how current events, inflation, the supply chain, and everyday spending decisions are connected:

Consumer: A person who buys good or services.

Inflation: When the price of goods and services rise over time.

Purchasing power: How much your money can buy.

Trade-off: Giving up one thing to get something else.

Supply chain: The journey a product takes from raw materials to the customer.

Transportation costs: The money required to move products from one place to another.

Money Talks

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To make the idea of rising prices more concrete, put it in terms that older teens can relate to: earning and spending their own money. Have a conversation with them about how their spending choices would change if their paycheck stayed the same and prices rose. Ask:

1️⃣ "Which purchases would you cut back on first, and which would you consider essential?" Discuss how families often prioritize necessities when prices increase.

2️⃣ "Would you look for more ways to earn money?" Talk about how earning more can help offset higher costs, but it also requires more time and effort.

3️⃣ "Can rising prices affect your future goals?" Higher prices could change their plans to save for a car, college, or another big purchase. Discuss how inflation can make long-term goals take longer to reach.

Loose Change

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📈 Higher oil prices, driven by the war in Iran, means these 11 things cost more than they used to.

🏞️ Drive or fly? A writer makes a case for when each mode of transportation makes sense financially for your family vacation.

🐄 Texas pitmasters say rising beef prices are making it tough to keep brisket — considered the crown jewel of the state's barbecue — on the menu.

Thanks for reading! If you want to read some of my past newsletters, click here. And if this newsletter was forwarded to you, please subscribe ​here​.

'Til next time,

Audrey
​Founder &
Certified Financial Education Instructor​
The FinLit Zone

600 1st Ave, Ste 330 PMB 92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2246
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