When Hannah McQueen was a teenager, her mum told her she had better aim for a well-paid career where she was self-employed.
"The thing she determined was I have expensive tastes and I'm quite bossy," says McQueen today.
Growing up in Havelock North, McQueen was urged to read the New Zealand Herald business pages.
It was there she spied an article pointing to the fact that 80 per cent of chief executives were accountants.
"That was how I chose my degree."
Describing herself as a maths person who also liked people, McQueen got a job with global accounting firm KPMG after graduating from university with a commerce degree and a masters in taxation.
She then moved on to work for a mortgage consulting company but decided that instead of helping people get into debt, would rather be helping in another way.
"Instead of helping people get into debt - let's help them get out."
McQueen got talking to a friend about the idea, then pitched a business plan to her boss at the company.
He then fired them both.
It was a turning point for McQueen, who realised there must have been something in her proposal.
"Initially I thought: 'Sh**, I don't have a job'."
But it also prompted her to pursue the business idea.
At the same time, she had been grappling with the idea of taking out her first mortgage - a $300,000 loan which would have cost her nearly $500,000 in interest over its 30-year term.
She approached Dr Jamie Sneddon in Auckland University's maths department to create a formula which would enable her to repay her loan as quickly as possible, at the lowest cost and with maximum flexibility.
McQueen patented the formula, then realised the toughest part of applying it was finding the spare cash to pay back the debt faster.
Despite earning a good income, she says she found it hard to get ahead.
She began to look into people's behaviour and discovered there were many people working hard but going nowhere.
So at just 27 years old she launched EnableMe - a personal financial training business designed to help people get better with their money.
Six weeks later she found out she was pregnant with her first child.
That didn't stop her; instead of taking time off, she bought her son to work with her for the first year, with her mother's help.
Ten years and two children later, McQueen has expanded her business to 10 offices around the country.
"It has been such a crazy journey," she says. "It has been hard but it has been pretty awesome."
If you master money, you are halfway to a great adulthood.
The business has allowed her to get unique insights into the very personal aspects of people's financial lives, and some of the big issues they have to wrestle with.
McQueen has helped many clients pay off their mortgages and some have now moved on to focus on saving for a comfortable retirement.
But she says many are being held back because they continue to support adult children.
"We are breeding these leeches."
It was this trend, and concern over a sense of entitlement emerging from her own young children, that prompted her to write her latest book Pocket Money to Property - How to Create Financially Independent Kids.
McQueen says working hard is no longer enough for people to get ahead.
"We must work smart," she says. That means understanding leverage and how to make it work when it comes to property and business.
She says money underpins everything.
"If you master money, you are halfway to a great adulthood. The questions all parents need to ask is, have I prepared my children for a successful adulthood? Have I done enough so that they won't suffer 'failure to launch'?"
McQueen says today's parents are no less capable than past generations but the way they parent has changed and that comes with both good and bad things.
"Our kids face a lot of the same challenges we did, also a whole lot of different ones, unlike most generations before.
"They are exposed to some adult concepts younger than they should be, while other more necessary life skills seem to get missed out altogether."
McQueen says many parents are confused about how to give their children a good financial education, and for many, teaching financial success tends to be an afterthought.
She predicts that as the job landscape changes, more young people will become self-employed and start their adulthood in debt.
"They are fighting a different type of war, and the weapons being passed down are at times out of date, or if not outdated, then not passed on with the right instructions to use them successfully."
Most Kiwis, even middle and upper income earners are poor.
McQueen says many people prefer to keep their kids in the dark about socio-economic status, but she reckons that even young children have a basic sense of what rich and poor mean.
She points to research which shows that by age 6, kids are keeping score on who has what sorts of possessions.
By 11 they are they are beginning to assume social class is related to ambition and by 14 they begin to wonder whether there is a larger economic system at work which restricts movement between the social classes.
She says one of the lessons parents need to teach their children is that "poor" is when you do not have enough money left at the end of the month.
"Most Kiwis, even middle and upper income earners are poor," she argues.
She believes many parents are setting up their children to be unsuccessful adults, by not giving them practical experiences in handling money before they leave home.
Instead, she says that by the time a young person is 15, they need to know how much money they will need to live the life they want to live.
Before they go down a career path, they need to think about what they are going to need to be financially independent.
While many young people are encouraged to undertake a career that matches their passions, McQueen disagrees with that idea.
"Your job doesn't have to be something you are passionate about," she argues.
She says young people need to be exposed to much better career advice and practical experience.
"It comes down to, do you want to increase the odds for your kids?"
So what advice is she giving to her own children?
She says her 8-year-old son, who currently plans to skip university, buy a yellow Mustang, move to Australia and grow a moustache - has already been told his parents' financial support will end at age 18.
"I think there has to be an expectation; it is time to be adult."
She says it's important to talk about money and what you get for it.
"If you want to go on family holidays, that costs money and Mum and Dad have to go to work for that."
She also has special concerns for girls. Even today, many think their answer will be to marry a rich man.
"Their strategy is, they have got to have their own money. Too often it is linked to a partner."
Often, she sees financially successful women with partners who they need to "kick to touch".
"There are just more challenges for females and we are not equipping our girls to deal with it."
"I even wrestle with it in my own house."
McQueen says we need to empower girls to be in relationships because they want to be there, not because they feel the need to stick with someone because of the money.
"A lot of the challenges are within the female psyche."
When it comes to talking to her own daughter, McQueen says her message is simple: "you can do this, my girl - you don't need a man."
She says the next generation will need to work hard but also think about their strategies and how to problem solve because that is where most business opportunities will come from.
"They have to be better than us and your job as a parent is to teach them they can be, and give them the tools so they will be."
Hannah McQueen
• Age: 37
• Job: Managing director, EnableMe
• Grew up: In Havelock North
• Education: Bachelor of Commerce from Auckland University, Masters in Taxation
• Family: Married with two children - 8-year-old Cameron and 4-year-old Madison
• Last book read: Brain Rules by John Medina
• Last movie: Moana
• Last overseas holiday: Sydney with my son, to drop off my grandad who had come to visit.
Demand for bonds may well stay strong, but there's a catch.