In our consumerist culture, there’s always a temptation to spend money on the latest and greatest must-have. For kids and teens, peer pressure can add to the desire to spend.

Talking about priorities can be powerful when kids inevitably compare their family’s spending to others’, said Katy Almstrom, a financial coach and mother of two in Lebanon.

“You can say, ‘these are our family’s resources and this is what we choose to do with them,’ ” she said.

Focus on choices, rather than just saying no to a request, she said.

“Instead of ‘no, we can’t,’ say ‘This is what we choose to do.’ It’s always a choice we can make, not automatic no.”

Tom Hoyt, public relations and social media coordinator at Mascoma Bank, values financial security over flash, even when that’s sometimes unpopular.

“People joke about how cheap we are,” he said.

When Hoyt is on the receiving end of a joke about being cheap, he reminds himself of his grandfather’s old saying, “Don’t try to get happier than happy.” Amid marketing that is constantly selling happiness, Hoyt advocates for teaching kids about the contentment that can come from living within your means.

Jeff Marks, a senior vice president and chief marketing officer at Ledyard Bank in Hanover, is also a father of two kids, ages 14 and 17. He emphasizes that they need to make tradeoffs when it comes to their spending. Purchasing a new hockey helmet, for example, means forgoing something else they want.

“You won’t have unlimited funds, so you have to make those decisions,” he said, adding that he feels this is one of the most important lessons he can teach his kids.

“When you look at debt you realize people haven’t been taught that in most cases, don’t spend more than you have. That’s a really, really important lesson.”

Of course, learning to compromise isn’t particularly exciting.

“It’s not hip and it’s not sexy,” Hoyt said. “But how many people in their adult life will tell you ‘gee I wished I learned more about money back in the day’?”

Those day-to-day lessons in financial literacy create the backbone for a lifetime of financial decisions.

“There’s nothing magic,” Marks said. “The people who manage their money well and understand basic financial literacy live it every single day. It has to become habitual.”

Parents can also remind kids that they can’t judge someone else’s financial situation from what they see, Almstrom said.

“We all have very false perceptions of how others are doing.”