Grown-up notes

Each line is marked Fact well established, Model a deliberate simplification, or Unsure not settled.

Play another way

Another connection: Where does food come from?

The idea

• FactMoney is anything that people widely accept as payment. It does three jobs: paying for things, comparing prices, and keeping value for later.
• FactA swap only works when each person wants what the other has. Money removes that need: you can sell to anyone who wants your thing and buy from anyone who has what you want.
• FactMoney works because people trust that the next person will accept it. That is what "everyone takes coins" means in the market.
• FactMost money today is not coins or notes. It is numbers in bank accounts.
• FactAustralia's coins are made at the Royal Australian Mint in Canberra.

What the pictures simplify

• ModelIt is not a history. The market shows why money is useful. It does not show how money began, and the guide never says people swapped first and invented coins later.
• UnsureHow money began is argued over. Anthropologists have not found societies that ran on swapping alone before they had money; many kept track of gifts, favours and debts instead. Some economists reply that missing evidence does not settle it.
• ModelA perfect jam. The three stallholders are arranged so that no swap can ever work. In real life some swaps do work, as at the picnic.
• ModelOne coin for everything. In the market every food costs one coin and no stall runs out. Real prices differ and change.
• ModelCoins from a jar. In the market the coins are simply handed out. People mostly get money by earning it, which is what the apple tree in the coin-jar scene shows.
• ModelSpend, save, share. The coin-jar scene treats all three as good choices and does not rank them.

Questions she may ask

• Why can't we just make lots more money? ModelIf everyone had twice as many coins but there were still the same number of apples, the stallholders would ask for more coins for each apple. More coins does not make more apples.
• Is a card money? FactTapping a card tells the bank to move numbers from one account to another. It is the same idea without the coins.
• Where does money come from? FactCoins are made at the Mint. Most money, though, exists only as numbers that banks keep track of.
• Why do some things cost more? ModelUsually because they take more work or more materials to make, or because lots of people want them and there are not many.
• Why do some people have more money than others? FactPeople get different amounts for many reasons: the work they do, where they live, what their family had, and luck. People disagree about how fair that is, and countries make different rules about it. It is easiest to talk about people in general rather than anyone she knows.

Words this guide teaches

Swap: I give you mine and you give me yours. Money: something people agree to accept when you pay. Price: how many coins something costs.

Go further

The Royal Australian Mint in Canberra has a gallery where you can watch coins being made, and entry is free. Its public areas were rebuilt recently, so check the Mint's website for opening hours before you go.

Sources

• Reserve Bank of Australia, "What is Money?": the three jobs of money, why swapping works badly, and bank deposits as the largest share of money.
• Caroline Humphrey, "Barter and Economic Disintegration", Man, 1985: no society running on barter alone has been described.
• Royal Australian Mint: visiting.

Checked November 2026. The answers about prices, printing more money and why incomes differ are simplified standard economics, not taken from a linked page.