Sunday, July 18, 2010

Empowering Our Youth With Basic Money Skills - readbud

Empowering Our Youth With Basic Money Skills - readbud





Empowering Our Youth With Basic Money Skills
Parents and educators both agree that it is critically important to teach money skills to this generation of young people. The current financial markets can be confusing and there is a plethora of misinformation out there. It is crucial that we teach out youth the money skills they need to navigate through life.

Learning how to deal with money successfully is something that should be taught to everyone early on in life. Teaching money skills to youth helps them get started on the right path and ensures they are prepared for the opportunities that come their way.

The people who are teaching money skills and financial literacy classes to our young people are providing a great service. Consider for a moment the cost of making one simple credit mistake and how that will impact the lives of that person for years to come. Even small credit blunders often lead to further credit mistakes which can create consequences that haunt people for years to come.

According to the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, Inc. and MSN Money, their research showed that only 59% of the young adults in Generation Y (ages 18-29) pay their bills on time every month and over one-third of adults say they do not have any non-retirement savings. This concurs with the National Youth Financial Educator Councils informal survey conducted by the founder Vince Shorb. Having talked with over 20,000 people from across the country he found that the majority of people today missed out on financial literacy classes and are suffering because of it. There are things that can be done to teach money skills and provide our youth practical financial literacy classes.

Here are some ideas below.

1) Become an advocate for financial literacy classes to be taught to our kids. You would be surprised that many of the youth today want to learn about money. This makes it much easier to teach money skills. The subject of money is unlike other subjects students learn in school. Unlike other subject they have to take to graduate, students recognize that money plays an important role in their life and will affect them every day.

Students know they need to understand money, want what money can buy them and feel more confident when they are empowered with this information. Financial literacy classes must relate to youth and their interests which puts much of the teaching in their hands. They begin to seek out financial information and learn money skills on their own time.

2) Teach money skills in a way that differentiates the class from the other 10,000+ classes that students sit through. Unfortunately financially literacy classes rarely receive funding and are not part of the No Child Left Behind Act, so they usually get little or no class time. We must use the little time available to teach money skills in a way the students will not forget.

Hosting a financial literacy event to kick off your financial literacy class campaign is one idea. You can also organize a field trip to your local bank or credit union so you can teach money skills to students in a hand on environment. Partnering with celebrities and sport stars like the Money XLive concert style financial literacy event can also be a great way to get the kids to remember the important lessons they are taught. Giving our kids just a little information about money and how to handle it properly will save them a lot of headaches later on in life.

Teach money skills to your loved ones or enroll them in a financial literacy class to protect them from the financial pitfalls so many people are experiencing today.

in Home and Family



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