Financial Literacy for Teens and Young Adults

[Viking]

Hello fellow board members. I have three teenage kids all in high school. I have decided to start a club at their high school to teach financial literacy. My key goal is to 'spark' as many kids as possible - get them interested in learning more about money so they will begin the life long journey. My 'target market' is older teen (grade 11 and 12) and young adult. I am going to run the club for 10 weeks (Oct-Dec), covering one key money topic each week (with material coming from my web site/guest speakers etc). I want to test drive the concept. If it goes well I may do more sessions with the students in January.

 

I have created a web site for the students: www.wgssmoneyclub.ca

 

I would appreciate it if a few of you would have time to look at the web site and give me your unvarnished feedback. The web site is about 60% done (so there will be lots of changes) but I am looking for some feedback before I am too far into it. I am in Canada (which impacts some of the content). Comments on existing content? What is missing? Can you send me links to content to think would be good to add? Any video content you know of that you really like?

 

Thanks :-) 

[rb]

Took a quick look. Just off the top of my head.... I think you need a lot more content about what they will face day to day especially about financial products. Mortgages, car payments, rental hot water/furnaces and payments with embedded interest. In my experience even people with business training/education are woefully bad at dealing with those and understanding them.

 

 

[beerbaron]

Most importantly. Who is your customer for this web page? Kids, parents, teachers, etc...?

It seems to me those big ads in the middle uof the page seem to address money to adults... maybe 16-25 is it your target? I'd suggest you focus your message to the exact group you want to reach.

 

Also, it's not clear wether you want to create a movement to educate about money or you just want to make a web site?

 

You are showing a very "Pragmatic" approach to money management. I'm not sure this is the best way to do it. For example, let's say you want to talk about "Car ownership". The way you seem to address it is trough their common sense, it's a losing battle as the car manufacturers talk to their guts. If you want to address car ownership why not compare it to the impact on what else they can do with that money. The other thing has to be talking about their gut, not numbers.

 

I'd suggest you rethink on the web page design, it looks very 1990's web page.

 

By the way, I appreciate the initiative financial literacy is VERY weak in North-America and lots of industries are taking advantage of it. We should all do more.

 

BeerBaron

 

[LC]

I've volunteered a bit to teach financial Literacy to high school kids in New York and I found the best way to engage is to figure out what the kids are into, and then challenge them how to turn their interest into a profitable venture. For example there was a group of kids who were really into video games, and their idea was a video game controller that they could throw on the ground or against a wall. So either has all rubber exterior, or would snap apart and you could re-assemble. And the girls had ideas about their own hair salon or making jewelry. But once you had their attention, and had made the link to something that was cool to them, you could have them think thru the economics of their particular idea.

[DTEJD1997]

Most importantly. Who is your customer for this web page? Kids, parents, teachers, etc...?

 

You are showing a very "Pragmatic" approach to money management. I'm not sure this is the best way to do it. For example, let's say you want to talk about "Car ownership". The way you seem to address it is trough their common sense, it's a losing battle as the car manufacturers talk to their guts. If you want to address car ownership why not compare it to the impact on what else they can do with that money. The other thing has to be talking about their gut, not numbers.

 

By the way, I appreciate the initiative financial literacy is VERY weak in North-America and lots of industries are taking advantage of it. We should all do more.

 

BeerBaron

 

For cars, might I suggest that if somebody has a passion for cars, as I once did...that you can get very nice, very high end cars for a MUCH more reasonable price if you buy them 2-3 years old from a good owner.  For example, I bought a fairly high end corvette from an enthusiast that knew exactly what he was doing and took excellent care of the car for the couple of years he had it.  I saved a TON of money and got a car with 18k miles on it.  Looked almost new...

 

Another friend of mine bought a 10 year old high end Nissan Z car from a guy who drove it maybe 1-2 times a month.  Very low mileage.  Some people think his 10 year old car is new OR almost new....he bought it for something 20% or 25% of the cost of new.  Very fast, very nice car.

 

There are smart ways of buying things if you use your head and do some research and legwork...

[Viking]

Thanks to all who have replied :-) great suggestions I have already started incorporating.

 

DTEJD1997, the car page is one that I will be spending much more time on; I wil be adding advice similar to your examples.

 

LC, in my first meeting My plan is to spend 1/2 of the time getting input from the students so what is covered in the following 9 weeks is a fit. One spin off would be to have a small business focus; a little out of my circle of competence (having worked for big corporations my whole career).

 

Beerbaron, my primary target market are students in grade 11 and 12. My goal is to 'spark' a few of these students so they are motivated to keep learning. I am building the web site myself (using Wix) and I am not a programmer; I plan on taking some tutorials to learn how to make it a little more current (I am 7 days into building the site... so early days).

 

rb, I have started adding a few more day to day things and will continue along this path :-)