3 Reasons To Teach Financial Literacy for Teens

On the list of things that should rank high for all home-educated high school students, is financial literacy for teens. It’s a vital component of a well-rounded and complete education. In our homeschool, it’s a required course for graduation because I’ve seen just how detrimental a lack of personal finance understanding can be.

Thankfully, there are a plethora of resources and financial literacy courses for teens so homeschool families can ensure their children understand just how money, interest, savings, and lending all work, helping your teen graduates with some level of financial literacy and understanding.

I was compensated for my time writing this post and was provided a copy of the product at no charge for the purpose of writing a fair and honest review. As always, all thoughts and opinions are my own.

When Will I Ever Need This?

Unless your child absolutely loves math in all of its many forms, it’s inevitable that eventually, you will hear them ask the question, “When will I ever need this?” at some point during the high school years (that is, if you haven’t already heard it in a lower level math program 😉).

And while it’s easy enough to come up with an explanation for most math lessons throughout the years (even those crazy word problems with the man buying 27 watermelons), when it comes to consumer math, personal finance, or financial literacy, there’s no explanation needed because your kids are going to use these lessons every day of their lives.

What Is Financial Literacy? (and why is it important for teens?)

Financial literacy aims to teach people the basics about money and how to manage it. Topics typically covered include budgeting, saving, debt, and investing.

Going deeper though, a great financial literacy course for teens will also cover things like getting their first job, taxes, investing, charitable donations, credit cards, income taxes, and retirement. Doing so will give your child a head start in life by laying a solid foundation of strong money understanding and good habits to take with them into adulthood.

As a former bank employee, I can tell you horror stories of customers who simply didn’t understand how money works, and these customers paid dearly for it.

And I can recall a few of my own financial faux pas because personal finance was not something that I was taught as a student.

Yet, learning through the school of hard knocks and working in the financial industry later in life proved to me just how vital a good financial education can be and just how important a solid financial foundation is.

As a homeschool mom, my goal is to prepare my children and graduate them as adults who are smart when it comes to money matters, prepared to make adult decisions, and be financially wise in the future.

I’m looking to teach my children how to save, spend, borrow, give, and invest in ways that will aid them throughout their adult life and help them fully understand how their financial decisions today, even small ones, can have a large impact on their futures (I’m looking at you compound interest).

How Do You Teach Financial Literacy To Teens?

With all of the many courses your teens should be taking during the last few years of schooling, one truly should be a course designed to teach financial literacy for high school students. Teens are ready to learn about money, money management, and how to make wise money decisions.

Teaching personal finance for teens is a great way to make sure they are prepared for everything from opening a checking account to setting up direct deposit, applying for a loan or setting up their first budget, and even what the true cost of those student loans will be if they sign on that dotted line.

A good financial literacy curriculum for teens is going to teach all of that and more because money is a tool, and when it’s used properly, it can be quite useful… but when it’s not, the costs can be astronomical.

3 Reasons to teach financial literacy to your teens (And How TO Do it!)

1. Money is finite

The biggest reason to teach financial literacy to your teens before they graduate is to prepare your children for life. To ensure they can balance their checkbook or understand their online banking app, and realize that money is finite.

One of the best ways to do this is to start your children out with bank accounts early in life and go over statements with them regularly. Show them how deposits and withdrawals work, explain interest, and use the proper terminology when possible.

2. Money Is A Tool

The second reason for making sure you teach your children good money skills is because money is a tool, and when it’s used well, it will be helpful, but when it’s not, it will be a burden.

When my kids were younger we did this through allowances, chore charts, and even when the kids received money as a gift. We talked naturally about earning money for working, saving up for larger purchases, and limiting impulse buys.

As they got older, we began talking about interest rates and how shopping around for the best term on a house or car loan is a wise idea. A quick mortgage calculator online will show just how much of a difference a 3.00% APR vs a 3.25% APR is over a 15 or 30-year loan.

And since interest rates go both ways, it’s also easy to start explaining the interest earned on a traditional savings account verse interest earned on other savings methods and investing.

3. Money Is Either Controlled or It’s Controlling

The third reason I encourage you to make sure your teen has a personal finance course before graduation is simply so they understand that money is either controlled by you or it’s controlling you.

Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t like being controlled by money, and I don’t want my teen to grow up controlled by it either. I want them to experience the freedom of financial peace that comes from knowing good money management though earning, budgeting, savings, donating, and investing based on their income, expenses, and financial goals.

The best way to teach this is to live it but to also provide your high school students with a financial literacy curriculum for teens that will teach them not just the basics of spending and saving, but one that goes deep into the realm of creating good money sense like Beyond Personal Finance does with their experienced-based course covering a wide range of real-life money situations.

Taught in two different ways (either individually or with a group), this self-paced financial literacy curriculum for teens is a great one-semester elective that will cover all of the basics of personal finance as well as dig deep into the meatier material to help your high school student be prepared for everything from what to do with that first paycheck to how (and why) to start saving for retirement.

Divided into 3 units, this financial literacy course for teens covers 15 different money-related topics that we all experience throughout life and gives your teens the opportunity to think about how they will handle common real-world situations including:

• Attending college and how to pay for it
• Renting and buying a home
• Credit cards
• Marriage & family
• Investing
• Income taxes
• And so much more!

And if you are looking to have more than four teens take this personal finance course, then you should check out the group option from Beyond Personal Finance.

Utilizing both video and workbook exercises, Beyond Personal Finance will walk your child through the real life decisions they will need to make as they begin their adult lives and show them just how those decision will affect their future.

>>>Click here to see Excerpts From Beyond Personal FInance<<<

Preparing your teen with Financial Literacy skills

With the average US household sitting on $90,000 in debt and rising debt-to-income ratios, it’s clear that many households are living beyond their means.

That’s not a future that I want for my children. I don’t want them working to barely make ends meet, being a slave to ever-increasing debt balances, or simply wondering how they overdrafted their bank account (again).

Instead, I prefer to prepare them for life with math skill that covers all the ins and outs of personal finance and good money management, and that starts with teaching financial literacy in our home and using homeschool courses just like the self-paced financial literacy course for teens from Beyond Personal Finance.