Standard Packages: Money Starters ™

Aim of training:

Money Starters™ is a + b = 3 financial literacy training for teenagers and young adults. Basic topics are similar to Money Basics™ and Money Essentials™: controlling expenses, getting out of debt, setting up short and long term goals, and saving for them, anticipating expenses, making a budget and deciding on priorities. It also addresses specific issues that teenagers or young adults may experience: how to find a job, how to wisely use a first salary, talking about money to friends, how to plan projects (wedding, buying a house…), how to read a bill… Some topics are also taught from a difference prospective: retirement for instance may seem very far away for young adults, but saving early is less painful; so we brainstorm on how we can find the motivation to save for an event which may take place in 40 or 50 years.

 

Training Methods:

The other main difference to Money Basics™ and Money Essentials™ is the training style: the mainstream activities consist of a game: participants start with a sum of money and go through activities where they spend, earn and learn to manage this amount. The activities are organised in five modules:

Why a game? Simply to motivate participants as much as possible. Besides, unlike the adult learners, teenagers and young adults are likely to be still at school or university: they attend courses and lessons all day long. Running this programme as a game, and not a traditional course, will help them focus, participate and learn better.

Modules are flexible and can be arranged in several possible formats in order to suit the participants’ availability, focus span and progression pace. We recommend running the programme in groups not exceeding 20 people in order to make sure all participants actively interact and get the most of the course.

This trainer’s guide also includes possible activities to run review courses and go further.

Target:

Teenagers and young adults: 16 years old to 25 years old, who are about to earn a living or have just started. Money management has a lot to do with habits, not just techniques and calculations. It is very important that young people get a good start with money in order to avoid going into too much debt or fail to save. It is usually easier to save when we are young, rather than when we have a family and several dependents to support. We strongly believe 16-25 years old is a critical age to learn to be financial literate.

It is available in English and French. For other languages, please contact us.

 

Learning objectives:

  1. The first module starts with general activities about money: we check what participants already know about money, why it is important to manage money and what being successful means. Then we get into the game: Participants receive a first sum of (toy) money as a cheque and we see how what we can do with it. We learn about banks (how to open a bank account, why...), credit cards, interest rate and debt. Why start with debt? For two reasons: first to stress as soon as possible that we should be very careful with borrowing money. Then, it reflects the reality of many countries, where young people accumulate debt even before earning money.

  2. The second module is about spending. We start with a game where participants shop, using the toy money they have from the first module. We brainstorm on wise shopping behaviour, advertising and trade offs. The second part of this module deals with bills. We analyse the various types of expenses, what a financial commitment is and how to manage some expenses (especially mobile phones!). We learn how to track expenses and calculate how much our available income amounts to, after putting money aside for commitments. Participants practise reading a bank statement and calculating their net worth.

  3. This third module is about getting financially independent, how to be prepared for it and live it at best. Participants learn about jobs and the various types of income they could get, they select a job, write a CV and practise interviews. We also reflect on growing our skills to get better jobs and how our lifestyle will, to a large extent, depend on our income. One activity covers working abroad, especially the risks and opportunities that it implies. This part has to be adapted to your local situation, but we thought we could not leave this issue behind as a high percentage of migration is triggered by economics reasons. This part also enables us to do some calculations on currencies and explore what exchange rates are, a topic that is not explored in Money Essentials™ or Money Basics™. We also discover what a business is.

    This module also addresses other issues which appear when we start earning an income, leave our parents and get financially independent: how to sort our papers, what to keep safe; how to talk about money to our families and friends: shall we tell them how much we earn, for instance? Finally, financial health is also about ethics and values and we explore this topic through two different view angles: ethics at work – what to do and not to do on a moral point of view, and scams: some attractive earning opportunities are too good to be trusted: how can we stay critical and be as wise as our elders!

  4. The fourth module is about saving money. Participants get a new cheque (salary from their job) and we brainstorm on why and how much they should keep part of it. We review debt through an activity on financing projects and analyse the psychological difficulty of saving: waiting and delaying pleasure versus getting something now (immediate gratification). We go through technical knowledge and tips on saving, and also introduce retirement. The main challenge for young adults is to find the motivation to put money aside for such a very long term goal. We do not go through the detail of retirement as situations vary from one country to another, and in a 40 to 50 years period of time, laws on retirement may have changed too, but people will still need to have saving to live at an old age. We end this module with how to manage the threats on saving and risk. The basics of insurance are explained.
  5. The fifth module is about planning and budgeting. Looking ahead, at the future, is challenging, especially for people with just enough income to live day by day and for young adults who may prefer enjoying their new income now instead of keeping it aside for later. So we start with an example showing the importance of planning ahead: we plan our wedding and learn some tips on project management. Then, we learn what a budget is and practise calculating one. We also find ways to use it efficiently to better manage our money. We experience how a budget can help us save more and assess if some projects are financially worth doing or not. Finally, we wrap up by listing what we can change in our daily behaviour in order to get “good money habits” and have a healthy financial life.

How to get Money Essentials™ programme?

Money Starters ™ is available through our Training the Trainers workshop. During the workshop, participants get familiar with Money Basics™ trainers' guide, watch one class demonstration, work in group to adapt one activity and train to teach it in front of the other trainers.

After the workshop, participants get a free access to our Resource Centre where all training props and materials are available in Word or Excel documents and several languages so that they can print them, get the latest updates or download them to adapt them to their own clients' learning goals.

Example of instruction and material

Money Starters - Cebu (Philippines) June 2007:

brainstorming on banks                    analysing shopping

finding out definitions of financial terms                      writing a budget