The Challenge: Financial Literacy.
““The number one problem in today’s generation and economy is the lack of financial literacy.”
—Alan Greenspan, Former Chairman of the U.S. Federal Reserve
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Whether it is improved test scores, compliance with financial literacy state requirements, earning merit badges, mentoring, parenting, current or prospective client relationships, or the simple well-being of our young adults, there are many reasons to want to help in the area of personal finance.
Many people believe the lack of financial literacy was a primary cause of the latest recession. My guess is you, your family, or your friends felt the negative impacts of the recession in some way.
I think we can all agree that there is room for improvement in this area. Further, I think we can all agree that our young adults are asking help in this real world area. But, what we all struggle with is how.
How do we help our young adults?
We reviewed many of the options available to young adults to better themselves in this area. Unfortunately, there aren't many. Also, we noticed a common theme in the options that are available in that they overlooked the essential first step: gaining the interest of the young adult. There is a perception that personal finance is complex and takes a lot of time. Although all young adults have great hearts, with their busy social calendars, our guess is that many teenagers would not be initially interested on their own and their mental blocks would come into play:
“I’m young; I’ll do it later.”
“I don’t have enough time for it.”
“I don’t make enough money for it.”
“I can’t understand it.”
“I don’t need it.”
We don't believe that it has to be complex or take a lot of time. It is easy to see why personal finance can be overwhelming causing these mental blocks. There are many, many facets to financial literacy: saving, compound growth, investing, debt, taxes, retirement, inflation, insurance, identify theft, and the list goes on. Young adults (and adults for that matter) can become overwhelmed with this information overload, lose confidence in themselves, and, unfortunately, fail before they even start. As such, in our solution we focus only on the foundation of personal finance, ensuring that they maintain their interest and build their confidence to succeed.
Here is our recommended philosophy for our young adults:
Overcome Your Mental Block
Save
Don't Get Into Trouble With Debt Or Investing
Does this seem too simple? Here is why we believe that if they are saving, they are succeeding:
70%
have stress related to money
60%
say their personal finance needs improvement
60%
with credit cards DON't pay off their bill in full and on time
70%
don’t have enough savings for unexpected expenses
We don’t believe the similar magnitude of these statistics is a coincidence—
saving is the solution.
Knowing what saving is is the easy part, knowing how to save is where it gets tricky...and that is where we come in. It's time to start taking action and solving this significant problem. Learn more about our solution to help make sure our young adults can focus on what is important to them.
