One of the most important subjects for high schoolers is personal finance.
Do your children know how to keep a budget? Do they understand the basics of insurance? The stock market? What is the difference between a 401K and a Roth IRA? How does credit card debt block financial freedom?
These are important questions, yet the average high school graudate is clueless about how to answer them.
If our children graduate from homeschool high school without a basic knowledge of personal finance, we are not setting them up for success. We have failed them in a major area.
The Importance of Personal Finance for Teens
Why am I so passionate about this?
Long story short… I’m married to a financial wizard. We’ve lived frugally and are 100% debt-free. We own our home and our cars and have no credit card debt. Our children are not acquiring debt to go to college. We are on track to retire early.
My husband worked for a large nonprofit debt counseling agency for 18 years. He saw the toll debt took on people’s lives - not just their financial lives but their personal lives. He counseled thousands of people about creating and sticking to a budget and helped them GET OUT OF debt.
Financial literacy was (and continues to be!) simply a part of our children’s lives. They received constant instruction throughout their lives. Things we emphasized:
Cultivating/discovering what they were good at - what would their vocation be?
how to practice budgeting in their daily lives
all about insurance, deductibles, etc…
how to start their retirement accounts
the pitfalls of credit cards
thinking about financial freedom and building wealth
A knowledge of personal finance enables us to tackle life with a sense of peace and contentment. It affords FREEDOM. It also allows us to be generous! We want these things for our children.
Personal Finance for Teens - The Class
When my son was in high school, a group of parents approached my husband about teaching a financial literacy/personal finance class. After using a popular curriculum for a couple of the classes, he decided he wanted to write his own course - which he then taught to a new crop of high schoolers.
At the same time, my husband Hal was starting his own financial coaching business. He has been coaching couples and individuals on financial empowerment and owning their money. His new course for teens and coaching business led us to create a new arm of Homegrown Learners—Your Profit Pro, dedicated to financial education for homeschoolers and their families!
After we had homeschooled our children all the way through high school, we had a good idea of what kind of course would be successful, practical, and achievable for students:
Live, in-person teaching with a lot of room for discussion and questions
A shorter time frame for the class - 6 weeks of teaching (with approximately 9 hours of instruction)
A community feature where kids can discuss with each other and assignments can be made
Smaller groups of students (maximum of 10 students per class)
And, after years and years of counseling and coaching, Hal came up with six core areas of importance in Personal Finance. The new course dedicates a week to each of these principles:
How to Register for Personal Finance for Teens
Registration recently opened for the Fall 2024 term. Classes begin in mid-August and run for six weeks. We still have a few openings for Tuesday and Wednesday classes.
If you register before May 15, you will receive early bird pricing.
Find out more about Personal Finance for Teens here.
“Thank you for investing in me with your time and knowledge. You have been a wonderful teacher of personal finance. You have set me on a path I may not have started for many years through this class. Thanks for giving me the head start in learning to steward my wealth wisely.”
As we watch our own young adults make their way in the world, a knowledge of personal finance is what is contributing to their success. We’d love to help your children be successful as well!
