Its kind of interesting because I feel that everyone needs to seriously understand their money and attitudes concerning this. This is even more important as we are living in a credit car, instant gratification society.
I am truely amazed by how much we actually educate ourselves when it comes to money. Imagine, I've witnessed how many people can take some time to think when it comes to spending $200 on a particular product. However, they will not even bat an eyelid when $100/month disappears from their bank account into some investment scheme which they are not clear about. They are not even clear about the capital gains from the investments, or even the current worth of the mutual funds. Isn't it scary? I mean, what if the fund that you have invested in is not performing? Wouldn't you care about how much you have gained/lost?
Anyway, back to the school. It was done over a period of 3 lessons and I had a good time with them. I basically wanted them to know that money is not a good/evil thing. It is basically a neutral term. The question is "How will you use it?"
I helped some students develop a simple structure, ie to give them a plan to save 10-20% of their weekly allowance. Lock in this amount and develop the habit of saving until they can invest. Besides saving, can they reduce spending or delay their self gratification? Only the strong willed will survive this stage because they ask tough questions like: "Is this a need or a want?"
Lastly, we played a money game. This was to teach them how we actually fall into the trap of marketing ploys to get us to spent money! This is a very powerful lesson because some of the students were really shocked by their own actions. Here's some photos of the program...
