But how the heck are you supposed to stop your child from spending all of their money as soon as they get it?
Saving money is the basis for so many important life transitions they'll go through.
And unless you want them to get run over by the debt cycle when they try to do adult things, like put a first and last month's rent deposit down, get married, or take their OWN family on vacation one day — we both know you don't — then you've got to include this in your mommy-lessons box.
You can do this without having to confront your own money insecurities or your own money mistakes (heads up, we all have them).
Without having to talk until you're blue in the face, wondering if they're actually listening.
And, MOST IMPORTANTLY, without having your own child suffer through financial troubles as an adult and learning this lesson the hard knocks way.
But you don't have to take my word for it.
Look at what these past Everest Ground Support Team Members + their Parents have to say:
“Now, I think about money more. I think more about things in the future, and what I might need to save to get there.”
“When my Mom asked me if I wanted to do the Everest Money Simulation, I was nervous about meeting new people and wasn’t sure if I would know enough about money to be helpful. I really liked interacting with other kids like me, and being part of a team. I learned how important it is to set a money goal, and what it takes to meet a goal in time for whatever you are saving for. I think it was a fun way to learn with other kids about money! Now, I think about money more. I think more about things in the future, and what I might need to save to get there. I’m more comfortable working with other kids, and I’m more curious about Everest – I want to know more!”
“My daughter (11) was able to learn all about concepts such as budgeting, saving, & planning for financial emergencies.”
“Amanda's Everest Money Simulation was so much fun to participate in, and my daughter was able to learn all about concepts such as budgeting, saving, planning for financial emergencies, as well as the basics of sales tax and making wise spending decisions. The simulation was engaging and such a fun adventure.”
“My kids were fortunate enough to do this. They are homeschooled and LOVED it!”
“The Everest Simulation was so interactive and interesting.”
“The Everest Simulation was so interactive and interesting. I liked the setting, and how you had to save Erik. I also liked how interactive it was – you had your own paper and you were able to see the other people in the simulation.”
And it's happening against the backdrop of Everest.
Why Mt. Everest?
Because the highest mountain on earth — almost-insurmountable to all but a few — is the perfect backdrop to broaden your child's money frame of reference.
Even if the average person had the strength and endurance to summit Everest, the money that it costs ($65,000 is a typical estimate) puts it far out of reach for almost everyone.
Everyone, except those who know the secret to realizing their dreams: craft a realistic savings plan, and have the gusto to see it through.
Your child will learn how to nail a realistic savings plan for Everest. And after learning how to do that, they'll be able to nail any savings goal they could think of.
Erik, our fictitious, 28-year old climber, has a dream to summit Everest. He's roped our group − his Everest Ground Support Team − into the process, and it's our mission to get him to the mountain and down again without going into debt.
Psst: And by the way, this program is based on real, actual events that have occurred or could easily occur on the mountain, backed up by over 30+ books, interviews of summiters, 100+ hours of footage, etc.
I'm kinda a brainiac that way.
As a valuable member of the Everest Ground Support Team, your child will:
Reach a target money savings goal, based on 5 key decisions we make as a team.
Craft a realistic savings plan for how to reach that target money goal.
Work through 3 money problems Erik encounters while on the Mountain.
I've been reading up on what's really going on with money talk in our schools (yep, I'm a nerdy fact-checker like that). It's not pretty.
At first, I was surprised + super-stoked to see that not only do 17 states have mandatory financial course requirements, but that my own state, Texas, was one of them.
Money in the house!!!
Except then I ran across this statistic from the National Endowment for Financial Education’s study, Teachers’ Background & Capacity to Teach Personal Finance:
“Only 11.6% of K-12 teachers had taken a workshop on teaching personal finance…In fact, over 60% of teachers and prospective teachers said they do not feel qualified to teach their state’s financial education standards. And teacher education faculty members in those states were no more familiar with state financial education standards than K-12 teachers themselves.”
[I couldn’t help but bold that statistic after I had 30 seconds or so to lift my bottom jaw back up from the floor.]
Ummm….
At that rate, your child is more likely to stumble upon an actual shark in the bathtub during Shark Week than to stumble into a financially literate life*.
*maybe a slight exaggeration from a Shark Week Fin-natic
Do you really want your child's money education left up to teachers who − through their own admission − have no clue what they're doing (if they're actually even in the 17 states where money education is required)?
I think not.
Module 1: Everest Ground Support Team Membership + Mission Reveal
Module 2: Decision-Making with Real Financial Consequences as the Simulation Progresses:
Module 3: Realistic Savings Plan Creation
Module 4: Work through 3 money problems Erik encounters while on the Mountain
Each Everest Ground Support Team Member fills out a Money Plan Worksheet as an active member of the team.
Includes 9 various money calculations that are directly transferable to everyday adult money skills.
Money Action Challenge + Digital Surprise
We want their learning to continue, post-simulation, so I'll be giving them a money action challenge.
Email me, and upon completion, they'll receive a (super) fun digital surprise from me for free!
Do you remember having a dream as a kid you just knew you would never realize because it was as financially unreachable as Pluto is to the Space Program?
I did. I knew I wanted to study abroad in Spain the day I flipped to a random page in my 7th-grade Spanish textbook and landed on a Museo del Prado painting.
But I grew up on a family-run dairy farm. My parents constantly fought about money, not to mention both declared bankruptcy within ten years of one another. It was hard enough to ask for a new pair of sneakers, let alone for thousands of dollars to go on a trip.
The amount of stress was palpable, and fear is how decisions were made.
Somehow I found the stick-to-it-ness to work on my dream to get to Spain, despite not knowing whether I would ever actually reach it. I mucked our neighbors' horse stalls for two years, earning $98/week. I worked weekends on our farm's pumpkin stand in the fall for some extra income.
Fast forward 4 years and I was a junior in high school. It was the last summer of my high school career, so if I wanted to do this, I had to apply (and fast). The only problem? I was still $1,000 short. Just $1,000 was standing between me and that dream I had had 4 years earlier, but it might as well have been a double-sided fortress.
Still not wanting to give up, I made a Hail Mary move by applying for a $1,000 study abroad scholarship offered by our high school.
I interviewed, and I waited.
That afternoon when I heard my name called over the speaker system, announcing to the whole school that I had won the $1,000 study abroad scholarship, still brings chills to me as I type this today.
Just months later, I became a foreign exchange student in Villadiego, Spain for an amazing 6 weeks. And it changed my life forever.
My focus is to prevent the sort of money catastrophe that unfolded in our household growing up from happening to your child by filling in the sorely needed money education gap as early as possible.
And it’s not just that; for me, it’s personal.
I’m building the program I want my 19-month old son to take one day.
In addition to this, I've studied at the London School of Economics for a semester while interning at Parliament (go Welsh Plaid Cymru Party!!), studied abroad in Japan (where I met my husband), and graduated summa cum laude from Washington College back when Napster and AOL Instant Messenger were in their heydays.
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