Being money-smart on teenage bucket list
I IS SAW the door of my study creep cr open, ever so slightly. I heard he whispers and then … fits of giggles.
It was the school holidays an and my sons were bored, so th they decided to spy on their ol old man ‘working’.
My boys, however, saw me sit sitting on my office floor pl playing with three plastic bu buckets. I may as well have be been in a sandpit.
Let me explain. This year I’v I’ve been working in cla classrooms across the country te teaching kids about money, as part of my not-for-profit Barefoot Money Movement.
My primary school program, called The Jam Jar Project, is a rolled-gold winner. Last month I taught it at my old primary school, and the kids nearly wet themselves. “This is the best class ever and I have a blood nose,” one seven-year-old excitedly told me.
My teenage program is not going as well. In fact, teaching this class has been giving me a blood nose. Repeatedly. Honestly, engaging teenagers is easily the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my career.
Yet I finally nailed it — with the help of three plastic buckets. Here’s what I did. I put a bucket on the table and explained to the class this bucket represented a bank account. Then I told them about Johnny Depp. He may be a movie star flying around in private jets but Johnny has a hole in his bucket — money goes in but it flows straight out the bottom. He reportedly doesn’t save, which explains why he has to keep making bad movies.
Then I picked up the other plastic buckets and put them on the table. The solution, I told the kids, is to have two other savings buckets that don’t have holes in them: one for emergencies (Mojo), and one for savings goals (Smile).
They got the concept straight away. In the next lesson I plan to take the metaphor further, and explain that their job is to guard their buckets and not let anyone drill a hole in them — like credit card companies, store interest-free deals, Nimble loans, car loans, even Afterpay.
We go through their glossy marketing and then read the fine print and show them just how big a hole these products can blow in their buckets.
Here’s the deal: In a few short years these kids will be fresh meat for financial institutions who employ some of the savviest marketers on the planet. While they’re still in school, they need to learn how the game works.