This post was written in collaboration with and sponsored by TIAA. Please read our disclosure for more info.
As many of my readers already know, I still work in corporate America. And most days, I am 100 percent okay with that. To prove just how okay I am, check out my intimate thoughts on the concept of an ideal job. My corporate job not only affords me a very nice salary with solid retirement and health care benefits, but it also allows and encourages volunteerism within my local community. This year, I had the wonderful opportunity to be a Junior Achievement volunteer. And that, my friends, was right up my frugal alley!
Needless to say, I wasted no time in signing up for the experience of introducing young people in my own community to money management and financial responsibility. If you want the scoop on how my day shaped up as well as some expert financial input for millennials from TIAA, read on!
The Junior Achievement Program
If you’re not familiar with it, Junior Achievement is the world’s largest organization dedicated to educating students in grades K-12 about entrepreneurship, work readiness, and financial literacy through experiential, hands-on programs that are delivered by community volunteers (like me!).
The Junior Achievement 1-Day curriculum helps students to begin to understand personal finances at a young age (e.g. saving for college, saving for their first car, and making healthy financial decisions at a young age).
Junior Achievement, as well as TIAA, believe that introducing these concepts early puts young people in a better position to manage their finances later in life.
My Day As A JA Volunteer
My day as a JA volunteer started very early in the morning when I pulled into the parking lot of a local high school. Before I embarked on my adventure, I made sure to check out the GreatSchools.org rating for my assigned school. As it turns out, my assignment was at a highly-rated public school – an 8 out of 10, to be exact.
Armed with that knowledge, I anticipated my day as a financial volunteer with this particular group of high school juniors to be repeat information and a fairly simple task. I was wrong.
After entering the school, I was shuffled into a room with approximately 10 – 20 other volunteers from the community. As soon as pleasantries were exchanged, all of the volunteers were given coaching on their particular curriculum and preferred delivery methods via JA staff members.
I had signed up for the Budget Builder curriculum and was happy to hear that it was acceptable to take advantage of teachable moments throughout the day. We were also given some liberty to expand on conversations with additional information and experiences as long as it was related to the topic. To say I was impressed with the initial introduction and training would be a gross understatement.
Before I knew it, the coaching session was over, the kids shuffled in, and my day as a Budget Builder volunteer was well underway.
Budgets For The Win
The day was split into two halves. I had a group of students before lunch and a second group after lunch. In order to be interactive and successful, the program assigned only a handful of students to each volunteer per session.
The Budget Builder curriculum consisted of a real-life scenario in which each student was given a packet containing an adult persona that included marital status, number of children, education, income, and salary. From that point, the students were expected to evaluate their situation and determine the best course of action for their finances based on their particular life situation.
As I passed out the packets, the students tore into them with excitement to see just what their adult life looked like. Some were single parents with low-paying jobs while others were engineers with stay-at-home spouses. The situations were quite realistic and the students quickly started deciphering their monthly income based on their listed salaries.
At first, most of the kids felt like there was plenty of cash to go around – until we started looking at their housing and transportation options and how much was going to have to be funneled toward those necessary obligations each month.
Their initial jubilant attitudes quickly turned to dismay as they worked through the cost of groceries, daycare, mobile phones, internet access, etc.
To their credit, the flexible and innovative nature of their thinking led them to suggest picking up side jobs or starting side hustles to bring in additional income to boost retirement savings or pay for more fun stuff like mountain bikes and trips to Disney. Sometimes this would work out in their situation. Sometimes it wouldn’t.
One student quickly realized that working a second job would seriously limit his time with his wife and two children. And just like that, a second job wasn’t a reasonable option and he was forced to build his budget based on his salary alone.
How Much Money Will You Make?
At the end of each session, I had a few minutes to ask my students what their career plans were post high school. To my delight, each student quickly answered me with their intentions and where they wanted to go to college or receive their training. Then, I asked the million-dollar question. I asked them how much money they will make in their chosen profession.
Shockingly, NO ONE was able to tell me how much money they were likely to make in their chosen profession. That’s right. I had a total of 10 students that day and not a single one had any idea how much money they were going to make in the future.
I was disheartened to learn that even in a highly-rated public school located in a nice community our young people are making career decisions with absolutely no knowledge of the income potential they’re facing. In my opinion, this is a MAJOR fail on many levels and demonstrates the dire need for financial education.
Although these kids just missed being millennials by a few years, I started to think about the precarious financial situation facing most young adults today. Sadly, the few hours of instruction these kids had around budgets was likely more than most adult millennials ever received.
Millennial Money Hardships
After spending the day as a Budget Builder mentor, I walked away with a heightened sense of awareness that, despite the quality of the school district, today’s young people are in serious need of financial education in order to check all of life’s boxes.
Considering the competing financial responsibilities facing millennials (think: financial illiteracy, student loan debt, housing costs, job insecurity, marriage and family, etc.) it seems nearly impossible to succeed without proper education and guidance. Enter, TIAA.
TIAA is a Fortune 100 company that began in 1918 and its employees are not only dedicated to providing cutting-edge financial services to their customers, but they’re also dedicated to providing financial education to the community at large as demonstrated by their dedication to Junior Achievement.
TIAA And The Junior Achievement Program
According to Jarian Kerekes, TIAA’s Senior Director of Community Affairs, “TIAA is proud to have worked with Junior Achievement for the past ten years to deliver financial education programs to schools in the towns where we work and live. This is one of the most popular volunteer opportunities for our employees. They love the opportunity to interact with the students, to serve as mentors, and to truly impact others’ lives.”
In 2017, 339 TIAA employees volunteered for 28 JA events across the country impacting more than 3,200 students.
In addition to the JA 1-Day curriculum, TIAA also supports JA Finance Park (middle and high school) and JA BizTown (elementary), which combines in-class learning with a day-long visit to a realistic on-site or virtual community, to put into practice what the students have learned by developing and committing to a personal budget. In Charlotte, Junior Achievement of Central Carolinas is opening a JA Finance Park where TIAA will have a storefront for students to visit.
Financial Literacy is not part of the core curriculum in many schools, but TIAA firmly believes it’s important to introduce these concepts early on and continue reinforcing them throughout one’s life.
So, if you’re a millennial who could benefit from some expert input from financial professionals you’ll want to keep reading. Take it away, TIAA!
Related content:
- 5 Reasons You Need To Track Your Net Worth To Build Wealth
- 9 Money Hacks That Took Us From The Poorhouse To The Penthouse
- F.I.O.R. – Financial Independence Optional Retirement
TIAA Offers Financial Tips & Tools For Millennials
Brandi Critchett, a TIAA Wealth Management Advisor based in Columbus, Ohio has this to say about millennial money management…
It can be hard when you have competing financial priorities, especially if you have student debt or not a lot of income coming in. But the number one piece of advice I give to young people is to not put off saving for retirement. Even if you can only save just a little bit every month, a very modest amount of savings can make a huge difference if you start when you are young.
When you are young, you have one of the greatest gifts. You have the gift of time and compound interest.
Compounding happens when earnings on your savings get reinvested to generate their own earnings, which also get reinvested to create more earnings, and so on. Over time, compounding can add a lot of fuel to the growth of your savings.
Here’s an example of the power of compound interest. If you save just $100 a month or about $25 a week, over 40 years you will have put aside $48,000, but it will be worth about $186,000. (Assuming a 6 percent return.) If you can save $125 a month, over 40 years you’ll have $232,000!
However, if you wait, you’ll have to save much more and your money won’t have the time to grow. For example, if you save $200 a month for only 20 years, that amount will grow to $88,285. This again assumes a 6 percent annual return.
So how can you find an extra $100 right now? You need a budget!
It is important to understand what is going in and what is going out. So for a few months, track everything. You may have to make some choices, like living with a roommate (or two) or going out a bit less, but anything extra you can save will really pay off in the long haul.
The number one most common mistake I see young people make is that they think they don’t need to start saving when they are young. But this is completely wrong. Saving while you are young is one of the best gifts you can give yourself.
If you are just starting out and paying down debt, what can you do to get on sure footing?
First, don’t lock yourself into commitments that will tie up your cash flow. This includes mortgages, high rent, high car payments etc.
Also, work with your employer to understand the benefits available to you – some employers offer benefits for fitness, for cell phone plans, or financial planning needs. If your employer offers a savings match for retirement contributions, TAKE IT! This is free money that you should not pass up.
Try engaging your friends and family as well. You can support each other in building your financial security and finding low-cost activities so that you can all meet your savings goals.
Don’t forget, this is a marathon, not a sprint – sound decisions now will set you up for more flexibility in the future.
If you’re a millennial struggling to make ends meet while trying to pay off debt, buy a house, start a family, or the like, here are some real tools you can use to get your finances moving in the right direction:
Power of Savings
Does your company offer a retirement contribution match? See how contributing a little more toward your retirement can add up to big savings later.
My Benchmark
Learn how your retirement savings stack up against your peers´ retirement savings with the swipe of a few buttons.
Compound Interest Calculator
Determine how much your money can grow using the power of compound interest.
Final Thoughts
My experience as a JA volunteer was one I will forever remember. It helped open my eyes to the consumerism tendencies of young people and the pressing need for financial education starting at an early age.
If you happen to be in a financial situation with competing responsibilities, I hope you consider taking advantage of some of the tips and tools offered by the financial professionals at TIAA to ensure your future is focused on the things and people that matter most and not on financial obligations.
10 Comments
Okay I love this junior Achievement program! Such a needed opportunity for students to get some sense of money responsibilities before it’s all dumped on their heads with no training.
Right! I obviously agree. I had a blast volunteering for the program and introducing the kids to budgeting.
I taught high school English for many years, but we often did budgets for literary situations so students could grasp Gatsby’s wealth (and extravagance) or the Youngers’ poverty. Sometimes I went a bit outside my curriculum and had students connect it with their own lives, future plans, and lifestyle goals, but that came from my own interests rather than any codified curriculum. Yes–financial literacy (and much other practical knowledge) is often absent from public schools. It need not be. I’m glad you had a good time volunteering.
Good for you for helping young people learn about finances at an early age. It’s so vital!
What an awesome experience! My, my it is disturbing that none of the kids knew how much their chosen professions would pay. Not surprised, though. I taught HS math back in 07 and we had no personal finance curriculum. Mind you I was in the highest ranked school in the state!
Loved reading about & from TIAA.
Wow! That is unbelievable that the highest ranked school in the state had no person finance curriculum. That just proves how much our kids need this education. Thank goodness there are programs like JA doing their best to spread the word.
That’s great that you had this opportunity to volunteer with JA. My former employer was a large sponsor of the program as well, and over the years I also got to do a fair amount of work with students and found it very rewarding, but also shocking in terms of how little they know about personal finance.
I agree wholeheartedly with your observation about none of the kids knowing how much their future career would earn and how parents, and school administrators are thus not preparing them well for the future. We need to change the mindset from, “you should do whatever you’re little heart wants to do”, to “you should do something you think you’ll enjoy, but that also will earn you the lifestyle you want.
I love this… We need to change the mindset from, “you should do whatever you’re little heart wants to do”, to “you should do something you think you’ll enjoy, but that also will earn you the lifestyle you want.” You are so right!
I love this post! I would actually like to do a simulation of this lesson with my kids. It’s never too early to start! Can you share an example of what the packet included?
The packet for the JA program included a job title, salary, education level, marital status, number of children (if any), and then they had to budget that salary to pay for housing, transportation, healthcare, childcare, groceries, utilities, and entertainment. They had a choice of how much to spend in each category. For instance, they could choose a big house or a small apartment, etc. Obviously, each decision affected how much money they had available for the other items they needed to pay for. It really was a great program and I can’t speak highly enough about it.