Financial Knowledge Can Change Your Future
Financial Education For Parents And Kids Today Can Help Them Live The Lives They Truly Want To Live
Financial literacy means knowing how to make financial decisions. The problem is that most of us aren't taught the fundamentals of financial literacy growing up in the classroom or from society. As a result, this lack of financial literacy knowledge and confidence can manifest itself in some incredibly challenging moments once we enter the real world.
To illustrate this view, in the United States the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority (FINRA) regularly issues a five-question test as part of its National Financial Capability Study; the test measures basic financial literacy knowledge of people all over the country.
Study participants are asked five questions covering aspects of economics and finance encountered in everyday life, such as compound interest, inflation, principles relating to risk and diversification, the relationship between bond prices and interest rates, and the impact that a shorter term can have on total interest payments over the life of a mortgage. On the most recent test given (here), only 34% of those who took the quiz got four or five questions correct.
Despite not learning much about financial literacy growing up either, what has allowed me to ignore this problem (until now) is a 10+ year career in finance working for some of the most prestigious investment banks and asset management firms in the world. Through this career I have learned the ins and outs of how our financial systems works allowing me to pick up a lot of practical lessons I never learned growing up.
The main point of change however was the birth of my daughters, Scarlett and Chloe (that’s me and Scarlett below - Chloe is just a week old right now). I realized that making sure families (and their kids) have a strong knowledge foundation when it comes to the world today is one of the most important things I can do as their dad, and so I thought long an hard about how I want to help.
The more research I did around the financial literacy for kids, what I found from was two things:
1. While there are some great one off tools and resources beginning to pop up for kids in the financial literacy space, the market is still generally disorganized and unstructured.
2. Everyone's financial situation and level of literacy is different, and every parent likely wants to teach or have their kids learn in their own way. Every kid is also at different stages of their financial literacy development with some likely needing more and some needing less guidance.
As a result of all of this, Future Funders was born with the intended goal of aiming to inspire people by giving them the financial knowledge, tools, and resources to help them live the life they want to live..
Here at Future Funders, our core belief is that every kid, family, grown up, or teacher can learn how to use money as a tool to live the life they want. Three principles that are and always will be foundational to us are:
No Fancy Jargon — We don’t believe you need a long financial career to make money work in your life or to teach your child. There are groups or companies out there who try to make the topics of money and finance overly complicated. We don’t believe in that philosophy and will not be part of that thinking.
There Is No “Right Way” For Everyone — We all want to lead different lives, so how can we all follow the same uniform or perceived “right” money principles? We don’t believe there are uniform rules for everyone and preach ways to learn to use money as a tool in the specific life YOU want to live. This is what we want to teach kids.
We Have No Monopoly On Knowledge — We all want the same goal, a better financial literacy future for our children. We want to encourage a community and sharing of different ways of thinking. There are a lot of great teaching resources out there and we don’t try to pretend like we have all the answers here and encourage your ideas.
To learn more about us feel free to get more information here.
With the above as a backdrop, we have started the company with our free weekly newsletter, Dinner Table Discussions. Through our newsletter we aim to help families everywhere. We will specifically focus on:
The most important finance, technology, and lifestyle news of the week, summarized in a way you'll actually understand and enjoy, paired with a focus on your family.
In addition to our newsletter, we also have put together curated libraries of books, toys, and games to help you find the best place to start in teaching financial literacy to kids if you want to go it on your own. Just click on any of the links and have a look around. We get paid a small commission, at no extra cost to you, for products purchased through links on our site, so if you want to support us, this is another way to do so.
Most importantly, if you feel any of the above resonates with you, we would love for you to subscribe to our weekly newsletter below. We are a work in progress, constantly changing to get better as we want to be part of a future for financial literacy that is different and we would love for you to join us on our mission!
Will
CEO & Founder, Future Funders
