The First Adulting Life Skill to Master

Written By: Sandi MacCalla, Founder - LifeSkills Academy ~ 7/24/2023

I believe many of us agree that mastering finances drove us into Olympic-like trials to scale and conquer our first ‘Adulting Badge.’ Fortunately, developing these needed skills can begin at an early age.

Financial Management

This involves:

• creating/following a budget (or spending plan)
  
  
• saving for short and long-term goals
  
  
• managing assets/liabilities/debt/investing.

Financial literacy is key to achieving stability and independence - an important milestone in becoming a responsible adult. A good understanding of personal finances helps us make informed decisions about our resources and our future with less stress.

There is an abundance of learning opportunities online that open the doors to excelling in this skill. There isn’t a one-size-fits-all money methodology in teaching youth. Together with your student, research online to find what is workable for you both to get hands-on and begin scaling this knowledge with them. Your spending time with them will show exponential growth in financial literacy.

Some of the strategies I’ve seen and really like are:

• The Envelope Method (now called ‘cash-stuffing’)
  • Set up envelopes for spending, saving, and investing.
  • Work with cash only – no credit cards – to allocate needed funds for budgeted items.
  • Spend only what is budgeted for each time period.
  • This instills stronger discipline to avoid running out of funds.
    
    
• The game of Monopoly
  • A dad wanted to instruct and observe his children playing Monopoly.
  • He used real money instead of play money to see what impact that would have on their decisions.
  • He quickly observed his kids making more conservative decision-making when using real money to buy and sell properties.

As an active American English Tutor/Coach, I find that students learn best when we focus on what interests them. An example:

• For students who love intergalactic adventures, we write our own stories while we learn vocabulary, grammar, fiction structure, character development and even drawing comics.
  
  
• For middle-school students, we write non-fiction essays that we turn into PowerPoint presentations and practice public speaking.

Using what interests, a learner makes all the more tedious discipline go better and deeper. I am always amazed when a student becomes fully engaged in learning and I see them on fire for a topic.

“The more you learn, the more you earn.”
-Warren Buffett-

LifeSkills Academy features e-learning classes including Etiquette/Social Intelligence, Financial Skills, and Personal Organization. All educators are business professionals, some with academic backgrounds, and all have proven success in the world of commerce.  Sign up for newsletters and class notices.

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