Teaching Teens and Young Adults About Money
Action is being taken on many fronts to educate youth about money and finance.
For example, The Gray-Hadden Family Foundation recently donated $300,000.00 to the Toronto District School Board to create a financial literacy program called "Banking on Knowledge" for students between grade 7 and 12. Glenn Hadden is head of government bond trading at Goldman Sachs in New York. See the Toronto Star report on the donation.
The Ontario Securities Commission's Investor Education Fund has recently launched a new website called GetSmarterAboutMoney.ca. Although it's useful for people from all walks of life, a lot of the site is aimed at young adults. It provides unbiased money and investment information covering a wide variety of topics, from saving money and managing debt to investing in Tax-Free Savings Accounts, GICs and savings bonds, and much more.
The Globe and Mail has partnered with the Investor Education Fund in producing the Let's Talk Investing video series located on the site. Rob Carrick, personal finance columnist for the Globe and Mail (which is where I heard about the site), is featured on the series. He talks about GetSmarterAboutMoney.ca in his recent column, Having "The Talk" With Today's Youth.
Another personal finance website geared toward Canadian youth (aged 15 to 29) is The Money Belt, which was developed by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada. It includes an interactive educational program called The City, which "teaches young people financial skills that they can carry with them throughout their lives".
And, as always, the Toronto Public Library has some great books on the subject.
There are lots more resources out there to help teens and young people. Share with me any that you know about!
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