Schoolhouse Review: WealthQuest for Teens

How does 6 weeks to financial fitness sound to you?  Would you like to see your teens get the most out of the money they earn?  Are you interested in picking up a few tips for yourself as you help your children learn how to better manage the resources they have?  I know I relish the opportunity to guide my children away from the mistakes I've made -- especially in the area of financial decisions.  I want to equip them with the ability to make wise choices that bring glory and honor to GOD in all areas of their lives.  WealthQuest for Teens is a great place to start your children on the path of good decision-making when it comes to money management.

A six-week program written by Jill Suskind, WealthQuest for Teens takes students on a wealth-building journey in which they learn to use money in a way that is compatible to their family ideals, goals, and needs.  Designed to help teenagers skirt the unnecessary monetary mistakes and pitfalls that are easily avoided with a bit of direction and education, the 7 modules help teenagers become financially fit.

Written for students ages 14 - 19, WealthQuest exposes teenagers (and parents, too) to some good ideas for saving and spending and setting parameters for each.  The four components that make up the entire program work together to give students the very best understanding of money management.  To get the maximum benefit from WealthQuest :

1. have your students watch the online seminars AND answer the questions presented in the workbook for each module (Each video module is relatively short.  You can watch from start to finish in about an hour.  Allow extra time to answer the questions, complete the activities, and discuss.  I printed out the workbook so that we could look at it and fill in the blanks.  This took 10 sheets of paper.)
2. have your students work through the Basic Seminar QuickStart Guide eBook  (This 33-page pdf acts as a journal your teen can work through.  It takes 30 days to complete and further explains the concepts introduced in the seminar videos.  Again, I printed this out because I'm a notebook junkie.  You can easily journal in a regular notebook if you prefer.)
3.  READ the Parent Guide entitled Your Teen's Financial Literacy in Today's Economy.  This 58-page eBook will help YOU help your teen make the most of the entire WealthQuest program.  (I did not print this one out, but I did put it on my iPad to use as a frequent reference.)
4. check out the FREE money managing tool moneytrail.net.  (Perfect for learning to budget)

Now, you know I'm all about tweaking something to help us get the most benefit out of it.  I think the tweaking and making things work best within the parameters of my family is truly the beauty of home education.  Because I can tailor each subject to meet our needs, there is much "stretch-ability" in our school budget.  That being said, here's how we used WealthQuest at Long Leaf Academy.

To begin with, I had the Junior (16 years old) go through the entire video seminar at her own pace.  She chose to do a few sessions a day during school as a break from her other subjects.  I want to be completely honest here and say that she felt that some of the video portions were a bit "cheesy," but then she IS 16 and considers LOTS of things "cheesy."  Included as a part of each video lesson, there are questions for review purposes.  She answered these questions before she moved on to the next lesson.  The idea of money management and wise choices was not new to her, though, because she was part of a co-op class with friends a few years ago  that utilized another foundational personal finance curriculum.  I believe that students need all the exposure they can get in regards to spending wisely.  Jill Suskind says this exact thing in her WealthQuest program and encourages students to read as many books as possible on financial matters so that they become knowledgeable about money and how to make it grow. Suskind recommends that students become life-long learners. Isn't that great?

I also do not believe that we can begin teaching our children too early about making wise choices with money.  Just today, we had a discussion about buying a house.  The Boy Scout wanted to know if I thought everyone borrowed money when they bought a house.  We discussed mortgages -- are they a necessary evil? -- and the fact that paying cash would be the ideal situation.  He is beginning to think about saving money NOW for the day when he wants to buy a car or house.  I think that's a GREAT idea and the entire conversation confirms my choice to have both he and the Princess watch the WealthQuest videos when the Junior finished.

Although they fall outside the ideal age range, I had my 11-year-old and my 13-year-old watch the webinar with me (and the 16-year-old watched it with us again). We all enjoyed hearing about the three kinds of income -- earned, passive and portfolio -- and how to make our money grow.  I was also pleased to hear the teens on the video tell my children that they needed to choose a career based upon something they LOVE and not based upon how much money the job pays.

Getting Financially Fit TOGETHER!

We found the videos to be interesting, eye-catching, and entertaining {and, no, not cheesy at all}. They were fast-paced and cheerful with energetic teens and high tech sights and sounds. We watched them straight-through and then discussed the strategies presented as a family. The real-life, hands-on components of the program are inspiring my children to begin saving money NOW and form healthy habits for life. My only complaint is that I could not figure out how to enlarge the video on the computer screen. It would have been ideal had I been able to go full-screen as we watched together.

The basic WealthQuest for Teens program is available for $39.95 and includes all four components of the program:  the online webinar which has printable workbook pages for each module, the Basic Seminar QuickStart Guide eBook, the eBook for Parents and the FREE link to MoneyTrail.net where you can set up an online savings plan that helps teens and families figure out how to save and what to spend when.

Here are a few thoughts from my crew:

Princess (11):  I thought it was very good because it gets me thinking about how to spend my money and how to save it.  I realize if I can save a lot, I can buy myself a horse.  So, mom?  You have any jobs you want me to do?

Boy Scout (13):  It gave me ideas on how to save money when I get money.  I like the silo plan of dividing my money up as soon as I get it and spending it with specific goals in mind.  I think I could improve the plan by dividing the silos for Fun Things, Necessities, Church and Savings.  I would also make it so that if you didn't spend all of your money in the Fun Things category you could put that in the Savings category and build your savings even faster.

Junior (16):  I thought this gave me a good review of the personal finance class that I took a few years ago.  I plan to combine this program with the earlier class and to read several of the recommended books in order to have enough hours to earn a Personal Finance credit for my high school transcript.  The printed module questions and the eBook have been helpful for this. 

Getting Financially FIT Together makes This Day Have Great Potential!

~Disclaimer:  I was given the opportunity to use and review WealthQuest for Teens as a member of the Schoolhouse Review Crew.  The opinions stated are mine and mine alone.  I was not paid to share my thoughts and feelings with you.  I received access to the website in exchange for my honest review.  You can check out the Crew Review and see what other members of the Crew thought of WealthQuest.~

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