This is a big topic (for both individuals and for our country) and getting bigger all the time (in terms of awareness and the desire to work toward a positive result). There are many people engaged in providing money lessons, making financial education more broadly available to all, and I’m privileged to work with many of them.

You are right to support advocate a “start with the basics” approach. I think the most important lesson at start with – at any and every age – is that of Needs v. Wants. We’re a society with a whole lot of wants. As more and more is available to us, we can get confused about what we “need.” Combine that with 1,000 ads a day coming our way, each one selling us something “we’ve got to have,” and Americans find it hard to resist the temptation to spend – myself included.

To that end, parents, and other adults involved in the lives of kids, can begin a child’s financial education as soon as that child says “I want” at a store. I know that phrase is one learned very young. Still, we need to take advantage of as many teachable moments as we can to explain that money is a finite commodity and that we as a family or household have to make decisions about how we use the money we earn. We also have to watch how we ourselves act. Kids learn much more from watching our actions, and they absolutely notice when our actions contradict our words. I realize this is very simplistic, but it’s a central message in helping us learn to live within our means as you so succinctly put it.

I am involved with the Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, which MP Dunleavey mentions in her article. I did want you to know that Ms. Duleavey mentioned only some – but by no means all – of the voluntary standards that Jump$tart has created to help schools and others teach and measure financial education. Ms. Duleavey focused credit. There are standards and benchmarks – at several age levels – for all the basic areas of personal finance, including:
• Financial Responsibility and Decision Making
• Income and Careers
• Planning and Money Management
• Credit and Debt
• Risk Management and Insurance
• Saving and Investing

If you’d like to learn more about all the standards, please visit that section of the coalition’s website at http://www.jumpstart.org/guide.html. The standards work was done by some of the best educational minds working on this subject matter (not mine) as dedicated volunteers.

Thanks again for shining a light on and providing an opportunity to discuss this important topic.

I really don’t agree with the government forcing people to have to take a class in order to buy their first home. I do agree with having the option available to take a class on buying a home, just not as a requirement. Government regulation isn’t going to make people more responsible, people have to step up and take the initiative.

Sometimes we can’t always get people to see things the way we would like. The ones who can adapt and figure out this money thing are the ones who will succeed. Children do follow their parent’s actions, so if the parents don’t behave with money neither will the kids.