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I'm very excited to share my first official Mosaic Reviews product review with you. This is what we've been checking out lately...
FamilyMint's Money Management Certification Program
Created by Robert Masterson,
MBA and Jeff Eusebio, MBA to fill a need to teach their children how to be good
stewards of their money, the program has collected awards from the National
Financial Educators Council, Excellence in Financial Literacy Education,
Academics’ Choice, Mom’s Choice Awards, Parent’s Choice, The National Parenting
Center, and a number of other organizations.
Did you know?
A few interesting facts from the FamilyMint creators:
- Only 5% of adults learned money management in any level of school.
- Only 5 % of people ages 18-21 are confident about achieving their financial goals.
- The 18-24 age range makes up the group that currently file for bankruptcy the most often.
- Nearly 72% of parents surveyed acknowledged that they are their children’s primary source of personal finance education, and of those same parents, 44% admit to needing more guidance on how to best teach their children the skills necessary to become financially responsible and successful adults.
With those sobering facts in mind I sat down with this
step-by-step, 2 month program to teach my daughter all about handling money in
the real world. The first thing we found
out is that it takes about 2 months to create a good and consistent habit of
doing something. The Money Management
Certification Program, geared to kids in grade 5 and up (ages 10+), was created by a team
of children’s money management experts and educators to foster that habit.
What a simple way to teach a good habit instead of allowing the
bad habits of not building savings and unchecked spending!
The FamilyMint program contains a 60 page workbook as well
as an online Premium application (for kids 6-14 with parental involvement), both of which provide a good foundation of information, exercises, and activities.
I found this to be a wonderful way to give my daughter a feel for the
hands-on of budgeting, writing checks, making deposits and making withdrawals
while also teaching her about online banking applications.
One of the important parts of the program, goal setting, was
the first thing we did. We discussed
S.M.A.R.T. goals which are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant and
time-bound. My daughter chose a reasonable first goal of “getting a
new phone that works”. (Apparently her
phone is not living up to the abilities of the smart phones that all of her
friends are carrying around. I thought the point of having a phone was to
make and receive real-time verbal communication—apparently not.) Anyway, having decided on a good goal, she
sat down with the workbook and started learning all about budgeting and
interest, keeping good spending records, writing checks and deposit slips, and
saving money. Since she is a hands-on
learner I chose to have her primarily use the workbook rather than using the
online application. (We’ll be
backtracking and doing more with the online application now that she has a foundation established. Maybe we’ll
attack her other two goals of buying a laptop and a car when she finally gets
that phone.)
After determining how much money she had, we had a
discussion of ways that she could earn money.
We don’t really do the “allowance” thing at our house, but we do reward
her occasionally for “caught being helpful”, “brother patrol”, and “thanks for
mom and dad alone time”. She also has
sold cards and other items she has crafted.
And, of course, birthday and holiday gifts of money were included
too. Her biggest expenses over the last
year were shoes (never enough shoes), movies, music and candy. I’m
thinking she left out a few things like clothes (frugal fashionista), books,
and gifts for others, but hey, we’re just starting right?
Next we tackled the practical stuff, checkbooks and check
registers. She learned all about how to
keep track of money transactions and completed sample checks and deposit slips. She even learned some financial vocabulary. We talked about budgeting
using the “envelope system” of breaking your money into chunks (putting a
particular percentage of your income into different “envelopes” which
correspond to your goals) to achieve your goals. She doesn't have that new phone yet, but
she’s on her way. 
This is a very straightforward program. My daughter was able to read through the
workbook and complete most of the required activities without much help from
me. We both liked that part of
program. (Of course, being the “teacher”
mom, I did monitor her reading and activity completion.) Being able to move at
your own pace was definitely a great plus with the program too. No
time limits for completion of the activities took the pressure off of her learning
experience. The FamilyMint Money Management Certification program covers
all the basics in a fairly short period of time and has helped get my daughter
on her way to meeting her financial goals.
Pricing Options:
Option 1: Special Introductory Bundle Offer: $29.99
Includes Money
Management Certification Program workbook plus a lifetime subscription to the
FamilyMint Premium application (normally priced individually at $25) Additional workbooks are 50% off.
Option 2: Premium online application subscription only $24.99 annual or $4.95 monthly
Premium includes everything in the free version plus mobile ability, a savings plan, interest, a locking feature, a matching feature, no ads and no limit on historical transactions. No Certification Program workbook is included.
Option 3: Free online application only (includes 14 day FamilyMint Premium trial)
About that online Premium application, I like it too. The workbook was just a better fit for us. With the online application kids learn the same material but in the setting of "online banking". Parents set up accounts for their kids and assist them with transactions.
Click here to see sample workbook pages and an online application tour video.
For More Info:
1 comment:
Great review, Roberta...thorough and insightful ;-)
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