Recent studies have indicated that many young people have no idea about personal finance, which often leads to problems once they graduate and make their own way in life. To inform young children about personal finance, Adam Naor left his job at Google and decided to create a personal finance app for children, an app he sees as his personal mission.

Pennybox

Adam Naor partnered with Reji Eapen to create Pennybox; an app to educate children (and their families) about money. To ensure his app would prove useful to the entire family, he spent a lot of time interviewing parents. Based on their answers, he knew what parents taught their children about money and the results they obtained from those lessons.

During Adam’s interviews with parents, he came to a shocking conclusion. While many parents believed that personal finance was incredibly important for their children, not many of them were teaching their children the vital information about personal finance. Many parents also believed that they did not have the skills to teach their children about personal finance, resulting to many children not getting information about personal finance at home or from their parents.

Making Education Fun

When Adam Naor was growing up, his parents taught him about personal finance in a fun way. Instead of an App, he had a book which gave him the opportunity to earn and save money. As he stated himself, Adam was one of the lucky ones, because his parents took the time to inform him about personal finance.

To ensure Adam stayed motivated during the lessons, his parents would give him money for chores. He would also be rewarded when he helped his local community. The method enabled him to learn on the job and gave him a much better understanding of budgets and saving, something he could certainly use later in life.

Most parents believe that their children will learn about personal finance at school, only to be disappointed later, because many schools do not have this education in place. Only a meagre 17 states in the United States teach their students financial education, so many children end up with insufficient knowledge where personal finance is concerned.

He believes that current technologies could supplement the personal finance knowledge that is lacking in education today. Since the need for personal finance education for children is on an all-time high, he decided to create an app especially for them. The app is quite reminiscent of the book Adam Naor grew up with as a child. Only, the app is a lot more interactive!

The Lessons Inside Pennybox

Pennybox contains several valuable lessons, which the app is built around. Let us take a closer look at these lessons and how your child could benefit from them.

The first lesson incorporated into the app lets children earn real money for doing things. By letting children work for their allowance, you immediately teach them the value of a dollar. Many children are simply given their money, which teaches them little about its value.

When children can get a summer job, Adam Naor also recommends letting them take advantage of this as well. Summer jobs teach young people a lot about the value of a dollar, so it teaches them a lot more than if you would simply give them the money.

The Pennybox app can also teach your child about saving. To ensure financial security in the future, many people must save their money. They also need to save for unforeseen expenses in the future, so teaching your children about the benefits of saving early is certainly a good idea.

Spending money is inevitable though, but spending wisely can play in your benefit. Teaching children how to spend their money thoughtfully is key to the wise allocation of money and its preservation overall!

Lastly, the Pennybox app also teaches children the benefits of smart investments and donations. Investments can make money for you, but also for your family, so your children should learn about their options before they are old enough to make genuine investments. The Pennybox app will certainly do that.

Conclusion

Adam Naor and Reji Eapen are actively teaching children about the essentials of personal finance, something that is currently lacking in the American education system. If you wish to ensure your children have a good basis of personal finance before they leave the nest, it could be recommended to give your child access to his app. Even though the lessons may seem simple, they certainly teach children some vital life skills.

 

How well do you think you know Personal Finance?  Can you ace our Personal Finance Quiz?

 

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