This book grew out of teaching a class on Personal Finance. Every week, I asked teens what they wanted to learn. After they told me, I went to work: I interviewed everyone from self-made millionaires to happy couples. I scheduled over 60 guest speakers on every money and relationship topic imaginable. I read, researched, and experimented. And then I asked the teens again! And again.
Result: parent and student demand for the class went up, we doubled how many teens we reach, and I wrote this book so I could give it to every graduating class as a gift.
With over 100 bite-size chapters and exercises, Money for Teens: A Guide for Life discusses everything we could think of:
* Budgeting
* Investing with index funds, which beat 99% of everything else that’s out there (if you’re looking at 15+ year time frame)
* Starting a business week
* Relationships and money: how to make an “A” in both
* Negotiating with honesty and in a Win/Win way
* Why almost all debt is bad
* 20 ways you can be like the 37% of college students and graduate without debt
* The best decision-making model
* The F.I. (Financial Independence) and F.I.R.E. (Financial Independence Retire Early) movements
* Get hired
* Get promoted
* Get a career
* Get a personal mission
* Cars
* Insurance
* Credit Cards Debt vs. early investing
* The best way to shop
* Exercises for budget crises
* Jobs vs. Careers. vs. Personal Missions
* Who makes more: givers or takers?
* If you get rich and have kids, how to not raise a brat
* How millionaires raise responsible, not entitled, kids
* Do happy people make more money than unhappy people? Yes, and why
* Do honest people usually make more money than dishonest people? Yes, and why
* Pitfalls of life like addictions, and how they destroy your money
* Gratitude’s surprising $ benefits
* How to make the emotional side of money and happiness work for you
* Ways to avoid impulse spending without having to rely on self-discipline
* Time management for scholarships, side hustles, and other big projects
* Time management: three excellent methods
Warning: While the book has 80+ chapters on personal finance and 19 exercises designed to help you budget, invest, buy cars & houses, and/or start a business this week, "Money for Teens" is also infused with Judeo-Christian values. Indeed, Chapter Two is entitled "God and money" because I believe God is more important than money. Otherwise, the book focuses primarily on how to stack up cash and live well.
We must control our money or the triple D’s—debt, deprivation, and desperation—will control us. Read, enjoy, and prosper.
