How Does It Work?

First Meeting - Introduction

First, you have a free introduction meeting with your potential tutor. If you (the teen or young adult) have interested family members or parents who would like to aid in supporting your journey, there is flexibility to have 2 free meetings, one with your parents and one with you. This initial meeting is an opportunity for you to connect with your tutor, ask questions, and get an idea of what you can expect from financial capability tutoring. This is also a valuable opportunity for your tutor to get to know what is important to you; what you already know; and what you would like to get out of tutoring. Should you decide to start tutoring sessions, this meeting will help you and your tutor hit the ground running.

Educational Goal Setting

Meeting you where you are means getting a good idea of what is important to you, what you already know, and what there is to learn/practice. The sessions will balance the immediate steps you can take in the short term with the learning/habits that will serve you in the long term. Possible educational goals that you could practice:

• Identifying your money priorities

• Accurately estimating ballpark numbers for how much things cost and professions earn

• Playing with money plans (budgeting)

• Planning steps to making money and planning for taxes (general knowledge of what taxes are and how they work)

• Evaluating types of accounts, banking institutions and how they work

• Getting to know the system of credit, predicting how different decisions would change your credit score, and taking steps to establish credit safely

• Recognizing the impact of different types of debt and how to protect yourself

• Working out the nuts and bolts of investing and the power of compounding

Intentional Habit-Building

This is where you connect what you know about personal finance with what you do and vice versa. Life and money habits have a way of just happening to us. We pass our favorite takeout spot during lunch time, so now we eat there 3 times a week. We fall into jobs by chance. We follow educational or professional paths because of proximity (our friends or family do that job - we know someone who knows someone). Sometimes this works in our favor. Maybe a parent is a doctor, and it turns out that we love medicine too. Or it can be a helpful first step; we learn what we want and don’t want by doing the work. This is very valuable. But… this can mean that really important life decisions aren’t really decisions, they’re default settings. We give up the privilege and responsibility of choosing our path without realizing it.

• Fostering a Growth Mindset: I can get good at new things by doing them.

• Financial Freedom/Success: What does it mean to me?

• Money Thoughts and Feelings: How do I feel when I think about money or do things with it (spend / save / earn / invest)? How do these feelings impact what I do with my money?

• The Power of “Let’s Find Out”: Searching online for info; Vetting sources; Noticing motivations (Are they selling something?); Making phone calls; Taking notes on what I found; Identifying what I want to know and who can give me this info.

• Exploring Career Options: What’s out there? What are the pros/cons to me? What are the day-to-day tasks of this career? What day-to-day tasks do I enjoy? How can I find out what I enjoy?

• Not Just One Me: What do I do when I’m happy, tired, hungry, excited, celebrating? How does this connect to my finances?

• Not Just One Me - Long-term Edition: How can I keep my options open? How can I plan for pivots, expect the unexpected? How can I protect my ability to grow and change?