Financial literacy for teens often becomes most powerful when it is connected to a real goal. For Jai, that goal was finding the money he needed for Country Week Soccer. For Kaitlin, it was learning how to manage her creative enterprise alongside study, sport, friends and teenage life.
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In this part of our family enterprise journey, Jai and Kaitlin remind us that teenagers do not always need another lecture about money. Sometimes they need a meaningful reason to take action.
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Financial Literacy for Teens: Jai and Kaitlin’s Enterprise Journey
So far in our family enterprise journey, we have seen Flynn build a great honey enterprise and actually achieve his goal. Kit had a go at dog walking, but quickly realised that Chayse was making more money selling lollies at the local soccer fields, so he began pursuing that with his brother.
Kit and Chayse made quite a team, and we will revisit them again in another blog post. Amber also reached her goal with her “New from Old” endeavours, and we will celebrate her achievement separately too.
That leaves our creative artist, Kaitlin, and our budding app developer, Jai.
What has been interesting to notice on the children’s journeys is that it can be easier to introduce a different mindset around money to younger children than it is to teenagers or older children.
Why would financial literacy for teens be more challenging?
In our case, Kaitlin and Jai had already been around longer with us as their major source of education. That meant our own money thoughts, objections and subconscious beliefs had been absorbed by them for longer. It was now more of a process to help them question and reshape those beliefs.
Teenagers, Money Beliefs and Real-Life Goals
Luckily for us, Kaitlin and Jai are both quick learners and they understood the concepts we were trying to teach.
The main obstacle was finding the time to put this new knowledge into action.
Being teenagers, their lives were already full of homework, study, sporting commitments, social life and social media. All of these are things we wanted to encourage in our children, so our challenge was finding a way to include financial education without making it feel like one more burden.
In the end, as with many things, life became the best teacher of all.
Jai’s Teen Money Goal for Country Week Soccer
Jai had not had much urgency to pursue his app development because there was no clear timeline attached to his goal. His app idea was exciting, but it was also a long-term project.
Then his goal changed.
Jai was accepted into the Country Week Soccer team and would be competing in Perth during the holidays. He had to pay for a good portion of the trip himself.
Suddenly, he had a renewed vision and a very real money goal to aim for.
He spent countless hours researching ways to make the money in a short amount of time. This is where his youth enterprise thinking kicked into action.
He came up with different ways to make the money, including some ideas he had not been interested in before.
The opportunities Jai looked at included:
- mowing lawns in the neighbourhood,
- finding good-quality items to sell,
- hiring out exercise equipment,
- negotiating paid jobs around the house that were above and beyond normal chores.
Together, Jai and Trevor worked out that he needed to find about $10 a day to afford his portion of the trip. That made the goal feel clearer and more achievable.
He began negotiating with us over jobs that needed doing around the house, and then he got on with them.
He also went through many of his good-quality items that had once been “must haves” when he bought them. He realised that perhaps he did not need them as much as he first thought, so he posted them on Facebook to sell.
What Jai Learnt About Financial Literacy for Teens
Jai’s Country Week goal became a practical financial literacy lesson. Instead of simply asking for money, he had to think about earning, selling, negotiating, time, effort and priorities.
He also had to work out the difference between a long-term enterprise idea and a short-term money need.
Although Jai’s app development journey had taken a back seat, it had not been forgotten. He simply recognised that app development was a longer-term project, while his Country Week Soccer goal needed faster action.
That is an important financial literacy lesson for teenagers. Not every money-making idea suits every goal. Sometimes a teen needs quick cash flow. Other times, they need patience, skill-building and a longer timeline.
We were proud of Jai’s efforts and were confident he would reach his goal in time.
Kaitlin’s Creative Enterprise and Time Management
Kaitlin, our artist in residence, was also learning an important financial literacy lesson.
Her lesson was not only about how to make money. It was about how to manage her energy, time and priorities around study, social life, sport and her youth enterprise ventures.
Kaitlin had already explored the idea of turning her artistic skill into a student enterprise. You can read more about that earlier stage in Kaitlin’s portrait drawing enterprise.
Now she had a timeline in place and was receiving more requests for artwork. That meant she had to begin each piece early enough to finish it before Christmas for some customers, and earlier for others.
This was a different kind of money lesson. Kaitlin had to connect creativity with responsibility. If people were asking her to create artwork, she needed to protect the time and energy required to deliver it properly.
Teenage Distractions and Self-Efficacy
Having a boyfriend actually increased Kaitlin’s self-efficacy because she needed to complete certain things before socialising.
Luckily, Lachlan encouraged Kaitlin to do that, because he actually wanted to have a social life too!
This connects beautifully with the lesson we explored later in Kaitlin’s article about avoiding distractions and following through on her enterprise goals.
For teenagers, financial literacy is not only about budgets and bank accounts. It is also about self-management. It is about learning that if you want to earn money through your skills, you need to manage your time, energy, focus and commitments.
Creative Enterprise with Kaitlin and Georgia
Kaitlin and her friend Georgia were also realising the power of leveraging their time.
They had come up with some great enterprise ideas and had put steps in place to pursue them. These were longer-term goals, but in the end they could reap more rewards than simply working a job.
At the same time, they still saw the need to pursue their jobs in the meantime, so they could have money to put towards their enterprise when it was up and running.
This is another important financial literacy lesson for teens: sometimes a job and an enterprise can work together.
A job can create cash flow. An enterprise can create ownership, learning, creativity and possibility. Both can play a role while a teenager is learning how money, work and opportunity connect.
Financial Literacy for Teens Happens Through Real Life
The journey towards financial freedom is always a rocky one, but it is one worth following regardless of what else is going on in life.
Our kids are teaching us so much along the way. Not all of their efforts are successful, but they are learning from each experience and moving forward.
That is what makes real-world learning so powerful.
Jai’s story shows how a clear money goal can turn a teenager into a problem-solver. Kaitlin’s story shows how creativity, customers and deadlines can teach responsibility and time management.
Neither of those lessons can be fully taught from a worksheet.
They are lived.
Where Jai and Kaitlin Are Today
Looking back 14 years later, it is beautiful to see how these early enterprise lessons continued to show up in Jai and Kaitlin’s lives.
Jai’s early interest in app development, problem-solving and online enterprise has grown into his current business, Art of Mondays. It is a wonderful example of how early exposure to enterprise, technology and financial literacy can keep developing over time.
Kaitlin’s creativity and interest in bringing ideas to life has also continued. You can see a glimpse of what she is creating now through Kaitlin’s Golden Days Club.
At the time, these teenage money goals may have looked like small family lessons. But years later, they remind us that children and teenagers are often building foundations long before we can see the full picture.
Key Takeaway: Financial Literacy for Teens Needs Real Goals
Key takeaway: financial literacy for teens becomes more meaningful when teenagers have real goals. Jai needed money for Country Week Soccer, while Kaitlin needed to manage creative requests and deadlines. Through youth enterprise, they learnt money skills, focus, responsibility and real-world problem-solving.
Where to Next?
- Read Jai’s app development enterprise story
- Read Kaitlin’s portrait drawing enterprise story
- Read Kaitlin’s lesson on avoiding distractions and following through
- Read our financial education lesson on assets and liabilities
- Explore more Money Lessons for Kids
What real goal could help your teenager learn more about money, responsibility and enterprise?