The 3 Most Important Personal Finance Lessons To Teach High School Students

Be honest with us for a minute, if you had the chance to turn back time and go back to your days in high school… would you? 

There’s probably a lot of reasons your answer would be no, huh? You were bullied, you didn’t look your best etc. etc. etc. 

One reason we all might go back, however, is because, as adults we realize how little high school taught us about money.

We want to make sure you, as a parent or an educator, don’t make that same mistake with our current group of young minds by outlining what we believe to be the three most important personal finance lessons to teach high school students.

Let’s go.

1. Budgeting

Improper budgeting can be the difference between a prosperous future and your child/student living at home until they are 45 years old – and who wants the latter option to become a reality?

Whether you use the three-jar method where you teach your child/students to separate any money they earn into individual jars designated for spending on a specific item/category or savings or they begin using a financial app to practice this skill, budgeting is a key concept that high school students (and all children) need to be taught more frequently and proficiently in their formative years. 

2. Building Credit/A Good Credit Score

How important is a good credit score? Answer… Daily Double: What is “extremely?”

A good credit score is vital to being able to rent an apartment, qualify for a low interest rate on your mortgage and get a good deal on car insurance. Teaching our children and students about how to build credit and maintain a good credit score from an early age will help them set a good foundation for their future as home and car owners, for their families and more.

3. Investing

We all work hard for our money and we want to see it grow, even when we are not actively working to obtain more of it. That’s why learning how to invest is such an important lesson for your child or student. Learning basic investing skills now can set children up to be ahead of the game and enjoy prosperous futures into adulthood because they know how to make their money work for them, allowing them to live the best lives they possibly can.  

Agree or disagree with our picks? Let us know in the comments below this blog. 

Whether you agree with our specific picks or not though, we hope that this blog has shined more light on the real important lesson here: kids need to be taught about money much earlier in life than they presently are.

If you’d like to give your highschool-aged child or students a head start with learning important money lessons compared to where you were at their age, we encourage you to check out our personal finance programs where we have courses and classes for kids in high school all the way down to children as young as first grade to give them the tools they need to accelerate their understanding of financial concepts that will help them immensely in the future. 

Disclaimer: Explorer Hop cannot be held liable if your child or student starts teaching you some lessons about saving and budgeting your money or if they start asking to do your taxes for you in a few years time, making it seem like the student/child has now become the teacher/parent in some kind of Freaky Friday role-reversal. However, we also know that you’re willing to take the risk of looking less intelligent than them if it means setting your child/student up for what they will face as they progress towards financial independence.