When should "the system" be teaching our children about basic personal finance? Defining "basic" for this question as: budgeting, basic tax rules, what is a retirement account, what is an index fund, and what is life insurance. In the comments, please answer, if we should start doing this, how do we make changes? If we shouldn't be doing this, how do we prevent this change?

Comments open!

NOT chosson/kallah classes. This applied to unmarried people as well, and I can't imagine adding financial disadvantage to the already long list of things that makes it hard to be a frum older single. *Not ONLY. It could work as a refresher, maybe?

Define system. I think there’s a difference between high schools and seminaries vs immersive Torah-only Yeshivas. I believe the Lubavitcher Rebbe’s approach with regard to bochurim in Yeshiva is steer clear of discussions about “tachlis” ie careers , and I personally think personal finance is also in this category. But I would certainly say if it’s an institution where other general studies topics are being taught, personal finance should be high up on the list.

Yeah I'm sure we can expand the definition of basic, but let's call that out of scope here for the sake of this debate.

I think financial education should be on a continuum, starting at 10 and running through high school / college. You can't be expected to comprehend decisions about college loans without some background. And starting in high school feels too late to create a healthy mindset about saving and 'basic' responsibility

@boundless-area-4436 so when do these kids who go to Torah only schools learn it?

@boundless-area-4436 so when do these kids who go to Torah only schools learn it?

It goes along with the general question of when do those kids learn all the important topics. I think that whole question is outside the scope of this conversation.

I was kinda hoping that would be a focus of this thread since it's more relevant to the majority of people that are currently part of the frum.finance family. But I could also see that being a separate thread.

I would argue that finance is a bigger distraction. Once a bochur starts worrying about starting an emergency fund and opening credit cards, it’s a mindset change which can’t really be reversed. But I defer to the experts in the Rebbes teachings regarding Chinuch Al Taharas Hakodesh in general.

One of the reasons I couldn't stay in Yeshiva too long. My mindset had already been tainted 😂

I would like to differentiate between formal education with specifics and a "personal finance mindset" that can and should start at an even younger age. 10 year olds don't need to learn about tax laws, but the mindset of saving can easily be taught in Kindergarten and not have to do with money. I think the mindset is possibly the most important component, since a child trained in that mindset will have far fewer money issues later on and is likely to seek guidance when necessary. I speak partially from my own experience looking back on my own childhood. My "money mindset" comes from my parents (not Yeshiva) and it was many years later when I realized that most people I interact with don't have it. I am eternally grateful to my parents for this.

I was also raised this way by my parents, and I’m very grateful for it.

"The system", in many respects, has been taking on the role to fill in what parents may have not. This seems to have come about through necessity because of.. reasons. And not all education by "the system" is formal. However, I do agree with the above that much of the education should really be coming from the parents, as applicable for each child.

I agree with @rich-notebook-17814 that financial education should be on a continuum. I think 10-12 might be a little early for some kids to understand/internalize anything past really basic stuff, which is why I voted for 15-18. Having the bulk of the curriculum in high school is also very useful because as kids get more independent (whether it's dorming or just spending more time going out with friends), they can then apply what they learned irl.

@nutritious-raincoat-28876 and others. So it sounds like really we all agree on what should be happening here in an ideal situation. The money mindset should come from home, people will have that mindset and then in the real world they will be inspired by that mindset to learn all the rest of these things themselves because they had the right upbringing and environment. I don't think anyone is going to refute this. This is obviously also true for myself. I didn't get any of my financial knowledge from schooling. Rather I was brought up in a household with the right values that when I went into the world I educated myself. Leaving all that aside, we also all recognize that there's a current problem... Some kids are lucky enough to have parents who are financially literate and some are not. Obviously none of us want to leave the children behind who are not being brought up with a healthy mindset towards money. My current solution to this problem is not scalable. Going one by one family to family ,spending hours with each family fixing up their financial situations and childhood trauma around money, can't be the long-term solution to the kids who grow up without the financial mindset. To give one anecdote of the problem, just so maybe we can discuss better possible solutions, I'll give a recent family we've helped. 50k debt on gov benefits. Raised to think and surrounded by others intentionally not making more money to stay on gov programs. After dozens of hours of meeting and planning, now they have no debt, an investment portfolio of retirement accounts with maxed out IRAs, and no government benefits. This was all their doing after I provided resources and education. I am seeing this time and time again. So, how do we fix this? Is there no fix? Should frum.finance go from cheder to cheder guest lecturing (I don't think that would be effective) ? Should we be working to have the schools pick up the slack and teach this? Should we be holding parenting workshops? Honestly, I'm at a genuine loss as to how I can scale up these efforts. The people that need the help the most aren't people that are paying for a financial advisor, hence the need to do free financial planning. So what is the more scalable solution to stop the problem before a young couple takes out a loan they can't afford with $500 PMI because everyone else is doing it? Obviously this should come from home. But it's a generational issue. I was once meeting with a couple in a lot of credit card debt and as we were sitting around the table running numbers they said "it's sad but our parents are in the same situation".

I think personal finance education has to be advocated for in the yeshiva world on a large scale. Why can't the next initiative for Torah umesorah or the agudah to push for some financial education in our schools? (Of course this is just me passing the problem on to someone else, but I think that's really the best way to go about it)

I agree! which was the point of my poll 😂. I want to try and somehow tackle that problem but I'm trying to figure out how, where, and when to push.

@mysterious-tomato-10057 have you seen mesila.org? Particuarly https://www.mesila.org/products/schoolcurriculums/

Great find! No I haven’t seen that before, but I think it still has the same fatal flaw about getting it into a torah-only yeshiva/seminary, right?

It probably does. But by the same token, those yeshivos don't want their talmidim opening credit cards...

Even without explicitly talking about personal finance, the mindset can still be instilled in a Yeshiva.

How? The rebbes don't know it so would you bring in guest speakers? Bc they definitely wouldn't allow that. I live next door literally to a yeshiva and want so badly to ask if I can just have an hour with the bochrim

Ah, your initial question was when, not how 😬

געלט איז בלאטע

@proud-waiter-61863 I would love to hear more about your opinion that the institution should not be taking on this responsibility. How do we fix this problem then since many parents don't have the background to teach it to their kids themselves?

What does this have to do with schools? It’s the parents’ job to teach their children fiscal responsibility.

@witty-pager-99288 I hear that and agree but then I need a better solution for my long message. It's the best idea I have.

I think we should differentiate between fiscal responsibility and the mechanics of personal finance. Fiscal responsibility is more of a mindset that should be taught by the parents but the actual mechanics of finance should be taught by schools

So what do the kids do without those parents that now come to me with 100k debt?

For better or worse, our schools are the last stand for education not supplied elsewhere. I agree it's a poor substitute for parents, but the only one we have. Educating parents to provide better parenting is another option, I've no idea how one would go about that, at scale or otherwise.

Well that's what I'm doing now but having trouble scaling it up beyond 100 or so families. Slack was the next best option for scaling I could think of.

Perhaps scale up to groups of 10?

So far I found a people are in unique enough situations that they really need one and one attention to ask and answer questions. There's also an embarrassment factor that I think would prevent people from coming in a group

Much of the fundamentals are common. The 1:1 specifics can be handled outside of that group and make it more scalable

I feel like if I do a group I'll have to start doing marketing also. Another downside is a group feels like there's a hidden charge somewhere. Even one on one people don't believe me that I don't charge. I feel like a group would be even less likely because of how many group sessions there are that charge for things like this and they will be hesitant because there's probably a gotcha

Perhaps the idea would be to have a funded organization, that already does marketing, to endorse your work and clarify the motivations driving said groups

Yeah I've started the multi region idea already but it's still seems very not scalable...

Consider the number of people impacted currently, and then the number impacted by a suggested approach. Scaling often happens incrementally over iterations