I am always looking for ways to engage students and their parents (and guardians or grandparents or older relatives) in conversations about money. This activity idea came from this article in FT (subscription) which was written by an intern and titled...yes, you guessed it, "What I Wish I Knew About Money When I Was 18." The intern asked reporters and other financial experts to share their sage advice.

Here's a sampling of what they said:

• "Young people have to understand that they need skills. Have something to offer an employer — learn a language or become a coder. You need to have something where the employer understands you have something special. Also, do your best to get some financial independence. Don’t just expect your parents to give you money."
• "The best piece of advice I ever received? That’s simple: get the best education possible. And that would also be the financial wisdom I would pass on to young people. Otherwise, I don’t think I ever received any financial advice. It is a topic I simply didn’t think about (and nor did anybody I knew)."
• "The best financial advice I received when I was young was about the power of investing for growth over the long term rather than just saving for a rainy day. A good lesson I learnt was that you should keep investing when markets look weak, as you can get better value when others are selling than when everyone else is buying. I would tell today’s 18-year-olds not to lose faith in saving and to put money aside for their future by both repaying debt and building up assets as soon as they can."

So, here's the assignment for students, email/text five older people you know (parents/guardians, grandparents, aunt/uncles, older cousins, you get the idea) and ask them to answer this question "What do you wish you knew about money when you were 18?"

Have students collect the responses and identify the two that resonate most with them. Facilitate a classroom discussion by categorizing the responses into common themes (e.g. debt, investing, saving, budgeting, education). Also look for instances where students collected advice that might be contradictory (I wish I had never invested vs. I wish I started to invest when I was younger).  Enjoy!

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For more Parent Conversation opportunities, be sure to check out these ideas from the NGPF Blog. 

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

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