Financial Literacy in High Schools with Yanely Espinal | Ep. 234

Intro/Outro: You know what it is? That’s right. It’s time to talk money with your money nerd and financial coach. Now tighten those purse strings and open those ears. It’s the Money Talk with Tiff podcast.

Tiffany Grant: Hey everyone, I am super excited because I have Yanely esp. Banal on the line, and she is here to talk to us about something that’s very important, which is financial literacy in school. So, hey Yanely, how are you?

Yanely Espinal: I’m so good. Thank you for having me, TIFF. I’m so excited. You know, not gonna talk about this stuff all day, so I’m excited to join you even for a little bit.

Girl,

Tiffany Grant: you and me both. So let’s just hop right in. Let’s just dive right in. Um, so when we’re talking about, let’s first of all, set a baseline for our audience. What mm-hmm. Is financial literacy.

Yanely Espinal: Yes. Okay. So financial literacy is kind of a combination of the knowledge and strategies and tools that you need to be able to make your own independent financial decisions and not have to default to someone else to make decisions for you when it comes to your money.

And I think when it comes to the school system, that’s kind of tough because of course it’s like, Personal finance, when you use that terminology, it’s like, oh, but it’s very personal. So this should be something that they discuss at home with their parents, not necessarily an educator or a teacher. Kind of tells them about it.

But I mean, in my work, I really believe that there’s like a happy medium and a way to teach students these things in an unbiased way. Um, and in that way they just, you know, use their critical thinking skills to decide is this right for me or not? Yes.

Tiffany Grant: And let’s talk about that just in case we have some school teachers or school executives or whatever listening.

How do they bring financial literacy into the classroom? And I think one thing that I would be concerned about is the teachers not having the knowledge themselves. So, um, how do they incorporate this into their classroom? I.

Yanely Espinal: Yeah, so there’s really a lot going on right now. There’s a, a movement kind of like around the country, but I’ll tell you it really depends.

So, um, the work that I do focuses on high school students specifically, and we really focus on trying to get every single high school to require personal finance for a full semester. I. Um, and so that’s really the, the way that I focus on in my book and on my YouTube channel and the work that I do on Instagram everywhere that I’m posting when I say financial literacy or personal finance should be required in schools.

I’m talking about high schools because there’s research that shows that, um, this education is very, uh, like tactile, like it’s very hands on, like when you. You know, simulate applying for a loan and you enter your credit score and see what the different interest rates are gonna be based on the credit score you inputted.

Um, or when you fill out your FAFSA form as practice to see like what it’s like, or you do like a mock taxes form 10 40 to see kind of what that’s like. This stuff is kind of, it’s hands on, like you have to write, really try to do it and apply the learning in order to get it. And so there’s research that shows that when you teach that too young, the students, like, they don’t, the hands-on application of it isn’t relevant and timely.

So they don’t, they like use, they don’t use it right away, and so they lose it. Um, however, if you do it what’s called just in time, that means that you’re teaching it at a time in their life where they’re literally about to apply it right then and there. So that would be. If they’re about to, um, if they just turned 16 and got their driver’s license, they’re about to look at car insurance.

Okay? You should be teaching them about car insurance right before they go shopping for car insurance or how to buy a car. You should be teaching them that right before they go buy a car when they got their license. If they’re applying for college, you should be paying. Teaching them paying for college and filing your FAFSA like right before they do that.

Um, and then, you know, if they’re opening a savings account or checking account, teaching them how to do that. So that just in time research kind of makes an argument that it should be taught in the junior year or senior year of high school, which is kind of the research that we use. To promote this, because at the end of the day, you want it to be the stickiest, like you really want students to learn it.

Um, but the bigger question is, like you said, is well, if the teachers aren’t prepared to teach it, well then how do you expect them to be confident and comfortable in front of students? So we, um, so I work at a nonprofit called N G P F, and then we have an affiliated organization called N G P F Mission 2030.

And through that organization, I’m actually an advocate. So I get to travel throughout different states and work with senators and representatives to convince them. Why they should get these laws passed to require this class. And so what we talk to them about is like, listen, there’s five things. If you’re gonna do this bill and try to push it to get signed to a law, you have to include these five pieces.

And the first one is a semester long class, cuz a bunch of schools will say, oh, but we do require financial literacy. And then when you look at the language, it’s like, Two weeks of budgeting is embedded in within the economics curriculum. You’re like, nah, come on. You cannot call that a financial literacy class.

Like that checks that requirement technically, but like logistically, like they’re not gonna be getting more than two weeks. That’s not you. You have to really teach kids banking, budgeting, insurance, taxes, investing, paying for college careers, but there’s so much credit, managing credit, like. How can you do that all in two weeks?

It, it just, it’s not possible. So, and I say that because I used to be a teacher, so it’s like I know that you have such limited time. Um, so the semester long, which is 18 weeks or more of instruction is the first piece. The second piece is that the law has to be very clear about where they’re teaching to.

So are there standards within the state or are they gonna use national financial literacy standards from Jumpstart in the Council of Economic Education? Cuz they do exist. But they’re national standards instead of state specific. And a lot of states will rather have their own state standards. So that just needs to be clarified in the law.

And then third is who teaches it, which is to your point, there’s a a a point in here that says, one, you have to ensure that each teacher who’s gonna teach this class is highly qualified, which means that. They’re either qualified to teach business economics, finance already. They’re either certified in math or consumer sciences or social studies, whatever kind of content.

And then they also have some type of endorsement or some pathway to get a, an additional endorsement so that they have a, a certification in specifically teaching personal finance topics. So that would be through. Offering them free courses. Teacher professional development training, um, which is something that I do through N G P F.

I teach investing, advanced investing, and I even teach cryptocurrency basics because a lot of the students are asking the teachers about crypto and the teachers don’t know. Um, and then real quick, the last two are what graduation requirement does it fulfill? So every single state gets to decide what that class.

Counts towards for graduation. If it counts towards a math credit, does it count towards a social studies credit? Um, would it count as an elective credit? And I’ve even seen in the past few years of my work, some states will do multiple credits. So the students can decide, is it either an elective credit or a math credit?

So if they have enough math credits, then they’ll use it as an elective. But if they have enough elective credits and they have missing a math class, they can use this personal finance class as a math credit. So every state is. Different in how they make those decisions. Um, and then the last thing is, when is it gonna be taught?

So when you roll out law, you can’t just tell teachers like, okay, tomorrow you gotta start teaching this required class. Like, come on. Like, teachers need time to plan. They need time to, you know, work with other departments. They need time to prep the materials, to get the lesson plans in order to find activities and videos like this takes time.

So we have to give them a runway of a few years when the law between when the law passes and when the law actually becomes officially enacted.

Tiffany Grant: That you make so many good points in there. Um, because I’m just thinking, you know, I live in North Carolina and we do have a financial literacy requirement, but I never thought to look at the law like, okay, is it a two week requirement?

Because I’m like all excited and celebrating, but I’m like, I never looked at the law, so now I wanna go and look and see. That’s right. What the requirement really is, um, because they check the box, but is it fully checking the box? Um, So

Yanely Espinal: you make That’s right. Well, North Carolina, you lucky girl. North, North Carolina actually did.

Okay. Um, a revamp recently, and they did, I think this was in 2021, um, they replaced one of two courses. They had two US History classes. Mm-hmm. For two, for a full year, students had to take US History Semester one and then again, US History and Semester two. So when they looked at it, they’re like, okay, there’s four required social studies classes, but why do two of them have to be US History?

So instead they made it so that it’s civics and economics. World history, US history, and personal finance. Mm. So now students are getting that full semester, but that wasn’t the case before 2021. So it’s a new change. Oh, that’s

Tiffany Grant: awesome though. Okay. You saved me some time by looking it up. See, she knows her stuff.

Yeah. Yeah. Oh, I got you. Um, but let’s kind of segue a little bit because, um, well that was a lot to take in. So hopefully the audience, if we have any people listening that make these decisions, um, they can kind of. Um, help enact that change. But I kind of wanna segue into the book that you have coming out, because you have a book written specifically for

Yanely Espinal: who?

Yes. This, oh, this book actually targets a younger audience. So I’m thinking about fresh outta college, fresh outta high school even, um, through to your first. Maybe first or second job outta college. So really that young professional who maybe is thinking to themselves like, I wish I had a class about money, but I never got one.

And now I’m starting to make like adult decisions, whether that’s taking out student loans or getting my first credit card, or using my first, you know, paycheck to do big. Kid things, and then it’s like, okay, but I don’t even know what a 401K is and I have this four paperwork in front of me at work. And you know, when the, when you’re first for the first time, making those adult decisions.

And then I also say, I don’t like to necessarily speci specify, like as an age, because I know we all learn at different times in our lives. But I, I really do like to say that my target audience identifies as first generation wealth builders, which means, you know, you’re the. First in your family to get access to the level of income that you have and to have the privilege to be able to think about investing for your future instead of just worrying about how you’re gonna survive being in survival mode now.

So I really want people who, who are the first generation in their family to have access to wealth building as a tool for them to like be able to read this story. And, and the books. The book specifically has like multiple stories and also strategies. So it kind of combines personal finance and personal stories.

Awesome,

Tiffany Grant: awesome. And I wanted to bring that up. Because if we’re, if people are listening and they’re like, well, dang, I missed the boat on this high school stuff. This doesn’t apply to me. Right. Or, I don’t have kids going through high school now, this is another option for you to go ahead and get that education.

I, I tell people all the time, it is never too late.

Yanely Espinal: Okay. Boom. That is a hundred percent true.

Tiffany Grant: It’s never too late. And there are a lot of resources out here in order to get that education. So with the book, let’s just go through a little bit, um, that’s in it. So in the book you talk about, I’m sure investing and benefits and things like that.

What are some key takeaways that people should be thinking about? Yeah,

Yanely Espinal: well the, the book is called Mind Your Money and um, the byline is like insightful strategies, insightful stories and strategies to help you reach your hashtag money goals. So it’s focused on setting money goals and then trying to work towards achieving them.

But the title of the book is really, I think, tYanelyng its Mind Your Money, and it’s a combination of your mindset and also what you do with money. So I think for me, the biggest takeaway is really like you’re, you think that you are in control of your mindset. But you’re not, most of the time you’re not in control, or you might have some control over your mindset and the things that you value and believe in, but moment by moment, you don’t necessarily have the control when it comes to each of your thoughts or what you’re doing with your money because you think you’re in control.

But actually what’s happening is that you are brain response to certain stimuluses cer certain things throughout, um, society that you see or that you do will. Make your brain go into a certain mode. So for example, There’s one study that shows that if you look at a product or brand name that you, that your brain, that you believe in your brain is really cool.

So that could be, I don’t know, apple Laptop or AirPods, or that could be, um, uh, Balenciaga or like, uh, Lamborghini, whatever brand that you think is cool, right? You see it and the moment your eyeballs meet that brand, that product, the, your brain chemistry begins to change. And the way that your brain responds is exactly the same as it would respond if it was, if you’re, if you were like snorting cocaine or if you were winning at gambling.

So those types of behaviors that that specific section of your brain that lights up when you’re gambling or when you’re snorting cocaine doing drugs, like your brain responds exactly the same way, which means that this is the part of your brain that deals with addiction. And becoming obsessed with something.

Mm-hmm. So the same way we can get addicted to drugs and gambling, we can get addicted to name brand things and expensive things that we perceive to be cool because branding and advertising kind of pushes it to us in that way. It paints it in this light as like, this is cool. You gotta have this, you need this.

If you wanna, you know, be, be somebody. If you wanna be important and you want people to look at you and be impressed, you need to buy this, that, and that. And I feel like I felt prey to that for so many years because I mean, you know, a lot of people who grew up in hoods all across America, you glorified things that are expensive like Jordans and Tims and this name brand or that name brand.

And I felt like that followed me for so many years in my life until I finally learned about money and met other people who valued wealth building. And I realized like, You know, most people who are really, really wealthy don’t actually live like that because they invest their money and they make smarter choices with their money.

They buy less, higher quality items instead of a lot of low quality stuff. So I kind of realized really quickly that I had to adjust my mindset. So I, I focused the entire second chapter of my book, it’s called Get Your Mind Right, and it’s all about different scientific studies and different. Points of research that show the way your mind can trick you and what you can do to kind of be in control of your mind again.

Oh my

Tiffany Grant: gosh, you said a mouthful. Um, I talk about mindset on this podcast so much, and I know audience is probably like, oh, here, here, Tiffany, about to go. No, but um, but it is so important. Y’all like, I cannot state that enough. And to her point with the Jordans, for instance, my youngest son, he came home one day cuz I was buying them, you know, resetting their wardrobe.

And he was like, Ooh, I wanna get some Jordans. And I’m like, now, first of all, I’ve never bought Jordans a day in my life. Mm-hmm. Um, here we go. Right. So I was like, Like, I really don’t wanna buy these Jordans. But he was like, mommy, please what? Say? Okay. So I broke down, bought the Jordan. Cause I told him, I said, if you get these Jordans, like you could get two pairs of shoes for the amount that you get these Jordans.

That’s right. And he was like, it’s okay. I wanna get the Jordans. So I got ’em. And mind you, I did pick the most lowest cost ones. Right.

Yanely Espinal: He like, we’re gonna get ’em, but we’re gonna get ’em with a reason. Right,

Tiffany Grant: right. So anyway, fast forward. He gets his Jordans, do you know he’s only worn them to school maybe three times, maybe four times.

Come on. Right. And he wears his, he wears his Crocs every day. And so

Yanely Espinal: of course he just wanna show that he has them.

Tiffany Grant: Exactly. Exactly. And so to your point, you know, a lot of what we believe about money or what we think we need or what have you, comes from. External, definitely sources. Like if it was internal for him, he would be wearing them things every day.

Every day. But because it was from maybe his friends having Jordans or his friends like, oh, you wear those Crocs every day? Like, you know, that type of thing. Then he’s like, Ooh, I wanna get some Jordans. And now he doesn’t wear ’em. Because it wasn’t any internal motivation to have him. It was all external.

So once he already showed it off, now he don’t need ’em anymore.

Yanely Espinal: That’s a hundred percent. That is so funny cuz in my book I actually write a story about when I was in middle school and I got made fun of all the time for not wearing name brand sneakers. And then I, I took my sister’s sneakers from under her bed.

She was at school and I was home because my parents were gonna take, my mom was gonna take me to the doctor. And I noticed that she left her Jordans under the bed. I was like, this is the perfect chance for me to wear the Jordans. Her feet were too big. I was walking around with big old sneakers that didn’t even fit me, but I wanted to be seen at school in a pair of Jordans at least one time.

One good time, right? It’s so weird how our brain is like, and then it’s like a social reward, because once we do it, that’s it. Everybody saw it and now it’s like, boom, that’s it. You have that reward of. Having been seen with those sneakers and being able to say you have them, and it’s like this status thing of like, now you’re officially cool and mm-hmm.

The way that messes with your brain, especially when you’re a kid, when you’re, you know, even entering teenage years, like it just throws off what really matters about people. And I, I’m like, I wish when I was younger, somebody had sat me down and talked to me about how, you know, these are status symbols.

That doesn’t mean that your status as a person, you’re worth like matters because of that, or doesn’t matter because you don’t have that. It’s really just these very immature things that when you’re at a young age, you tend to care about these things because you don’t really have control over other things.

Like you can’t go buy a house that you want. Or a car that you want. You’re very limited in what you can control as a kid. So having sneakers is a big deal because it’s something you can show off and ends up feeling like it matters way more than it actually should. Mm-hmm.

Tiffany Grant: Absolutely. And even into adulthood, um, because, you know, I’m just.

Thinking about, and not to pick on nobody, but I’m just thinking about like people that are like, oh, I can’t go out unless I have a booth. Because you wanna be seen, you wanna make sure you have, you know, the bottles, whatever, um, when it really doesn’t take all of that. So anyway, we can go into a whole tangent.

Oh

Yanely Espinal: yeah. Oh yeah. And honestly, This is even, and I think a lot of people will be like, oh, but there’s a certain mindset from growing up a certain way. But honestly, even wealthy people, I have seen this affects us at all levels and classes and zip codes and backgrounds and all of that. Because I have seen, I’m no personally wealthy people who feel like they have to compete with their neighbors.

Like, oh, they just got their grass cut this way. Or they just got this new fence around their, oh, they just did this in their backyard. They just got this type of car in their driveway. So like there’s this constant competition instead of just focusing on, like you said, that internal, where your goals are, where you’re trying to be, what.

Always looking to try to compare ourselves to people around us. And that just messes with us and our, we never end up hitting our money goals because we’re always in this R race. Mm-hmm.

Tiffany Grant: Absolutely. And then losing sleep or, you know, what have you, because of all the debt stress mm-hmm. Health going down the hill, like it, it’s all types of stuff.

So anyway, we don’t wanna give it all away. Um, so tell us where, if they were interested in reading the book or finding out more information about you and even your initiatives, where could they

Yanely Espinal: find you? Love this. Well, again, thank you for having me on. Thanks for listening this far and uh, you can find the book Mind Your Money Anywhere where you get your books.

Um, Amazon and Barnes and Noble, definitely carry it. And then you can follow me, um, anywhere on social media at Miss. Be helpful. M i s s be

Tiffany Grant: helpful. Awesome, awesome. And I will have all of those links in the show notes, so definitely check that out. Um, so thank you so much, Yanely, for coming on the line today.

Yanely Espinal: Thank you. This is so much fun. All right, bye.

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