Hey there! It's Talk About Money Tuesday, your favorite day of the week!🤑
We're a little more than halfway through Black History Month, a celebration of bold creativity, resilience, and breakthrough ideas.
From home technology to kitchen tools to iconic toys, Black inventors have shaped how we live. But having a great idea alone doesn't create financial freedom. It also takes business knowledge, money management skills, and an understanding of ownership.
Innovation can be a powerful path to opportunity for young people when it's coupled with financial literacy. Without it, even the best ideas can struggle to succeed.
Let's get into what adults can do to help young people as they think about turning ideas into (well-managed) income.
Money Stat
118+
When most people think of George Washington Carver — a legendary Black American agricultural scientist, botanist, and inventor — peanuts come to mind. That's because Carver famously found over 300 uses for them.
But he also developed more than 118 uses for sweet potatoes, including medicine, household products, and dyes.
For young people, Carver's life is a great example of creativity and thinking beyond the obvious. Big ideas often come from looking at everyday things in a new way.
Parents: The ideas your kids have today could turn into a future paycheck for them.
Get in the Zone
Money skill: Managing income from a side hustle
Why it matters: If your child has managed to turn an idea or invention into a side hustle, they'll build habits that last into adulthood if they take managing their income seriously. Learning to track, divide, and plan the income they get teaches discipline, responsibility, and strategic thinking.
Try this: Help your young entrepreneur create a simple income tracker (a simple spreadsheet will do) and show them how to record every dollar earned and every expense paid so they understand their real profit.
Encourage them to physically divide money into categories they can actually see when planning for their future growth. For instance, they could save 30%, spend 50%, and reinvest 20%.
Open a youth savings account together and review the statements with them monthly. That will help them link making deposits with making progress toward their goals. Also, discuss what kind of reinvestment will actually help them grow their earning potential, such as better supplies, marketing material, or skills development.
Young people today can monetize ideas and bring products to market much faster than previous generations. Without smart money management skills under their belt, money that comes in quickly is likely to disappear just as fast.
The Language of Money
These are some key words young innovators should know, explained in language they can understand:
📃 Patent: Legal protection that says you own your invention.
💰Revenue: The money you make from selling something.
💸 Expenses: Money spent to run a business.
🤑 Profit: The money left after expenses are paid.
🌱 Reinvest: Putting money back into your idea to grow it.
©️ Intellectual Property: Something you create that you legally own.
🚀 Entrepreneur: A person who comes up with cool ideas and finds a way to make money from them.
Money Talks
Kids and teens may not think of themselves as inventors, but that doesn't mean they can't. Here are three ways to start a conversation with young people about ideas turning into income.
1️⃣ Invite your child to think creatively by asking, "What is annoying or unfair that you wish you could fix?" Follow up with, "Who else might have that same problem, and do you think they would you to solve it?" This helps them see how empathy, real-world value, and innovation are all related.
2️⃣ Discuss how inventors set prices. Start with, "If you created something helpful, how would you decide how to much to charge for it?" Asking what factors into their decision, such as how much it costs to make or how valuable it is to others, is an easy way to get them to think about costs, value, and profit.
3️⃣ Talk about tracking money and how they would do it. Ask, "Why do you think businesses write everything down instead of just guessing?" This will reinforce that good recordkeeping protects earnings and supports smart decisions.
Loose Change
👔 A tailor and businessman invented the precursor to dry cleaning, which earned him what is widely believed to be the first U.S. patent awarded to a Black person.
⚔️ One of Walt Disney's most prolific inventors brought the extendable Star Wars light saber to life, and he's still going strong.
🎀 When she was 7-years-old, a now-college freshman invented hair clips with her mother that stay put in braids, pigtails, and twists.
Thanks for reading! If you know someone who cares about youth financial literacy, share this newsletter with them. And if this newsletter was forwarded to you, please subscribe here.
'Til next time,
Audrey
Founder &
Certified Financial Education Instructor
The FinLit Zone
600 1st Ave, Ste 330 PMB 92768, Seattle, WA 98104-2246
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