Next Gen Personal Finance: A Beginners Guide To Everything Personal Finance




 Credit card debt is at the highest it’s ever been.  Average savings for consumers age 35 and under is a mere $1,580. Student loan debt has now surpassed total credit card debt.  What does this spell out? Well, for one, it seems as though today’s and tomorrow’s generations aren’t educated in the basics of personal finance.

It’s not uncommon today for a high school graduate to enter college and the workforce without a good grasp of personal finance. For example, not knowing the basics of a credit card and how it works, or how to balance their bank account, or budget their income.  

It seems as though the basics to money and personal finance has slowly lost its voice and a topic that is desperately missed in basic schooling curriculum. 
I decided to talk about this company because I admire their goal and effort in personal finance education. I am not an affiliate and this is not a sponsored post.

In 2011, Tim Ranzetta volunteered to teach a class on personal finance to a school in Palo Alto, CA. While preparing for the course, he found it very difficult to search and find all the resources he needed to present a basic course on finance. 
Seeing a gap between teachers and what is available for them to teach basic lessons on personal finance, Tim Ranzetta founded “Next Gen Personal Finance” (NGPF) aimed at providing educators and even students or financial professionals the information they need to teach basic financial lessons.
Even while he did find some information for the course he taught, he found that the resources to teach his lesson were outdated and not up to speed with the times. 
Next Gen Personal Finance provides you the up to date resources to teach, present and even learn the basics of personal finance.  Their company mission “… is to revolutionize the teaching of personal finance in all schools and to improve the financial lives of the next generation of Americans.”

Next Gen Personal Finance Resources


Aimed at providing resources to teachers and financial professionals who wish to teach people on the basics of finance, NGPF provides you the curriculum and road map to make your job of presenting and teaching a whole lot easier. 

Furthermore, if you’re even an individual who wishes to brush up on the basics of personal finance and don’t plan on teaching, you can certainly create a free account and gain access to the material and study for yourself!
Among the resources provided to teachers and financial professionals are:

  • Financial Units: A “one-stop shop” for basic resources on every financial topic
  • The Semester Course: A course that provides ninety 45-minute lectures on personal finance
  • 8-Week Course: The basic finance curriculum for forty 45-minute lectures
  • An 18-Hour Workshop: A basic course focused on three 90-minute lessons and activities based over 4 different units for a total of 18 hours of lessons
  • An 8-Hour Workshop: A workshop with 4 lessons, each about 1-2 hours long
  • Middle School Lessons: A central hub for middle school teachers to access content to basic finance lessons for students at the age of middle school
  • Assessments: A one stop shop for basic assessments to provide your students that test their knowledge on the basics of finance
Ranging from complete semester courses to basic courses lasting a few hours, there are available tools for every teacher and financial professional.

Next Gen Personal Finance Mission: 2030

Mission 2030: “100% of U.S. high schoolers will have guaranteed access to at least one semester of personal finance instruction before graduation.”
NGPF’s mission is to provide all US High School students the access to the lessons on the basics of personal finance. 
This is achieved by growing a following of “Advocate” teachers who wish to follow their 5-step plan of action.  The 5-step action plan for teachers seeking to join the advocacy program to achieve “Mission 2030” is:
  1. Base Camp: Embed basic financial lessons into another course such as math
  2. Altitude Camp 1: Establish an elective section for personal finance
  3. Altitude Camp 2: Expand sections to >80% of students
  4. Summit: Establish a strict graduation requirement for the PF course
  5. Flyin’: Advocate in neighboring schools and districts
Popular personal finance games on NGPF

Next Gen Personal Finance aims at providing resources and real-life scenarios of how money works.  Two of their featured games are:
  • Shady Sam
  • Build Your Stax
Each game presents a basic scenario where you plan the role as a banker or an individual with some basic financial decisions.  It aims at providing a real-life scenario so that you can see first-hand how money really works.

Shady Sam

Shady Sam is a game where you play the banker who issues loans to different customers who come into your branch. 
Each customer has a different scenario in need of obtaining a loan.  
The lesson of this game will show students how money works with banks, and how loans work.  They will understand how an interest rate works and can see how banks make money by issuing loans. It also gives them a familiarity with different reasons that consumers might request a loan from a bank.

Build Your Stax

Build Your Stax is a finance game that teaches you the consequences of different finance and investment decisions. 

You are given some cash up front (fictitious of course) and get presented with different investment or financial decisions such as whether to open a CD, Deposit your money, or keep your money in cash.  The idea is to build your balance as high as you can.

By being presented with different money decisions, students will easily learn the consequences (good or bad) of different financial decisions. 
On top of that, they will learn the basic functions of different types of bank accounts and investments such as CD’s, checking accounts, savings accounts, etc.

Other popular games and quizzes

In efforts of providing students resources to quizzes, knowledge check and reviews of common finance topics, NGPF also provides basic flashcards, quizzes, and review assessments. 
These are provided by third party quiz companies such as Quizlet, Kahoot, and Quizizz.

Topics Covered by Next Gen Personal Finance

You can gain access to all the courses and games as described above, or access resources according to the topic within the realm of Personal Finance.  Among the many topics and teachings within each topic are:
  • Checking
  • Saving
  • Types of Credit
  • Managing Credit
  • Paying for College
  • Budgeting
  • Investing
  • Financial Pitfalls
  • Career
  • Taxes
  • Insurance
  • Bonus Content: Includes access to two popular case studies on more financial topics.

Who Will Benefit Most From Next-Gen Personal Finance?

First and foremost, NGPF is completely free to gain access to.  All you need to do is set up a basic account providing your email and creating a username and password.  Who was NGPF made for and who will benefit most from the resources they provide?

Middle School & High School Teachers

It’s obvious the nonprofit company was founded from the story of a teacher who saw a gap in the ability to access enough resources for teachers to teach the basics of finance.  
The curriculum is aimed at providing info for both middle school teachers and high school teachers. 
Whether you are looking to embed a small portion of a lesson into your current lessons or provide a lesson one or two days a week on personal finances to your students, you can access the needed info and resources with NGPF.

Personal Finance Professionals

Those who are in the career of providing financial services to families and individuals such as a financial planner, family, and personal finance coach, professional finance bloggers, etc.  can make great use of the resources provided.

Parents & Students

Although the company is aimed at providing resources mainly to teachers and personal finance coaches, it’s safe to say that both parents and students would benefit greatly from the resources available. 
Parents can gain access to already made curriculum and guides on how to teach the curriculum to their kids. 
Students who are seeking to self-teach or gain access to additional information about personal finance could also benefit from reading through the provided resources.

Is Next Gen Personal Finance a Credible Source?

Currently, NGPF is not considered an “accredited source” for school or college credits, nor does it provide any types of certificates of completion. 
However, the content and resources are created by professional teachers and finance coaches with a reputable background.

The content found within the topics is updated as circumstances change and are kept up to date by their experienced team of professionals.

Furthermore, Next Gen Personal Finance has also been featured on major publications such as:
  • Channel One News
  • The New York Times
  • 2018 Top Pick for Learning by Common Sense Education
  • PBS
  • NBC News
  • Visual Capitalist
You can also find multiple testimonials from teachers and financial coaches attesting to the content provided by Next Gen Personal Finance at testimonials. 


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