Capitate Your Kids Presents:
Fiscal Fitness
Program
Families Learning About Money Together
Mission Statement
– Mission Statement: The Mission of the Fiscal
Fitness Program is to create an integrated process
of education about the use of money that involves
young adults and parents. The goal will be to
combine teaching sessions with hands-on practice
using self-directed budgets, creating positive
incentives for all parties. Becoming skillful at
money is addressed so that we can get past
money to what life is really about. Faithful use of
our God-given resources will be our philosophical
guide.
What is the “Fiscal Fitness” Program About?
1. Learning about what it takes to make a plan for
expenses.
 2. Learning by doing in successive small steps.
 3. Teaching sessions to go over core concepts like
how to make a budget, how to balance a checkbook, where the best place is to get a loan, how to
keep money safe…….
 4. Writing an agreement, or a “contract” between
parents and young adults to give control of
personal budgets to young adults.
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5. Young adults make their own choices and have
control over their own decisions, retaining any
leftovers when they do a good job. (Mistakes go
away! They simply become decisions and
consequences based on personal choices.)
 6. And when young adults do a great job with
money, they have resources from their budget for
personal choices.
 7. You will learn how to manage a checking
account. Deposits, fees, balancing. The works.
Your OWN checking account.
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8. After learning budgets and contracts, we will move on
to more complicated topics like credit ratings, and the
hidden costs of bad credit….
9. Each month, each young adult will review their budget
with an adult who is not their parent.
10. And we don’t compare family to family: we’ll always
respect each family’s privacy. Each person’s budget is
private.
11. The purpose of getting good at money is to get PAST
materialism to what life is really about: loving and lasting
relationships, contributing meaningfully, giving something
back to your community.
Schedule:
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Goal: We will meet once a month for 90 minutes.
Suggest: Third Sunday of each month: 530 pm.
We will meet for 4 months.
1. Session One: ___________
2. Session Two: ___________
3. Session Three: ___________
4. Session Four: ____________
A. Planning and Budgets
“Most people don’t plan to fail, they just fail to
plan.”
 Most millionaires in America spend more time
thinking about and planning about money than
people with no net worth.
 This comes down to simple consistent behaviors.
Tracking expenses, balancing a checking account
 Measuring whether you are “gaining or losing”
each month are the behaviors that result in
knowing how you are doing. Want to be a
millionaire? Start acting like one.
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Fiscal Fitness Rule #1.
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A rich life is a life of freedom to make your
own choices. Happiness doesn’t necessarily
come from being monetarily rich, but from
being in control and knowing how to solve
problems. Our materialistic society tempts
you to get stuck on money, and life is about
more than that.
Let’s talk about Plans and
Planning
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What are Your Plans?
Do you plan to finish Marquette? Why?
Do you plan to go to college?Why? (Hint: 70%)
Have you thought about how you are going to pay
for college?
Have you ever thought of having your own plan?
HOMEWORK: We want you to write down your
plan for this year with your parents.
2. How do we all learn to plan?
All learning has three components:
 a. Taking small steps
 b. Repeating the process frequently (Daily
basis)
 c. Getting rewards for accomplishing the
steps
 Examples of things that were hard that you
have learned to do?…..
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Fiscal Fitness Rule #2.
We all need to make plans our lives.
 It’s more than just money.
 Write down your plans.
 Save them. Pin them on your bulletin board
or fridge
 Act on them
 Yes, you are planning to go to college..
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3. Solving Financial Problems
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What is the Difference Between Broke and Poor?
They both sound the same but we are going to
claim they aren’t.
We will suggest: poor is a state of mind in which
you have given up and have no plan to get out of it
Being broke: state of mind in which you are
determined to get out of being broke.
Both situations have a lousy bank balance
Someone who’s broke has a PLAN
What will our lessons be?
We are going to learn by doing.
 You figure out what challenges you want to
address and to solve.
 We will show you tools on how to solve
those challenges. We will teach you how to
fix being broke:
 “If you’re broke, FIX IT”
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Fiscal Fitness Rule # 3
You must learn to solve money problems with as
much seriousness as AP Chemistry
 To learn control over financial affairs, you need to
have a chance to solve your own problems by
yourself, and understand the steps you went
through to create those solutions.
 What are the steps?
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What is a budget?
A budget is a fixed amount of money
assigned to a certain purpose.
 No one does this very well
 Your personal budget is what is already
being spent on you
 Do you know how much your parents spend
on your expenses?
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What is in your budget?
First step is to break all your expenses
in to categories
 For the sake of this lesson, let’s make
the first category “Clothes”
 Let’s break down clothes to types of
clothes
 Can you list 10 types of clothes?
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List of Types of Clothes
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1. Pants
2. Shirts
3. Sweatshirts
4. Coats
5. Shoes
6. Boots
7. Dress up clothes
8. Swimming and summer wear
9. _______________
10. ______________
How do you know how much
these clothes cost?
The same clothes can cost very different
amounts?
 How much do jeans cost at Abercrombie?
 How much do jeans cost at Kohls?
 What do jeans cost at Walmart?
 Can you tell them apart at 20 yards?
 Does anyone of them last longer?
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How far are you in your budget?
This is where most people break down
because we don’t really know what we
are spending…..we just sort of spend it
 A better way to make a budget?
 Track expenses
 That’s what we are going to do
 (Pass out Budget Books)
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Open the Budget Book
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On Page One write your name and put
CLOTHES on the top of the main area
Page Two: What’s another category that your
parents are spending on you?
Sports equipment
Transportation
School Supplies
Holiday gifts
Parties
Pocket money or allowance?
“Fiscally Fit Families are Fair”
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Yes, we really mean every penny your parents
spend on your behalf. We want to keep track so
that when you get your budget, it’s absolutely fair!
You get to control what your parents would have
spent on you anyways. That way both sides win.
You get control and choices, and learn how
Parents get to see you do a good job and don’t
have to sweat the small details.
And in the end, you get the leftovers when you do
a good job
To Review
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The Purpose of this course is to create a
budget for you that is accurate and fair
 Teaching you how to run an adult budget
starts with practicing on your own
 Planning and goal setting are partners to
making a budget and living in it
 You are planning to succeed, we want to
teach you the means by which you will
A Plan to Get Ahead: Has to
Include Learning now to……
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Save money!
Research shows that the most effective way to get
people to save is to create a discipline about
allocating your money.
Whenever you get a paycheck, put 10% of it away
and learn to live on the remainder
For every dollar you save, you will be paid back a
nickel (maybe more) every year for the rest of
your life.
That way, money works for you, not you for
money.
Why do we need to learn to save?
It’s all tied up in how long you are going to
live, and what you can expect to live on
when you stop working?
 How long will you live? __________
 And, when are you likely to retire from
working? ________
 Subtract: That’s how long you have to
support yourself for.
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Fiscal Fitness Rule # 6
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Pay yourself first.
Fiscal Fitness Rule # 7
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Make money work for you. Do not be a
borrower. “Know the spread”.
What’s the difference between borrowing and
lending money
When you borrow, you are paying someone else
the interest…. About 6-12%
When you are saving, or lending, you get paid the
current rate of saving…. About 2-6%
The Spread: Is the full difference between
borrowing and lending
Time Value of Money
What do investments do over time?
 They grow by COMPOUNDING
 Compound interest, according to Einstein is,
“one of the greatest Miracles of the Modern
Age”.
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Pop Quiz on Saving
Who makes more money? Someone who
saves $ 1000 a year from age 16 to age 25
(Total $ 10,000). and then stops, or
someone who saves $ 1000 a year from age
26 till age 50?
 Both saved $25,000
 At 8% interest: $ 131.050 vs $ 84,701
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Rule of 72:
This is a simple rule to know and gives you a
close guess to how fast money grows.
 Divide 72 by the interest rate you are getting, and
it tells roughly how long it will take to double
your money.
 If you are getting 2%, how many years to double?
 If you were getting 9% interest? How long to
double? 8 years
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Saving vs Investing.
Saving is usually short term, in a bank.
Something you need soon. You usually save
money in the form of CASH.
 You save money and set it aside for use in the
near future
 It has a problem: INFLATION
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•What’s Inflation?
Inflation is the gradual rise of prices
Gradual Rise of Prices
What does a gallon of gas cost today?
 What was it a year ago? $ 1.32
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I don’t remember a $ 1.32
The lesson to be learned:
Money has a time component to it.
Inflation is the gradual rise of prices
that shows just why money can’t stand
still.
Investing versus Saving
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Saving usually means placing cash in a bank:
very secure, safe and proper for …
SHORT TERM goals: like saving for college
or something else you will need in the next
three years.
Just keeps pace with inflation
Investing is riskier. You put your money into
stocks. They go up and down.
But on average, they return about 9 % a year
Types of Saving Methods
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Savings account in a bank: 2 %
 A CD: A Certificate of Deposit. You promise
the bank they can have your money for at
least 6 months…… 3-4%
 Savings Bond: You give the government your
money for 5 years…… 5%
 Money Market Account: riskier, rates go up
and down
Types of Investing
Buy stocks - shares of a company and
get a stock certificate. Put the
certificate in your safety deposit box.
 Buy stocks but keep them at the broker
in an account called a brokerage
account
 Buy a mutual fund: a collection of
stocks
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Tax Advantaged Investing
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You can get huge benefits by saving free of
some taxes by..
 Saving in an Individual Retirement Account:
an IRA. The best deal on the planet. Make
sure you save some money every year in
your IRA
 Signing up for an account called a 401K
when you get a job. Your employer will
match your first couple of percent donations,
but only if you save if out of your paycheck
first. That means a 100% instant return on
savings!
Start the Savings Habit
Lots of little ways to do it that add up to
huge savings
 Pay Yourself First. (FF Rule #6)
 Catch Your Coins
 Bank Your Surprises
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Protect Yourself from Surprises
Rainy day fund
 A couple months of living expenses
 Saves having to borrow at huge cost
when your car transmission goes out or
you get laid off, (Or break a leg)
 You will need this 3-4 times in your life
and can’t imagine how much you
appreciate it until you get there.
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Quiz for Success….
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Do you have written goals?
Do you save some money regularly?
Do you have a budget?
Do you pay what you owe promptly?
Do you think ahead before you buy?
Do you buy only what you need and will use?
Do you P. Y. F.?
Summary
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People who succeed, plan
You can start learning to plan by making a
plan for this year
Learning about money is learning to plan your
goals and activities
Because you put your money where your
values and goals are
A budget is how you show your plan
Learning to save is part of your plan
Pay yourself first
Homework
Keep track of every expense you make
this month
 Write it in your budget book
 Separate out categories from each
other: clothes, sports equipment……
 Write out a plan for this year for
yourselves. Start with example in
handout.
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Parents Homework
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See budget sheet for food expenses
Write down your personal estimate of what
you think you spend for your families food
Keep track this month of every expense you
incur for feeding your family
Show your young adult that you are learning
from this course too
It’s in the journey together that we learn the
most.
The Savings Game
Einstein Called the power of compound
interest one of the miracles of our age.
 Start with one dollar in a jar
 Each day, calculate 10% return on your
investment
 Write it down on the sheet
 Next month: 28 days from now, we will
see what your money has grown to!
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