Our eight-step process describes how to teach money management to adults in a way that has been proven successful. Just read the illustration that follows to learn how someone else applied these eight phases for maximum success:

Harold Hawkins was a retired veteran of the U.S. Marine Corps, but Harold was far from idle in his retirement. He now worked with the Family Center in his area that served armed forces servicepeople and their families. A recent law had mandated comprehensive financial literacy training for all active duty military personnel. That’s why Harold was interested in teaching money management to adults – he wanted to bring a program to his Family Center, but he wasn’t sure how best to relate to his audience. Harold gathered the information he needed by administering a financial literacy test among the servicemembers who came to the Family Center. He discovered that this group needed to learn more about investing in the military retirement system, the Thrift Savings Plan.

Harold had elucidated the needs of his audience, and his initial goal for teaching adults money management was to give them a solid background in the Thrift Savings Plan. He would shoot for a two-hour class in retirement investments, and would give the participants a start toward developing a retirement plan. In the two-hour time frame, Harold believed the military personnel could reach the Analyze level on Bloom’s Taxonomy – that is, they could break down information to identify causes and relationships between concepts.

At the next phase Harold was charged with identifying how to teach financial responsibility to adults and deliver the information for money management lessons that will help them save more money. His audience was primarily young adult active duty military personnel with families, and Harold realized they would have busy schedules and competing demands on their time. He decided to bring them together in person for the two-hour instruction, but to supplement the class with online tools and lessons they could pursue at their own pace.

The next stage in the process for how to teach money management to adults effectively involved Harold choosing the topics on which to focus. Since he knew the military staff needed more information about the Thrift Savings Plan, he opted to pull out subjects related to retirement. He decided he could meet his goal of getting them to Bloom’s Analyze level by homing in on the topics of savings, retirement planning, and investments.  Extensive adult financial literacy testing was to be given at set stages of the coursework to measure the programs impact.

What was the next phase of teaching adults money management? Harold had to find a top-qualified instructor for the class. Who had the requisite background and knowledge – both in how to teach money management to adults, as well as in personal finance? As a military retiree himself, Harold knew a lot about the Thrift Savings Program, but he didn’t have any teaching credentials. He did some due diligence and found out about the NFEC’s certified financial educator training program to become a Certified Financial Education Instructor. Harold was delighted! By undertaking this coursework, he could receive certification and become well-versed in teaching money management to adults according to national standards.

Harold was well on his way to teaching adults money management, but now he needed financial literacy curriculum for adults. He was looking for programming that was age-appropriate for adults and that covered the topics of interest to his audience. Harold solved his problem by choosing a curriculum with just-in-time learning components and suitable scaffolding adjusted to reach all age groups.

Harold was truly learning how to teach money management to adults according to demonstrated best practices. Having prepared his materials and practiced his presentation, he launched the first class with 23 active duty armed forces members in attendance (representing 45% of those served by the Family Center). Teaching money management showed positive results; attendees showed an average improvement of 35% in scores on a brief test administered before and immediately after the class. Harold compiled these data and published an infographic in the Family Center newsletter, with the goal of attracting larger numbers of participants to attend future classes.