It's "I Can Save Week!" - Can You?

Last year, we decided that for the first time since our existence here in New Hampshire, we would develop an initiative for elementary school children. We call it, "I Can Save!" and this year we partnered with Fidelity Investments to tour various elementary schools throughout the Granite State.

We will be visiting second graders and after showing a brief presentation about needs & wants, we will be giving them Moonjar moneyboxes.

Winner of a 2004 Global Learning Initiative Award for Educational Excellence, each Moonjar consists of three moneyboxes (Spending, Saving, and Sharing), a family guide to get started, a passbook to record deposits and withdrawals, and a NH Jump$tart elastic band to hold the assembled boxes together.

I'm beginning to think that changes to the spending culture we now live in (which took almost 20 years to cultivate) can only be done with the next generation on consumers - today's elementary school children. Can they get us back to a lifestyle of not living beyond our means - saving money to buy stuff instead on buying now and hope to pay it back later - and an approach that focuses on the future rather than the present. Not sure - but that's what we're trying to do with the "I Can Save!" tour.

Saving - Spending - Sharing. Concepts we can all live by.