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Money Monday
By Imagine Scholarships
Sherri Ross
January 27, 2025
đź’° Money Monday: Making, Saving & Budgeting Fun!
We will start this week with a money challenge for a bit of budgeting fun.
🧩 Money Challenge: Dream Vacation or Extra Perks?
You’re saving for a dream vacation that costs $2,000. You’ve decided to deposit $200 every month into a savings account that earns 5% annual interest, compounded monthly.
Here’s the twist:
How many months will it take to save $2,000 with the interest?
What happens if you increase your monthly deposit to $250? How much faster can you reach your goal?
Bonus Challenge: Imagine you want to splurge on extras for your vacation (like excursions or upgraded accommodations) and need an extra $500. If you keep your deposit at $200 per month, how much longer will it take to save $2,500 instead of $2,000?
Hint: Use the compound interest formula or try the Compound Interest Calculator to solve it. Don’t forget to compare your results with and without interest!
🏆 This Week’s Theme: Making Saving & Budgeting Fun!
Saving and budgeting don’t have to feel like a chore! When you turn them into a game and watch your goals come to life, managing your money becomes an exciting part of your life. Plus, you get to unlock one of the greatest financial secrets of all time: compound interest.
🎉 The Power of Compound Interest 🎉
Compound interest is like planting a money tree. The earlier you start saving, the faster it grows! Each year, your savings earn interest, and that interest earns interest too. Over time, this snowballs into significant growth.
Interactive Tool:
👉 Compound Interest Calculator (nerd wallet) – See how even small savings today can grow into big rewards over time.
Video Spotlight:
🎥Compound Interest Explained in One Minute – A quick and engaging video showing why starting small and saving early makes a huge difference.
💡 Let’s Take a Deeper Dive
🧑‍🏫 For Educators:
Engage Students in Fun Money Lessons:
Budget Challenges: Split your class into teams and challenge them to budget for a dream trip or a monthly expense.
Stock Market Simulators: Use MarketWatch’s Virtual Stock Exchange to teach students how to invest and track their money.
Fun Apps for Learning:
Helpful Resource:
📚 Practical Money Skills for Teachers – Free lesson plans, videos, and activities for teaching budgeting and saving.
👨‍👩‍👦‍👦 For Parents:
Creative Ways to Teach Budgeting at Home:
Family Goals Challenge: Choose a savings goal as a family, like saving for a road trip or a special dinner. Track your progress together and celebrate when you reach it!
Involve Teens and Young Adults: Let them help plan grocery trips or track household bills to learn real-world budgeting.
Apps That Make It Fun:
Greenlight – A debit card for teens that teaches saving and spending.
FamZoo – A virtual family bank to teach financial literacy.
Of course different students are at different stages of growth in their financial journey. Some are ready to have their own bank account and debit card. Others are still educating themselves on the benefits and risks of each of these.
We have many more resources for teens and financial literacy here and we have a course on financial literacy here. This course, Financially Fit and Career Ready offers students insight on how to navigate finances while exploring different career paths and college majors that would be a good fit for them.
🎓 For College Students:
Make Saving Fun in College:
The $5 Challenge: Save every $5 bill you get for a month. It’s surprising how fast it adds up!
Group Goals: Save with friends toward a shared goal, like a spring break trip.
Track Spending with Apps: We are not affiliated with these groups in any way but always want to highlight helpful tools for you to consider.
Mint – Budget and track your spending easily.
YNAB (You Need a Budget) – A student favorite for tracking every dollar.
Acorns – Invest spare change automatically.
🎒 For High School Students:
Start Saving Now to Build Big Goals:
Savings Jar: Create a jar for something you want, like prom tickets or a new gadget, and decorate it as a daily reminder of your goal.
Budget Like a Pro: Plan how you’d spend $1,000 for a dream trip or big event—it’s a fun way to practice!
Stock Market Fun: Learn how investing works using the Investopedia Stock Market Simulator.
"Saving is a great habit, but investing is the game-changer. Let your money work for you while you’re working for your dreams."
Solutions to our challenge:
With $200 per month at 5% interest compounded monthly, it will take 9.8 months (just under 10 months) to save $2,000.
Increasing your deposit to $250 per month shortens the time to 7.9 months—you save almost 2 months!
Saving $2,500 instead of $2,000 with the original $200 deposit will take about 12.2 months, or just over 1 year. Without interest, it would take 12.5 months.
Scholarship of the Week:
1 FOR 2 EDUCATION FOUNDATION
đź”— Learn More Here
Thank you for making Money Monday part of your week! We’re here to help you succeed with actionable tips, inspiring stories, and practical resources. If you’d like personal support, I’d love to connect with you.
Here’s to a year of growth, success, and achieving your goals!
See you next Monday!
Cheering you on,
Sherri Ross
P.S. If you’re ready to find more scholarships, streamline your college application process, and make smarter financial decisions, check out Imagine Scholarships. It’s a game-changer, and we’re here to support you every step of the way. We also have courses and other resources waiting for you here. Reply to this message or email [email protected] if you have questions about signing up your group. As the leading platform for scholarships, college, career, and life readiness, we connect you to scholarships you can actually get with expert guidance to make your educational journey simple and easy.
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