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Money Monday
By Imagine Scholarships
Sherri Ross
June 09, 2025
💰️ Money Mondays: Career Math + Real-Life Money Moves
📆 June 9, 2025 | Issue #3 in the Financial Literacy Summer Series
🔥 This Week's Focus: The Equation No One Tells You
Here's a truth you won't hear on TikTok:
Career + Education - Student Debt = Real Financial Freedom
We're talking about Career Math—where you calculate the return on investment (ROI) of your future. This week, we break down how to:
Choose a career path that actually supports your lifestyle
Understand educational ROI (it's not just the prestige)
Reverse-engineer your budget starting with your dream life
🧠 Financial Literacy Deep Dive
Most people build a lifestyle THEN figure out how to pay for it. Smart people flip the script. They learn how much their lifestyle costs FIRST—and then choose the career and education that can afford it.
This week, we teach you how.
🎓️ Students: Dream Backwards
Here's your challenge:
Pick your dream lifestyle at age 30. Include:
Where you live (city, apartment, house?)
What car you drive (if any)
How often you travel
Monthly expenses: rent, groceries, insurance, student loan, phone, fun
Now total the annual cost of that lifestyle.
📌 Now reverse engineer:
What monthly salary supports that life?
What jobs pay that?
What education/training gets you there fastest + most affordably?
🎯 This is called Reverse Budgeting for Career Clarity. It's real-world decision making at its finest.
🎓️ College Students: Your Salary vs. Your Spending
Are you earning pizza money with champagne dreams? Let's run the numbers:
Use our Hourly Value Worksheet to calculate how many hours you work just to fund your streaming, eating out, or DoorDash.
Ask yourself: Is this worth it?
👉️ Advanced challenge:
Take your anticipated salary for your intended major.
Subtract:
Estimated student loan payments
Cost of living in your chosen city
Savings goals
Now divide what's left by 12. That's your real monthly budget. Still feel good about it?
🎮️ Want to simulate adulthood before it smacks you in the face? Currency Conundrum is your real-life simulator. It's fun, addicting, and will either terrify or empower you. (Either way, you win.)
Use code MONEYMONDAY50 this summer only.
👨👩👦 Parents: The Summer that Changes Everything
Your child may be deciding right now if they'll live paycheck to paycheck—or build financial freedom. This summer is golden for:
Talking about realistic costs of college, apartments, groceries
Helping your child complete the Reverse Budgeting Challenge
Walking through the Currency Conundrum together (yes, you can play too!)
🏡 Family conversation starter:
“What does financial independence look like at age 25? What's one decision now that supports that future?”
This simple conversation can shape a teen's next decade.
🍎 Educators: Teach ROI Without the Boredom
This week, challenge students to:
Choose 3 careers and compare ROI (earnings vs. education cost)
Write a 1-page reflection: “What lifestyle do I want, and what choices will get me there?”
🎓️ Classroom Add-On:
License the Currency Conundrum for your summer school or enrichment program. Students will laugh, cringe, and learn more in an hour than a week of textbook reading. Contact us for group pricing.
📚️ Blog Post of the Week
Financial Literacy Is Like Learning to Drive
🛠️ Imagine Scholarships
Let's get serious: College is expensive. You deserve tools that make it less so.
Search $9B+ in scholarships. Track them. Save deadlines. Get weekly updates.
💡 Sign up for Imagine Scholarships and get access to the best tools, all in one place.
💡 Summary Challenge:
✅ Reverse-budget your dream lifestyle
✅ Find 3 career paths that support it
✅ Calculate education ROI
✅ Take action with the Currency Conundrum — both 50% off this week only with MONEYMONDAY50
🎯 Scholarship of the Week:
The Hearts for Community Service Scholarship
This $5,000 scholarship is available to student residents from the following Warrick Dunn Charities, Inc. markets: Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Kansas, Louisiana, Maryland, Michigan, New Jersey, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, and Wisconsin who volunteer in their communities.
Deadline is June 30, 2025.
To be eligible for this scholarship, students must volunteer within their communities, and be enrolled in a post-secondary institution for the upcoming academic year. This includes high school students who are dually enrolled in an institution of higher education; high school graduates or GED equivalency; students enrolled in a trade school; or students pursuing an associate’s, bachelor’s, or post-graduate degree.
➡️ Apply here or on Imagine Scholarships. Imagine offers scholarships for all ages and a variety of students. The keyword search makes it easier to find awards that fit you.
This one matters.
See you next week!
Sherri and the Imagine Scholarships Team 💰✨
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