October SmartStart

New Research Shows the Majority of Teens Feel Unprepared to Finance Their Futures

It’s Personal Finance month here at LifeSmarts! Why is Personal Financial education important?

According to new research conducted with 1,000 teens earlier this year by Junior Achievement and Citizens, the majority of teens (54%) feel unprepared to finance their futures. Teens cited concerns including the need for better understanding of how student loans work (39%), knowing how education ties to jobs (38%), and having access to lower-cost educational alternatives (32%).

Forty-one percent of teens indicated they have had no financial literacy classes in school, further highlighting the need for educational resources to address these concerns. Other findings included:

• 62 percent of teens use mobile or online applications to assist with money management, compared to 48 percent from a similar survey in 2019.Thirty-eight percent of teens say cash is still their preferred payment method, compared to 2% who prefer apps.

• Fifty-seven percent of teens say their parents use cash when giving them money, down from 71% in 2019, while 20% say their parents use apps, compared to 9% in 2019.

• There has been a decline in the use of traditional financial tools by teens, specifically debit cards (59% today vs. 62% in 2019), credit cards (24% today vs. 30% in 2019), and checkbooks (9% today vs. 18% in 2019), over the same period.

LifeSmarts can help prepare every participant for a better financial future.

In October, LifeSmarts spotlights the topic of Personal Finance. We are excited to provide you and your students with these new / updated educational resources:

NEW LifeSmarts Adventure
LifeSmarts Adventure provides a fun, new way for students to quiz themselves and compete – all on the go. Check it out! LifeSmarts Adventure can be used as a practice tool for students to quiz themselves. It is also a fun and accessible way for all consumers to test their consumer smarts. To play, students answer a series of LifeSmarts curriculum questions at each stop. All users earn virtual completion badges. New episodes will be released throughout the year but currently a LifeSmarts summer camp and a national parks road trip are available.

Personal Finance LifeSmarts U Lessons
Be sure to check out all the LifeSmarts U lessons on Personal Finance including Budgeting, Banking Services, Credit Reports, Retirement Planning, Decision Making, Buying a Used Car, Higher Education, and more.

USA Today Grant
LifeSmarts received a grant from USA Today to provide digital access for our participants to the daily newspaper. This grant will provide you and your team access to current events and consumer issues that will show up as competition questions. To access, login on a desktop computer (will not work on cell phones) at http://usatoday.va.newsmemory.com/charitablefoundation.php OR http://bit.ly/pwKxDV.

Username:  51404
Password: usatoday

October Personal Finance TeamSmarts Quiz
The October TeamSmarts quiz featuring personal finance topics is open until October 31 at 11:55 PM, EST. Compete now with your team! Add you team’s name to our winners list for this season!

TeamSmarts, the LifeSmarts web-based team competition, is a great practice tool. These monthly quizzes show up under your team captain’s "quizzes" tab. (NOTE: If your team captain does not see the quiz, have them click on the orange “View All” button and page down. If they still don’t see it, have them click on the blue “Load More” button.) Teams work together to take this 100-question quiz. Cash prizes are awarded to the top-scoring Varsity, JV, 4-H, BPA, FBLA, FCCLA, and SkillsUSA teams.

September Health & Safety TeamSmarts Winners
Congratulations to the September Health & Safety TeamSmarts Winners!
Varsity: TIE for 1st place – Team 1– Dallas High School, Dallas, PA; and Team 2 – West Chicago 1, West Chicago High School, Chicago, IL
Junior Varsity: Northview JV Team 1, Northview 4-H Club, Escambia County, Florida
4-H, Florida
4-H: Larimer County 4-H Varsity Team, Larimer County 4-H, Fort Collins, Colorado, Colorado 4-H
FCCLA: Selah Gold, Selah High School, Selah, Washington

State Competitions Begin in December
Most LifeSmarts State pages are now updated and we will be adding dates to our LifeSmarts Events Calendar. Be sure to check these often to stay up-to-date on deadlines for your state competition! You don’t want to miss our 30th Anniversary LifeSmarts National Championship in San Diego, CA, April 18 – 21, 2024!

LifeSmarts / FBLA Fall Challenge
Attention FBLA teams! It is time for the Fall LifeSmarts / FBLA Challenge! Teams can begin competing on October 16th until 11:55 PM EST on November 10th. You can prepare now by registering, taking practice quizzes, and participating in the October TeamSmarts Challenge. The top twelve teams (from different states) advance to the Finals at the FBLA National Leadership Conference in Orlando next June. The challenge will be open October 16 – November 10. Teams of two students compete online at https://lifesmarts.org/, with the team taking two TeamSmarts quizzes together – one fifty-question Personal Finance Quiz and one fifty-question Consumer Rights Quiz – and each team member also completing an individual quiz. Learn more here.
New this year from FBLA: Members may compete in an event at NLC more than once if they have not previously placed in the top ten for that event at NLC. If a member places in the top ten of an event at NLC, they are no longer eligible to compete in that event.
Feel free to contact us if you need help or have any questions.

FCCLA / LifeSmarts Knowledge Bowl Update
We are so excited to share that we had more than 80 FCCLA teams compete online this fall in the FCCLA / LifeSmarts Knowledge Bowl for the opportunity to compete live at the FCCLA National Fall Conference in Birmingham, AL, in November. We look forward to meeting the top 40 teams there as they vie for the opportunity to advance to the finals at the National Leadership Conference in Seattle next June. Congratulations to all the teams and their advisors / coaches. Click here for a complete list of the top 40 FCCLA / LifeSmarts Knowledge Bowl teams.

Making Life Easier Scholarship
Encourage your high school seniors and recent grads to apply for a Making Life Easier Scholarship! Our friends at Toyota Financial Services are once again providing $1 million in scholarships to college-bound students. LifeSmarts students and alumni are eligible to apply for scholarships of up to $20,000 distributed over four years. The deadline is October 31, 2023. Urge your students to begin the application process today!

Norton Wild Card Applications – Due November 10th!
LifeSmarts and Norton have renewed their partnership for the 2023-24 program year so that new LifeSmarts teams may apply for Norton Wild Card bids to compete in the 2024 National LifeSmarts Championship. This partnership increases the LifeSmarts program’s reach in under-resourced communities and provides direct support to qualified teams to attend and compete at Nationals. LifeSmarts invites eligible teams to apply now through November 10, 2023. Ten LifeSmarts Norton Wild Card Teams will be selected through an application process, and these teams will be provided with funding to ensure participation in the 2024 National LifeSmarts Championship. Each team will receive a travel stipend of $4,000 to cover transportation and hotel room costs.
Download the instructions for the application and competition process here.
More information and the application can be found here.
Please contact us with any questions you have. We look forward to receiving your applications!

Stay Tuned
Be on the lookout for our 30th Anniversary Video Contest which will be announced next week and our new LifeSmarts LifeSparks Awards honoring standout LifeSmarts teams!