Money for Life Challenge
The pupils say...
We are a group of 6 young mums based within Menzieshill HS in Dundee.
Through our MoneyPath sessions we became aware of how important it is to save money and plan ahead for things such as Christmas and our own homes. We decided to combine our nutrition sessions with our MoneyPath sessions to create a leaflet that we could distribute to other parents’ groups, showing how much money could be saved by making homemade food when weaning rather than shop bought. The money saved could then be used to open a credit union account and start saving for different events and also for potentially accessing affordable credit rather than using expensive credit options.
Before creating the leaflet we had to produce the food to prove that homemade was cheaper and we took pictures of the process to use on our leaflets.
We brought in a community artist for a session to help bring our leaflet design to life. Once ready we went to a parents group and a childcare class in our community and demonstrated savings that could be made. We created a table display showing how much fruit & veg; we could buy and prepare for £5 compared to only a few shop-bought jars. We gave each person a “goody bag”, containing utensils so that they could put the ideas into practice at home. We invited the local credit union along so that people could join and start saving.
Our leaflet is now available at a variety of venues in Dundee.
You can read our leaflet here.
The staff perspective
The Money for Life Challenge has provided an opportunity for our young parents to showcase their personal knowledge relating to weaning, cooking and dealing with money matters. It has given them an ideal platform to inform other young parents of how they can potentially save money through providing home cooked meals for their babies. Understanding the importance of budgeting is an essential life skill which our pupils are putting into practice and will be doing even more in the future when they will set up home for themselves and their babies. Money issues will be even more prevalent when this transition occurs so an understanding and sound knowledge of financial matters can only be beneficial to them in the future. The ability to manage their own finances from a very young age is excellent role modelling to not only their own children but also the wider family.
This entire process has been incredibly useful and productive in very practical terms for our young mothers who have thoroughly enjoyed the whole experience.