Financial Literacy — Pay Your Family First

Tweens

By Mary Ann Bashaw
© 2008 Raising Arizona Kids

Selling gumballs helped teach 100 Valley kids to appreciate the challenges of running a business. The students, members of Boys & Girls Clubs of Metropolitan Phoenix, teamed up with YOUTHpreneur and Fry’s Food Stores to participate in a pilot program designed to spark the entrepreneurial spirit.

YOUTHpreneur founder Sharon Lechter, C.P.A., (who co-authored Rich Dad, Poor Dad with Robert T. Kiyosaki) developed the program to teach kids business skills that lead to lifelong fiscal responsibility. “Kids need to learn to be self-sufficient so they can take care of themselves, their families and others,” says Lechter, who serves on the President’s Council on Financial Literacy. “We need to give them the self-confidence and get them excited about their place in the business world.”

Paradise Valley author’s new program helps kids manage money, debt

by Craig Harris - Apr. 27, 2009 
The Arizona Republic

It's a late weekday afternoon and best-selling author Sharon Lechter is once again giving financial advice.
Today, her target audience is quite different from the adults who purchased the "Rich Dad Poor Dad" books she co-authored with fellow Valley resident Robert Kiyosaki.

This group consists of a half-dozen young teenagers at a Phoenix branch of the Boys & Girls Clubs, and the audience is one Lechter hopes to appeal to with YOUTHpreneur, part of her new business that teaches children how to be entrepreneurs.

"I have a passion for financial literacy for families and children," said Lechter, who left the Rich Dad Company in 2007 after disagreements with Kiyosaki and now runs Pay Your Family First. "What is happening with today's kids is they don't understand delayed gratification…Kids want it before they even think about working for it."