My Money?

A personal finance simulation game for children to increase financial literacy and awareness in the new generation.

Through "My Money?, an interactive game, similar to iCivics (interactive law simulation) and Prodigy (game for mathematical fluency), students will learn how to save and spend money. 

To learn the importance of budgeting, students will start with $500 in the simulation. They will be given challenges such as possess $1000 by the "end of the month" throughout the game. However, they must first choose a job, such as a doctor or a cashier. However, depending on their career choice, they will need to "purchase" the job upfront, the price based off of the expense of the schooling/training in real life. As they receive money from their jobs, they will have to buy groceries, pay bills, and more. To simulate real life, there will be emergencies which require extra spending, as well as options to buy expensive items and vacations. 

Those with the most money and assets (houses, cars, etc.) will be displayed on the world leaderboard. Those who fail to meet the objective will go in debt and have to pay the remainder back with interest. If their balance drops below zero, they will automatically lose. This will teach students how to self budget and the wide applications of money.

43% of Americans are financially illiterate, says Standard & Poor’s Global Financial Literacy Survey. A large part of this is owed to the lack of financial education in schools, causing financial illiteracy. 

To combat this problem, "My Money?" would teach children from a young age and provide them with enough knowledge to understand at minimum the basics of managing money, bringing forward enough awareness to the issue. Implementation of this game, designed to keep students engaged so they learn without feeling burdened, in school systems would greatly help upcoming and even current generations of adults. Not only would the people prosper, but the economy as well, as more people learn how it works and act accordingly.

If we let this widespread financial pandemic paralyze us, many will struggle to get by in day to day life. Already, some report needing to spend more than they can earn just to survive. However, if we teach future generations how to effectively spend their money, we will all be guaranteed a better future.

This solution directly serves school students, ages 5 to 18, but will have widespread impacts on everyone in the future as financial literacy skyrockets. According to the New York Times, currently only six states require high school students to complete a semester-long, stand-alone personal finance course. This is far too little.

To be effective, this education needs to be extended to grades K through 12 in ALL states. "My Money?" would aid greatly in this initiative, capturing student attention with ease while teaching financial concepts. 

All ages would be able to grasp the concept of budgeting as the layout of the game is easy to pick up on and is also easily applicable to real life. 

This game has the potential to save many students from debt and financial trouble in their later years. 

As a student in the target age group, I have spoken with many students my age who also want an opportunity to learn financial literacy. Many of us don't know the basics of money, budgeting, and investing. It will be impossible to live a stable life, at least until we learn some literacy. 

That is why I think there should be a much greater stress on financial literacy. During the pandemic, many suffered and poverty rates increased. Many that are my age fear the same happening to us in the future as we are simply not taught as much as we need to about finance. 

This is the start of my initiative as many bills pushing for this education are only to go into effect years after many current high schoolers, and even middle schoolers graduate, all of whom will miss this essential education. 

"My Money?" will play a large role in kickstarting this education for all of us, instead of just some.

This is a concept I've been consistently developing for the past few months, but have not yet started creating the product for. As I currently lack enough education to build the game, I have focused on building those skills in order to create the application. 

"My Money?" will be an app, although later also accessible through a website. As simulations already exist, "My Money?" is an application of these simulations in a new format. 

The UI will be made up of colorful cartoon type graphics to attract users. The code will be largely event-driven based, with certain triggers for new challenges. However, the value of assets and such will use ML based off of real life market changes to mimic reality as much as possible.

ML will also be used to analyze the progress of all users and introduce system-wide challenges to mimic situations like inflation and a stock market crash. 

This solution has not been launched, although I plan for it to serve at minimum 2-3 schools locally in my area. This approximates to about 200-300 users, all of whom will be students—my target demographic.

I wish for a user base of 500 by Jan 1, 2023. I will achieve this by presenting "My Money?" as a solution to financial illiteracy and advocate for the county to push it through as necessary for students. I will also go school to school to advocate for the mandatory application of "My Money?" for its students. Not only this, I will spread awareness among parents and other community members and ask them to advocate for "My Money?" alongside myself.

I wish to aid in providing financial education to at least 75% of all public schools in Montgomery County Public Schools, Maryland and at least 10% in all schools country-wide by Jan 1, 2025. I plan to achieve this using the success of my previous goal as leverage. Using similar methods, I will spread awareness, this time also using social media to reach people all over the country, and establish various chapters across the country that will advocate for change within their own county, increasing effectiveness. As for MCPS, I will continue with my advocacy here until the statistics are reached.

I wish for financial literacy to consistently rise over the years after the start of this initiative until a benchmark of 90% of adults as financially literate is reached within the next 20 years and maintained. This is a goal that can only be reached if financial education initiatives like "My Money?" are widespread enough to impact every student in the country. It's a goal I aim for. 

My progress will be measured by the number of users on the platform. More users means a more literate population, which is my largest target. 

My other measurement factors will be the highest net worth in the game, the higher the better as it shows students are learning how to use spend and use money; and a timeline of the average games lost compared to games won per player, which shows the total increase in literacy—this will also help make improvements to the game.

My largest barrier will be funding the development of the game and finding resources. While some of it can be done by myself, the development also requires professional help, such as coding the ML, which will require some of the budget. Not only this, to purchase access to the required coding platforms, I will need funding as well. Currently, to expand within MCPS, the concept requires about $5K of funding: $3K for resources to hire, $1.5K to build the application and purchase servers, and $500 for marketing. 

As a student, I can very well relate to my target audience, as I am my target audience. This allows me to know and provide exactly what is needed through "My Money?". I have coding experience in Java and Python, allowing me to understand the limits and capabilities of coding. While I don't have a team, I have many peers that I can turn to for insight. One common theme they all seem to share is a fear of when they get older and don't know what to do with money. Using this, I put together this concept idea.

As the concept is still in the early stages of being developed, we do not have any partners or sponsors yet.

"My Money?" has the potential to change our world. Socially and economically, the newer generations will be smarter and more financially literate. As they learn how to use their money, the economy will grow with more investments, allowing our entire country to grow from the inside out.