Hi! My name is Paw Leh Moo Mahone. I’m from H.S.T.K. School. I came to Grace Garden to have training for 6 months. We have learned about many things, but I’m going to explain and tell you about Financial Literacy, most of this lesson talks about money.

 

 

In this lesson there were 5 sessions.

Session 1: Market session

Market session is a game that teaches us how to use our money and make our own choices. I like this game a lot because it’s taught me how to use my money and how to fill up the time when I have nothing to do.  For example, you wake up in the morning and you have so many things to do, but you have a choice to do what you want to do first. You can work or do something else.

I had a good time while playing this game. It is very difficult to play this game but fun!!

Session 2: Goal and money beliefs

In this session, there was an activity. This activity was called Minefield. I’ll hope you all know this game very well. I am not going to explain to you how to play but I am going to tell you about what this game related to.

This game related to our lives. Sometimes our life is a little bit like the minefield. We start out here and we try to move forward.

What do we call the place we want to go? The final point of the game?

The answer to this question is a goal!!

This session encouraged me that I have to know what I want to achieve in my life and find the ability to move forward safely towards that goal.

 

Session 3: What are savings? Marketing saving plans

This lesson helped us to:

• define our household income and expense,
• define savings and its different uses, and
• make a realistic personal saving plan.

It taught me to save my money and how to expense my money.

This session was very difficult for me to understand. When I first learned this session, it made me feel bored and I didn’t even think about this session. But at last when I thought a bout it, it is fun and taught me many things.

One of my friends said, “it is very difficult for me to save money. Because if I see something pretty, I want to buy it. Because I am a girl who loves the pretty things!”

Saving is very important for us. When we save our money, it helps us to solve many problems. For example, pretend that you are working every day and you save 10% of your money each day but one day you get sick and you cannot work anymore. At that time, you can use the money that you’ve saved.

I will go to my community and teach some of them how to save money, because most   of them don’t save any money. They go to work , and if they get money they buy food and some luxury things. They didn’t save any money. When the problem comes they don’t know what to do, because they didn’t have any money. At that time the only thing they can do is to borrow money from someone else. Now they have dept. How can they pay it back? They have to work harder to pay back their dept.

I have seen these things happen in my community. My goal is to help them to save money. So that they can solve the problems when problems come.

Session 4: Household budgeting

This session helped me to describe several reasons for keeping a budget plan, and what can happen when there is no personal budget.

To create your own budgeting plan:

Identify total income and identify total expenses. How much can you save? Compare to your saving goals and create a budget plan.

I tried to create my own budget plan, but it is difficult for me because I can’t control my self to buy the luxury things. I know that when I get older, I can do it. It is very good to   create a budget, because it helps us with our money.

Session 5: Time management / time as value

This is the final session of the lesson. This session, gave me the power to determine how I use my time every day. If I manage my time well, then the money that I manage could grow. This session also taught me how to manage my time and to find a new ways to use my time.

It is very good to manage our time. In class we created a chart for example. While we were creating a chart in class, one of my friends told a joke and said “Ha! Now I know how to save my money. I will save my money and I will buy my own airplane!!” And my other friends laughed and say back to him “ Of course you will get an airplane. Just in your dreams. Not in your real life.”

When I learn this session, it made me very happy and was very helpful to me.

Financial literacy community training:

After we had training for one week, we went to teach a community about financial literacy. We taught them for one week. Most of the participants were women with their babies. So it was very difficult to teach them because their babies cry a lot. First we taught them about the Market Session. The participants liked it a lot, they have a lot of fun but later they had to sit and listen so they got a little bit lazy but they tried very hard. I taught them Session 2 .It was very difficult to teach them and I was very afraid. For me, teaching people is more difficult than learning, because this was the first time for me to teach people like this. Before I went to teach them, I thought it will be very easy but now I realize that it is not easy for me. I have a quote that says “thinking is easier than doing.” I agree with this quote.

What about you? Eventhough teaching people is difficult, I still have to try. Another  quote says “I can accept failure, every one fails at something. But I can’t accept not trying.” by Michael Jordan

I had a good time during this training.

Thanks for reading my block post!!!

 

This post was written by Paw Leh Moo.