
In Teen Money Mindset, Greg Junge explores the essentials of financial literacy for teens, emphasizing the importance of understanding concepts like interest, taxes, and spending habits. Junge breaks down interest as both a cost of borrowing and a benefit of saving, introducing teens to investing basics through simple savings accounts. He also highlights the influence of mindset on financial health, explaining how a positive perspective can help avoid common money pitfalls. Additionally, Junge discusses the cultural pressures teens face, particularly the misconception that they should maintain a luxurious lifestyle, even as students. The book serves as a guide to help teens develop practical and sustainable money habits.
This book teaches kids basic concepts of money and finance. But the best part is that it gives actionable steps to achieve financial goals. The chapters are broken up nicely with review questions. This book is well written.And I recommend it for teens who are interested in exploring financial goals.
Teen Money Mindset is a fantastic resource for teens—and parents like me—who want to lay the foundation for a secure financial future. This book breaks down essential money concepts in a way that’s easy to understand, from budgeting and saving to investing and understanding credit. I especially love the 5-week financial freedom plan and practical exercises at the end of each chapter, which keep teens engaged and help them apply what they’ve learned. It’s clear, relatable, and packed with real-world advice that would have been invaluable at that age! Highly recommend this for any teen looking to take charge of their financial future.
Teen Money Mindset, in my opinion missed the mark on several points. On pure information and explanation of money basics for teens- this book gets five stars. What marked it down in my opinion was the closed mindedness on how to explain the psychological effects of money on young minds. The book is filled with what I believe are fluffy superficial guides on how teens should approach money. It puts an unhealthy perspective in the reader’s mind that money is everything. Above a lot of other joys in life, no money does not always make your life easier. Rich people still suffer from loss, death, disease, depression and stress. Sometimes those are issues that are compounded even more because of Money. How many celebrities have we heard of who suffer significant emotional stress in-spite of fame and fortune? In one chapter it discusses some of the myths of money, supposedly debunked by the author. “The Money is the Root of All Evil”, is not ‘something we’ve all heard’, it comes from 1 Timothy 6:10 NLT, and it is not as simple as the author describes. If anything this is another missed opportunity to further teach a healthy mindset regarding money. Regardless of your religious beliefs, this verse can be helpful, as it accurately states; “For the love of money is the root of all kinds of evil. And some people craving money, have wandered from the true faith and pierced themselves with many sorrows.” The missed lesson, in my opinion was to keep yourself humble and grounded. Remind yourself that climbing the next financial ladder is not and should not be the most important thing if we pass life along the way. This is an important lesson some of the most famous Titan’s of Industry taught us. Both Rockefeller and Carnegie were fierce competitors in their business conquests but also realized that was not the legacy they wanted to leave. They became just a fierce competitors in their philanthropic ventures, finding creative ways to give back a lot of their wealth later in life. They learned an important lesson that should have been illuminated in this book. There are portions of this book that discuss turning your hobby into a business. That’s a great business model if you have something that can be monetized. But the majority of that chapter focused a lot on social media exposure and promoting your venture that way. Well, that’s great and all, and most teens will already be in that mindset. But there are plenty of very successful trades and services that won’t rely on social media in that capacity. Given that recent reports have indicated that roughly 2-3% of all Social Media users become influencers, and out of those, about half will cap out their monetization at $15k a year, and 13% making more than $100k (Edvisors, 6/19/24). That means the odds of getting rich off social media is extremely rare. I feel like the author is deliberately misleading teens with chapters like this. Overall, I wish this book actually focused on creating a realistic and healthy mindset in teens for the future, I feel like it just fed them a lot of what they already wanted to hear, maybe trying to drive book sales, rather than actually change the focus of the next generation for the better.
Teen Money Mindset is a game-changer for teens wanting to learn essential financial skills. It breaks down complex topics like budgeting, credit, and investing in an easy-to-understand way. The exercises at the end of each chapter make it engaging, and the 5-week plan is a practical guide for teens to kickstart their financial independence. This book empowers young adults with the knowledge they need to build lasting wealth and avoid common financial mistakes.









