I was a child of the 80’s and grew up with little to no financial education. I entered my adult life not knowing how to manage my own finances. In my 20’s I made a lot of terrible financial decisions that pushed me deeper and deeper into debt. By 26, I drained my 401k savings and was about to get another credit card to extend my line of credit when a miracle happened. I was given a second chance.
I won $200,000 in the Powerball. With the winnings, I told myself “never again will I stretch myself this thin”. With the winnings I paid off all of my debt and set myself up to live within my means. And the remaining money I stashed away for something, but didn’t know what yet. About 8 years later, reflecting on that time in my life and how stressful it was, I kept coming back to the same questions “How did I get there?” “Why wasn’t I taught how to manage my own finances?”.
Then the idea for Money Mavericks came to life and I invested the rest of my winnings to help teenagers avoid the same mistakes I made. And Money Mavericks was born last year, 2019, after several years of bootstrapping it with two awesome partners that believed in my dream of helping to provide financial education to teens through a role playing game – not books or lecture (bleh).
