Attorneys Turned Advocates for Early Childhood Financial Education Create New App

Two former attorneys, Nicolle Hood and Annie Shoen of Arizona, who turned into full-time advocates for early childhood financial education, have developed a new gamified app that enables parents to help their children – ages three to 12 – learn about the value of money, how to earn and save, how to be a smart spender, donate to a worthy cause and other lessons that can help children build lifelong money management abilities.

The app, My First Nest Egg, has already captured the attention of the $254 million Landings Credit Union in Tempe, Ariz., the $1.8 billion Y-12 Federal Credit Union in Oak Ridge, Tenn., the $40 million Holy Rosary Credit Union in Kansas City, Mo., and the $309 million Heritage South Community Credit Union in Shelbyville, Tenn. The app offers a white-label solution for organizations. The credit unions signed up for a customized, co-branded version of the app that they are making available for free to their members.

Friends for years, Hood and Schoen have three and four kids, respectively. One day during the pandemic, they realized their young children knew next to nothing about the value of money.

“During COVID we were trying to keep our kids from being too isolated, so we did one of those little pod schools together, went camping and did other activities together,” Shoen explained.

It was during one of their camping trips that the moms realized their kids, all under the age of 10 at that time, had little or no understanding about cash.

“That whole proverbial thing that our kids thought money grew on trees is very true,” Shoen said. “After we heard ‘just order another one on Amazon, mom, it’ll come tomorrow,’ we realized we needed a way to teach our kids about money because they didn’t understand it. But we also realized it’s not really their fault because we’re not teaching it.”

So Hood and Schoen set out to find a quality financial education curriculum, but they couldn’t find one that was age-appropriate for their young ones. They decided to find out why by doing a lot of research, which eventually led to their idea to develop an app.

They discovered that by age seven, several basic concepts relating broadly to later finance behaviors will typically have developed, according to a study, “Habit Formation and Learning in Young Children” from England’s University of Cambridge. Beth Kobliner of New York, a best-selling author who is a nationally recognized authority on personal finance for young people, noted on her blog that the University of Cambridge study means it’s essential to start teaching kids as young as three to five about money.

“This may seem too young to teach your kids about money, but it’s actually a great time to establish familiarity with basic financial concepts,” Kobliner wrote. “Turns out, by age three, kids can already grasp exchange and value.”

Leveraging their professional relationships, Hood and Schoen interviewed and consulted with child psychologists, financial experts, educators and many, many parents. The entrepreneurial moms also enlisted parents to help a child psychologist they hired to design and test the app for about 18 months before they posted it in Google’s Play Store last July.

While parents know it’s important to talk with their kids about money, they don’t know how or where to start. The new app makes it easier for parents to start those conversations and has the tools to help their kids learn about healthy money habits, according to Hood and Schoen.

In addition to learning about what money is and how to earn it, the app teaches kids to develop the important skill of delayed satisfaction.

For example, if you are in a store with your three-year-old who points to a product she wants right now, you can instead condition her that she can’t have it right now, but she can earn it and get it later, Hood explained. After taking a picture of that product, the app transforms the image into puzzle pieces. Every time the three-year-old completes a chore or performs an act of kindness, she earns a piece of the puzzle that she assembles on the app. Once the puzzle is completed, she earns the product.

“The three-year-old learned they don’t get to have everything they want right away, they have to earn it,” Hood said. “Delayed gratification is something you have to start teaching a child when they’re three, not when they’re teenagers. That is such a valuable lesson for life.”

The app also keeps track of completed chores and acts of kindness for which kids can earn, save and spend money. A virtual piggy bank on the app that is not connected to a credit union account is where virtual coins are deposited after kids complete their chores or perform acts of kindness.

Parents also can set the interest rate on the money deposited into a savings account. Interest is paid out on the first of every month, so kids can learn about the value of saving money.

The app also has a “view only mode” that allows parents to have just one account for the whole family even if everyone is on a different device. In the view only mode, the child can see their account and request puzzle pieces without having the ability to manipulate the money accounts or puzzles.

The app has a daily fun fact to help children build their knowledge about money and also features a leaderboard so several kids can participate and keep track of their accomplishments.

“Landings Credit Union is proud to partner with My First Nest Egg to deliver engaging financial literacy content in a fun and age-appropriate way,” Landings President/CEO Brian Lee said. “My First Nest Egg helps us continue our pursuit of our members’ financial wellness with the latest technology. We are also proud to support a local female and minority-owned business.”

To learn more about the app, visit myfirstnestegg.com or the Google Play Store.