Money drives our world forward. But how much does the average person actually know about it? These are lessons parents rarely teach, but Mana Money School does. In high school math, we learn us the arithmetic to balance a checkbook, but functional personal finance is never discussed. Worst of all, those of us who need the most help are often silenced by our fear or shame, with few resources to turn to.
I grew up as a poor immigrant to the United States from the Philippines. After a successful high school water polo and academic career, I was awarded an athletic scholarship, but a shoulder injury cut the funding off halfway through college. Rather than leave school, I chose to take out an exorbitant student loan and complete my degree. In 2006, I began my Wall Street career with $100,000 in debt. But with a high-paying job lined up, I defaulted to a mode of thinking so many of us do: If I just earn more, I’ll be fine.
Unfortunately, “earning more” wasn’t a sustainable solution. I struggled to make the monthly $1,000 payments and racked up even more compounding debt. Growing up, my family’s tumultuous financial situation did not teach me good money habits. My money history, coupled with lack of practical financial education in school, led to many mistakes early on.
It took me a decade to learn the lessons needed to become financially independent, get myself out of debt and buy my first home. Now I’m committed to making sure no one ever goes through feeling financially trapped. And it turns out it’s less about how much you make, and more about how much confidence and knowledge you have around money.
In 2018, my best friend Stephanie Bucko and I quit our Wall Street careers to launch our fee-only RIA, Mana Financial Life Design. We knew our annual financial life planning and investment management expertise would serve only a small fraction of the American population, so we set out to help everyone else by creating a virtual course. We knew if they could impart their wisdom and answer the most common misconceptions around money, they could increase anyone’s financial confidence.
There’s just one problem: Learning about finance can be pretty boring.
To create a fresh perspective, we enlisted the talents of two key members of the brain trust: a visual data scientist and an award-winning documentary filmmaker. The result was Mana Money School.
Mana Money School is different from any financial literacy program around. Its bite-sized lessons cover core topics in personal finance that anyone can understand, introducing viewers to the basics of wealth management with over four hours of content. Crucially, the lessons are illustrated with strategies from behavioral psychology and real people’s testimonials and stories. Viewers test their knowledge and put these strategies to use in over 20 quizzes and worksheets.
Shortly after launching in 2019, Mana Money School caught the attention of several large Los Angeles-based nonprofits that serve marginalized communities. Before Covid-19, Stephanie and I spent our weekends volunteering our time with these nonprofits and offering in-person financial literacy workshops to solidify and further the concepts learned in the course. Post-Covid, we’ve taken these courses to Zoom, which has allowed our reach to span even further. This summer we’re expecting to onboard nonprofits from Washington state and Massachusetts.
Cristina Livadary is CEO and co-founder of Mana Financial Life Design and Mana Money School.
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