Imagine if your students graduated not just with academic knowledge, but real-world skills they’ll use every day. Today we’re starting that conversation. I’m kicking off a three-part series that will cover essential life skills that students should master before they leave high school, no matter what their post-secondary plans are.

First up: the basics of budgeting - a skill so many students are missing when they leave high school. I’m sharing why financial literacy matters now more than ever, how you can easily tie it into the ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors, and some creative ways to make budgeting relatable (and even a little fun!) for your students. You’ll also hear why understanding their own money mindset is key to setting them up for success.

Resources Mentioned:

• Resource: Student Budgeting Workbook
• Resource: Financial Literacy Bundle
• Resource: ASCA Mindsets & Behaviors 
• Leave your review for High School Counseling Conversations on Apple Podcasts

Connect with Lauren:

• Sign up for the free, 3-day prep for High School Counseling Job Interviews https://counselorclique.com/interviews
• Visit my TpT store https://counselorclique.com/shop
• Send me a DM on Instagram @counselorclique https://instagram.com/counselorclique
• Follow me on Facebook https://facebook.com/counselorclique
• Send me an email mailto:lauren@counselorclique.com
• Join the Clique Collaborative http://cliquecollab.com

Full show notes on website: https://counselorclique.com/episode165

Hi, high school counselor friends. I am Lauren,

I am your host of High School Counseling Conversations.

Welcome back to another episode. So glad you're here and tuning

in. Whether you're a new listener or you are a longtime

listener, I'm glad you're here.

I'd love to read a review as we get into this week's episode. So

this review is from Jenna Nock, I don't know if I'm saying that

right. I never know, and I always have to laugh because

Apple podcast names could be your real name, could be a fake

name, could be just something completely made up from your

middle school screen name. So who knows? Thank you, Jenna. I'm

guessing that's who this is. She says, subject line of her

review, finally found a high school resource. She said, I'm a

second year secondary counselor. I am so excited that I found

counselor clique. I've been looking for a podcast that would

give me quick tips in order to better my program and learn up

to date ways of doing things. So I know Jenna has not been in

this for super long to feel like she's doing out of date things,

but this is a relevant High School Counseling podcast that

you are listening to. I'm so glad you're here. Thanks Jenna

for leaving that review. I always appreciate a review so

that other high school counselors can find the podcast

and enjoy listening to it as well.

We're in the business of prepping our students for life

after high school, aren't we? It's funny, like we think we

have ears that are hyper attuned to our student needs, their

regrets, their level of skills and confidence as they launch

into life after high school, and we hear them when they say

things like, why didn't they teach us about taxes? Why do I

have to learn about geometry proofs instead of how to change

a car tire? Like, I don't know why we hear these complaints all

the time, but I guess as counselors were privy to hearing

them. I swear I heard these all the time. We've heard it before,

but I could also get really defensive and say things like,

listen, we tried to teach you useful things. You just didn't

listen, or you started skipping school because you had

senioritis and you didn't listen to us. If you would have

listened, you would have heard us saying these things over and

over again, and you would not be sitting here complaining with no

life skills.

I do think that counselors have a unique space to decide how we

want to address some of the big mindsets and behaviors and help

students with some real practical stuff before they

leave high school. This makes launching our high school

students so much different than elementary and middle school,

like they're just on that precipice of complete

independence, and we're kind of their last lifeline for teaching

them those last life skills before they are truly a bit more

independent than they've ever been in their whole lives.

So I want to start a three part series. It was gonna all be in

one episode, and then I thought, I've got too much to say. We're

gonna divide this up, where I wanna give you three different

life skills to consider teaching your students before they

graduate, and how they could practically flesh these out. So

we're gonna talk about one per episode.

But before we get into those things, let's take a look at the

ASCA mindsets and behaviors. I'll link those in the show

notes. But pro tip, I love having these printed out, hang

them by your desk, so that you can reference them really

quickly and really easily. Because as you're making

decisions for your program, even in a really informal way, it's

really helpful to have these somewhere that you can just

glance over at and think about them through the lens of, what

is this lesson or small group or guest speaker or class meeting

or school wide event? How is it helping me accomplish the

mindsets and behaviors that are put in front of us? What are we

trying to do? Is the event or the thing that we're trying to

put on going to help us reach our students with the things

that we're marking as really important?

So these ASCA mindsets and behaviors give us a few

different pathways to consider with our students, and help us

think through our big picture goals, especially if we don't

know where to start, or we don't know where to filter our energy.

What's that saying that people put on their desk? You only have

24 hours in a day, like same as Beyonce, same as everybody else,

we've all got the same amount of hours in a day. So how are we

going to use those effectively and efficiently? The ASCA

mindsets and behaviors are our counseling standards, if you

will, and those lay the groundwork for whatever goals

we're trying to achieve with our students. I think we can all

agree that we want to see our students find success every year

that we have them under our covering in K 12, but these

specifically help us help them with college and career

readiness, academic success and social emotional development,

all three of our big umbrellas that we are trying to cover with

our high school students.

Let's roll the intro, and then we'll get into the first of the

three life skills that I want you to consider helping your

students master before they graduate, and I'm going to share

with you some practical examples of how I would do it. And then

also think through the lens of the ASCA mindsets and behaviors

on how we should measure kind of what those goals are for our

students.

You got into this profession to make a difference in your

students' lives, but you're spread thin by all the things

that keep getting added to your to do list. I can't create more

hours in the day, but I can invite you into my counselor

clique, where you'll finally catch your breath. Come with me

as we unpack creative ideas and effective strategies that'll

help you be the counselor who leaves a lifelong impact on your

students. I'm Lauren Tingle, your high school counseling hype

girl, here to help you energize your school counseling program

and remind you of how much you love your job.

So first up this week, budgeting basics. Can't we all look back

and wish we had learned a little bit more about how basic

budgeting, credit cards, loans, interest, all worked? I know, I

guess I'm speaking from my own experience. I wish it was just

more of a conversation in my household. I didn't have anybody

else talking to me about that outside of my household, and I

remember it being a pretty private conversation in our

house that like that doesn't need to involve you. That's too

much information for you. You know, some of that was probably

a little bit of protection over me, so it wasn't something I

needed to worry about as a high school student. But it also

would have been helpful to have some of that knowledge and just

see either the successes or the mistakes that my parents made.

And that's definitely something that I'm shifting in my

parenting. We all live and learn, right?

I wouldn't expect high schoolers to have some deep knowledge and

understanding of stocks and investing money, like that feels

really far reaching if they don't have money to invest yet,

you know? But I think things like cash, credit, loans, those

should all be at the forefront of their mind as they're

transitioning into young adulthood, or whatever their

next season is like, wherever they find themselves. They're

moving into a season where that's going to be important for

them.

Maybe they've had a part time job and so they realize the

value of hard work and $1 and how many hours it takes to reach

a savings goal that they set out for. And maybe they've had those

savings goals with the security of living rent free in a home

with parents who provide for them in a lot of other senses.

The reality checks seem to come all at once when they're

suddenly responsible for a lot more than they're used to. Now,

this could turn into a complete parenting podcast episode,

because I'm sure we all have thoughts and opinions on how to

build that independence around money management if we were

their parents, but we're not. So let's shift back into school

mode and think about how we can make an impact within the school

walls while we have them.

I know it feels like we have to say something 100, at least 100

times before students actually hear us, and that it actually

sticks. So what tiny things can we do now with great intention

that can actually make a big dent for our students?

Use your classroom face time for a basic budgeting lesson. Or

something I loved to do was work with the senior economics

teacher or a social studies teacher who's doing a lesson

like this anyway, where they were doing a project based on

the reality of a future budget. You can pop in with that

teacher, and you can add to what they're already doing, bring in

a different spin from the counseling side, and compliment

their project or their lesson that they're doing.

Maybe it's showing your students how to balance what's coming in

and what's going out, and being able to measure and

appropriately look at their income versus their expenses.

That's a very simple, very practical skill that we all need

to have, and I think it's a lost art, because we're often not

balancing checkbooks anymore. We're just trying not to

overdraft our checking account. I felt like that was what I was

always doing. That was my measure of income versus

expenses when I was just launching out of high school.

Another thought is, if they're college bound, or they're still

making some of their final college decisions, or you get

them earlier than senior year, you can show them how to use

that net price calculator that's on every college's website and

what the breakdown actually means. I know it's easy to say,

in theory, every college has to have this on their website, but

how do you use it? What does it mean, and what does that mean

for me and my financial situation? So showing them how

to access those resources and then how to use it and interpret

it would be huge.

If your students need some pen and paper reflection time, you

can give them my budgeting workbook and that will help them

reflect on some of their money mentalities that they've grown

up with. That truly does shape how you view money as you move

into young adulthood and beyond. Did your family operate from a

scarcity mindset because there was never enough? Did you have

to take on the position of independence really early

because you came from a single parent household and you were

told that you needed to start contributing? Or did you focus

completely on school and not have a job until you graduated

college and therefore never truly had to make decisions

about money until later in life? All of these different pathways

would frame how you view money.

For us and for our students, it's important to reflect on

some of these money mindset questions. So not only are we

teaching them practical skills as a counselor, but you're using

that counselor expertise, those counseling skills to dig a bit

deeper and help them understand the why behind their money

management and why this is all even important.

While we're here, can I give you a few more questions to reflect

on personally yourself, and you could just take them right on

into an individual group or classroom counseling session

with students? I think that these can make for some really

good conversation starters or some deep questions to journal

or reflect on as you consider money and its impact on you.

Can you think of anyone who handles their money well? Who is

that? What do you respect about that person? How do you know

they handle their money well? What does that mean to you, like

how do you define what is well, and what is handling money well?

Do you have any goals as it relates to money? And let's

think deeper than the goal being, yeah, just have a lot of

it. Think about your values, or the values that you'd like to

have in your life.

I found when we would be sitting researching future careers,

students were so focused on the job, the career that just made

the most money. And then you get to the existential debate, would

you rather be unhappy making the most money or just happy making

enough money? And what is enough? That begs a real

question to look introspectively and decide what is enough. What

are your goals with money and with where you're focused? How

does money fall in line with those goals? Are there any

habits that you need to change or mistakes that you need to

correct right now in order to have your money habits align

with what you say your values are.

For this life skill, let's pop on over to those mindsets and

behaviors and see kind of what this skill would fall under.

BSMS4, is a behavior, a self management skill, and that one

is delayed gratification of long term rewards. If we were talking

about setting goals and saving money in a lesson, this is one

that stands out to me. I think this is a behavior and a self

management skill that takes training, even as an adult, when

I look at that and I relate it to money, I think this is

something I'm still working on.

BSMS1 is a behavior and another self management skill, number

one, it's responsibility for self and actions. This feels

really all encompassing, but taking on financial

responsibility for self and others requires thought and

action. Being independent with finances is a huge step of

responsibility, and with the right skills, our students can

be sent out successfully into taking on this responsibility.

Like, there's no avoiding it, they're gonna have to do it.

It's something that's gonna follow with them for life. And

so accepting that responsibility now and knowing, hey, we need to

nurture these skills in order to be prepared and responsible for

what comes next, I think is really important.

I'm going to link the student budgeting workbook in the show

notes, and I have these types of reflection questions, along with

a financial aid literacy PowerPoint and a printable

workbook for students to reflect on money mindset and to be able

to start practicing some of those budgeting skills with a

budgeting spreadsheet. We'll be back next week for the second of

the three life skills that your students should master before

they graduate.

Hey, before we go, would you mind sharing this episode with a

counselor friend who needs to hear it? You may have seen my

Instagram stories recently. I just have to share this funny

story. Someone in a large Facebook group of high school

counselors, shared something cool that they did in their

school, and I publicly because I thought it would be more normal

than sending them a message when they didn't know me, I asked

them if they wanted to be on the podcast to share it. And he

immediately responded that it sounded like a scam, to which I

just giggled all day, and I had to respond, nope. I'm just a

person with a podcast. So I say that to say that not everyone

knows I have a podcast for high school counselors. So you taking

a second to send this episode to a high school counselor friend

is the powerful word of mouth exposure I need to get these

counseling tips into the air pods of more high school

counselors. So I appreciate you stopping and doing whatever

you're doing right now to hit share with a friend and just

send it in a text message to a friend right now. I'll see you

next week.

Thanks for listening to today's episode of High School

Counseling Conversations. All the links I talked about today

can be found in the show notes and also at

counselorclique.com/podcast. Be sure to hit follow wherever you

listen to your podcasts so that you never miss a new episode.

Connect with me over on Instagram. Feel free to send me

a DM @counselorclique, that's C, L, I, Q, U, E. I'll see you next

week.