Teenager takeover: New show puts teens in charge of finances
Would you entrust your entire monthly budget to your teenager? These 15 Australian families have.
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Would you entrust your entire monthly budget to your teenager?
Fifteen Australian families have done just that, in a bid to teach their children financial literacy.
Hosted by Australia’s most famous maths teacher Eddie Woo, Teenage Boss follows 15 teenagers who are given control of their family’s finances for the month.
From grocery shopping to paying bills and unexpected expenses, Woo mentors the teenagers through the ups and downs of household budgets.
Woo has long been renowned at Cherrybrook Technology High School but in recent years his star factor soared and he became known to the world through his YouTube channel WooTube, and this year was a top 10 finalist in the Global Teacher Prize and was also named the Australia Day Local Hero.
The James Rouse Agricultural High School graduate said concept for Teenage Boss was “more important than ever” for today’s teenagers, who are growing up in a mainly cashless society.
“The whole idea of financial literary is so important when we see everything that has happened in the financial sector over the past few years,” he said.
Woo has spent years teaching his students — and the more than 300,000 subscribers following his videos on YouTube — about maths with a practical, real-world approach, and he sees the show as no different.
“For me what attracted me to the idea was that it was about learning … taking mathematical skills and applying it to real life,” he said.
Filmed from November to April, the series was based on a similar concept aired overseas.
Woo, who also recently spoke at TEDxSydney, said it was “a joy” to mentor the participants and help them develop their budgeting and financial skills over the course of a month.
“ … By the time you got to the end of the month, it was really moving how much most teenagers had gotten into this,” he said.
“ … So many of them came to a new-found appreciation for how much work their parents do on a day-to-day basis.”
Although it was a fairly dramatic way to introduce teenagers to financial literary — handing over the entire family’s money for the month — Woo said “there are so many things they wouldn’t encounter unless you put them in the hot seat”.
“The more I did the show, the more I realised you know what, this is such an effective way,” he said.
Teenage Boss premieres on ABC ME on Sunday, June 24 at 6.25pm.