The Money Management Certification Program is a guide to managing money with your whole family in mind. It comes with a workbook and an online code to sign into their site. This is a full program and it is able to be completed with just the workbook if you do not have access to the internet. This program covers beginning money management by teaching you how to track your money, set goals, make a budget and explains about savings.  The workbook plus a lifetime subscription to the site costs $29.99 and each extra workbook is 50% off.

The way the book is set up is that the parent is the banker. This helps parents make sure the kids know how and why they are using their money. Then you make the initial deposits and start with the book or online to start tracking your money. This program is geared towards the entire family for use and fits into any homeschooling type. It can be used with your math curricula or on its own. It aligns to Jump$tart National Standards for K-12 Personal Finance Education. It is made for anyone whether they homeschool or not. It fits in perfectly into our homeschool lessons.

There are several pro’s to this program. One of the first ones to me is that you can use this with your family if you are homeschooling or if you are not. Teaching your child how to manage money is a very important tool to have. The program also makes it very easy to use for all ages.  I used this with my 8, 7, and 4 year old. We started the program at just the right time as the kids already had some things they wanted to save for. Even though my four year old is not old enough to read or write, he was able to understand he had a goal of something he wanted to buy. I helped him save his money and keep track of how much more he needed in order to get it. My older two were very excited to see their balance grow each week with their allowance. This made them want to do extra things for extra money. I really enjoyed the goal sheets even for myself as I want to trade my van in for a newer one and need money to do so. The kids were able to understand spending and saving as well as keeping track of it. It taught them that they needed to save if they wanted something.  When they worked so hard to save the money and earned enough, they decided they wanted something better and are still saving.

Con’s to the program are few to us. The interest and the net worth sections were a little hard for them to grasp at such a young age. This would not be an issue for families with older kids. The online portion of the product was a nice extra but it took a good amount of time to get it initially set up. Pulling a workbook out and using it while writing everything by hand was much easier. Plus, we displayed the tracking worksheet so they could see it every day.

Overall this is a great product that I was very pleased to use. I had wanted to teach my kids about saving and spending for a while. This book really helped me be able to explain it to them and they understood it. I loved the worksheets that were a great benefit. There are not only money tracking sheets but practice deposit slips and practice checks. I really recommend it to all families that are ready to add in money management to their home.

Product Review by Samantha Massey, The Old Schoolhouse® Magazine, LLC, March 2012