NGPF is celebrating Latinx/Hispanic Heritage Month (Sept. 15 - Oct. 15) by highlighting Latinx/Hispanic leaders and educators via dedicated posts, Speaker Series’, and student activities on the NGPF blog.

This week, we’re highlighting Jennifer Toledo, content creator and founder of Talk Finances to Me, which aims to help the next generation take control of their financial journey. “My parents taught me to save, but they didn't teach me everything else,” Jennifer says, “I wanted someone to help me understand how to manage my money, how to organize my finances, and how to build generational wealth, so I became her.” She creates content on a variety of social media outlets in order to share positive and educational information about money, especially to young women.

Featured Resource: TikTok Tips 

Jennifer believes that in order to best reach the next generation of young people, she needs to meet them where they are. She has produced tons of short clips with inspirational and aspirational money advice on the popular app, TikTok. Here’s a couple of activity ideas to use these posts in the classroom.

This TikTok on your relationship with money could be a great lead-in activity to kick off a course or any lesson where students consider how they think about money. She lists some great discussion questions to help examine our thoughts on money.

• What are our biggest negative/positive memories around money?
• What did our parents tell us money was and how to spend it?
• Did we talk about money or was it considered disrespectful to talk about it?

Or, have students search the talkfinancestome TikTok for some of their favorite posts on a particular unit topic and build a synopsis of the 3-5 key takeaways from that unit. You could even have them record their own TikTok to add to their synopsis!

Please note that NGPF did not screen every single post in the Talk Finance To Me TikTok feed to ensure they are all student-friendly. Please advise students accordingly.

Bonus Resource: Talk Finances to Me Blog

Check out this blog post about emergency funds. Have students answer the questions to reflect and make a plan to put their newfound knowledge to use! It is available as an article and also as a video.

• What are some emergencies that you might experience in the next 3-5 years?
• How much would you like to have in your emergency fund and by when?
• What type of account will you use for your emergency fund?
• Make a budget for how you are going to set aside funds to reach that emergency fund goal.

You can also find Jennifer and Talk Finances to Me on Instagram, Twitter, and Facebook.  We enjoyed her fresh and honest sharing about her own financial journey and hope you and your students will too.

Be sure to check out the NGPF blog for past posts from Latinx/Hispanic Heritage Month and we hope you enjoyed the featured Latinx/Hispanic financial leaders and educators in our weekly Speaker Series and Virtual PDs this past month. We are proud to highlight the contributions of these amazing individuals.

See all our upcoming PD opportunities here!

About the Author

Dan Rolando

Always enamored with learning, Dan’s parents affectionately nicknamed him “The Sponge” as a kid. After earning his Engineering Master’s from NC State University followed by six years of teaching, Dan joins NGPF to pursue his passion of inspiring financial capability in anyone who will listen. Having navigated seven years of higher education debt-free through scholarships, work, creative budgeting, and a whole lot of help, he recognizes the freedom that comes from financial independence and hopes to share that gift with others. In the (rare) times he’s not discussing finance, Dan enjoys running, reading, playing board games, spending time with his daughter, and being sous chef for his wife.