DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM At Sacred Hearts Academy, Lurline Choy teaches an advanced-placement economics class for seniors where students are working on a finance project. This team of girls -- Jenna Leong, left, Denise Torres, Patricia Bufalini, Trisha Yee and Deana Sin -- discusses trading strategies.

Program builds
financial discipline

A conference addresses the need to
develop sound pocketbook policies

It's an uphill battle these days for parents who want to raise financially fit kids -- and girls, especially, could need a leg up.

"There is almost no moment in their lives when kids are free of some message that says 'spend and consume, spend and consume, spend and consume,'" said Joline Godfrey, founder of Independent Means Inc. of Santa Monica, Calif. "No matter how much money your family has, your children are prey."

Grades 6-12 get tools for economic future What: "Girls' Financial Literacy Conference" featuring Joline Godfrey When: Sunday, 1-3:30 p.m. Where: Sacred Hearts Academy, 3253 Waialae Ave. Who: Open to 200 girls in grades six to 12 and their parents Cost: Free. Call Andrea Hamilton at 734-5058, ext. 229, to register. A separate session for teachers will be held at the school next Monday from 3:15 to 7:15 p.m. Sponsors: Augustine Educational Foundation, First Hawaiian Bank, Soroptimist International of Waikiki, the Trimble Foundation and Zonta Club of Honolulu On the Net: www.sacredhearts.org; under "News and Events," click "Special Events"

Godfrey will headline a "Girls' Financial Literacy Conference" at Sacred Hearts Academy on Sunday afternoon that is free and open to girls in grades six through 12 from public and private schools on Oahu and their parents. A separate session for teachers will be held the next day. (See box for registration details.)

While parents learn how to shield their daughters form relentless credit card campaigns and guide them into new money skills, the girls will sample living on a budget and weigh decisions such as leasing vs. buying a car. Topics range from "effective allowances" to "mastering plastic" and developing an entrepreneurial spirit.

Girls are vulnerable economically because they tend to earn less than their male counterparts, live longer and have lesser retirement plans, said Betty White, head of Sacred Hearts Academy, an all-girls school in Kaimuki. She said she sees the problem among her own students, who might already have part-time jobs but "know little about wise spending or saving, or investing, of course."

"We're graduating girls who lack financial literacy skills," White said. "They are going off to college unable to manage their personal finances. They want all the good things in life, but they have little recognition of what it's going to take to get those good things, whether the designer sunglasses or whatever."

DENNIS ODA / DODA@STARBULLETIN.COM A team of girls randomly chose a packet containing items needed to make a game board, but each team will need to trade items with another team to make a complete board. Shaolin Low picks a packet from Choy's basket while her teammate, Cindy Lee, watches.

"I think parents do a lot of talking at home, but they don't know how to teach girls and boys the skills and tools for saving," she added. "It's just easier to give them the money."

Godfrey, author of "Raising Financially Fit Kids," said girls have outdated notions of financial security, although 90 percent of women have to take care of themselves financially at some point in their lives.

"We find that even today, two-thirds of girls in schools, when asked how they're going to support themselves economically, say, 'Well, I'm going to marry well,'" Godfrey said. "At the same time, what we're finding is young men are rebelling and beginning to ask, 'Why should I do that?' What we have emerging is a cultural gap."

Meanwhile, marketers are going after younger children and can now reach them 24 hours a day, seven days a week, she said.

"Financial education is economic self-defense," Godfrey said. "Basically what you're doing is making sure your children have defenses against a world full of marketers targeting their pocketbooks."

The problem is more pressing these days as U.S. policy shifts from "safety nets" to "self-sufficiency," she said, as evident in the push to privatize Social Security.

"Increasingly, if this generation can't understand and manage their own finances," Godfrey warned, "no one else is going to do it for them."