Money Matters wins Rep. Kevin Mullin’s 2023 Congressional App Challenge in California’s 15th District

When asked what inspired the creation of Money Matters, the student said, “I was inspired to create this app during a personal finance course which I created and led over the summer for middle schoolers. It was also based on a club which I had founded and led at my middle school in the year prior. I realized that I could benefit more people if I created an app out of my curriculum, which could then reach more people than I individually can.

Financial illiteracy is a big cause of bad financial outcomes and can also cause bad social outcomes such as staying with abusive partners.
– 70% of college students graduate with debt, but only 6% of them have taken a class on managing debt (Journal of Economics and Economic Education Research).
– 54% of Americans don’t have enough savings to cover 3 months of expenses if they lost their income (Forbes).
– And in a survey, 66% of Americans showed a lack of understanding of interest rates, mortgage rates, and financial risk, a fraction which continues to grow (FINRA).
These statistics paint a foreboding picture, and I want to do my part in reducing them.

Additionally, I wanted the app to focus on a bigger age range than my camp did because I felt that it could have a more immediate impact. I realized this when many of the parents who had sat in on my camp told me that it was beneficial for them too, and they learned several new things.

A close family friend of mine is 45 years old and currently lives paycheck to paycheck and is still paying off various debts. She hasn’t had stable housing in many years, at one point lived in her car, and relies heavily on her friends to support her financially. This isn’t all her fault, but an unfortunate effect of never learning about budgeting, credit management, or any other crucial personal finance topics when she was younger, and not having the time or money to learn about them now.

Part of my motivation to create this app was to help people like her who can use this resource to get back on their feet. I realized that instead of my app’s target audience being a particular age group, it should be anybody who wants to improve their finance skills.”