CLEVELAND — A new Edward Jones study revealed 46% of Cleveland residents did not learn how to manage their finances until adulthood; 21% don’t seek financial help at all.
I wanted to know what’s out there for people to learn more about their money matters, especially kids. One resource was created by a local woman whose mission is to make money make sense.
Meltrice D. Sharp is a CPA and now an author.
She wrote a children's book birthed out of her desire to teach financial literacy to kids.
I asked her when she fell in love with money matters and she said it was after her first marriage.
"When I had my never again moment, which was after my first divorce. We had a lot of financial issues and it wasn't that we didn't have the finances, it was that we poorly managed what we had," Sharp said.
She realized that she needed to develop a plan.
"When I say you're just developing your plan, you're just telling your money where to go. You're getting in the driver's seat and you're no longer being the passenger of your finances. You're driving to the destination that you want."
Sharp said she didn’t learn about money as a kid, and when she saw her daughter make some of the same mistakes she did, she knew she had to teach her and then teach her grandchildren the importance of financial literacy.
In order to plant the seeds of financial literacy early, she teaches elementary school students, like my Shine girls, about saving, budgeting, and the difference between a want and a need.
Now, she's authored a children's book, Aubrey's Adventure to Cash Land. Aubrey is Sharp's granddaughter, and the story is about her starting a business.
Sharp says, “I wanted to write this book because I knew the importance of starting young so that these habits can continue as they become adults."
Speaking of adults, Sharp saw the need for people in Cleveland to be more literate when it came to their money.
She created an annual event for women, the Money Makeover Conference, to equip women with the tools they need to be successful with their finances. It’s designed to help women step out of the shame of being in debt and do the work to do better with their finances.
Sharp says, “It’s an avoidable struggle, but you gotta do the work, you have to do the work."
If you do the work, money matters begin to make sense.
