Introduction
Before Tereza Kanyimbi explained a single concept about saving or budgeting, she ran an experiment. She gave seven primary school children 400 Malawi Kwacha each and asked them simply to return the next day. No lesson, no instruction, just a quiet test of instinct. What happened between that first handout and the following morning became the foundation for everything Kanyimbi, a KAFI Cohort 34 fellow from Malawi, taught over the two days that followed.
The project's title, on the importance of saving for young people and the impact of budgeting, might suggest a fairly standard classroom lesson. What made Kanyimbi's approach distinct was her insistence on evidence before instruction, treating her learners' actual behavior as the true starting point of the curriculum rather than a set of assumptions about what children already understood about money.
Letting Behavior Speak Before Words Did
Kanyimbi's decision to open her project with a preliminary money test, rather than a lecture, reflected a deliberate teaching philosophy. Instead of assuming she knew how her young learners already related to money, she chose to observe it directly, watching to see who would hold onto their money and who would spend it right away, most likely on sweets, the most immediate temptation available to a child with cash in hand.
The results, gathered the following day, gave her exactly the starting point she needed. Of the seven children who took part, only three had kept their money intact. The remaining four had used most of theirs to buy sweets. Rather than treating this as a disappointing outcome, Kanyimbi treated it as data, a clear, honest snapshot of where her learners actually stood before any teaching began. That snapshot shaped the direction and emphasis of everything she taught afterward, ensuring her lessons addressed real behavior rather than assumptions about what children already understood.
Defining Saving in Terms Children Could Hold Onto
With the preliminary results in hand, Kanyimbi moved into direct instruction, beginning with a simple, memorable definition. Saving, she explained, means keeping money safely instead of spending it all at once, a description stripped of any complexity that might have made the concept feel distant or abstract to young learners.
From that definition, she built outward, connecting saving to outcomes children could genuinely picture for themselves. She explained that saving helps children reach specific goals, whether that meant a school item, a toy, or an activity they wanted to take part in later. She also connected saving to something less tangible but equally important, confidence, explaining that when children learn to plan and prepare for tomorrow, they build a sense of control over their own future rather than feeling at the mercy of whatever money happens to be in their hands at any given moment. Alongside confidence, she introduced patience as a core lesson embedded within saving itself, helping children understand that some things can reasonably wait, a concept directly relevant to the sweets many of them had purchased just a day earlier.
Connecting the Lesson Back to the Experiment
Kanyimbi did not let the preliminary activity fade into the background once formal teaching began. She returned to its central theme throughout the session, reinforcing that some things, buying snacks every day, for example, can wait, while saving consistently over time allows a person to eventually afford something bigger or more meaningful. She emphasized a principle central to nearly all effective saving instruction, that even small amounts, when set aside regularly, have the potential to grow into something significant over time.
This repeated return to real, recent behavior, rather than only abstract principle, likely made the lesson considerably more persuasive. The four children who had spent their money on sweets the day before were not being told about a hypothetical stranger's poor spending choice. They were being guided through their own decision, made just hours earlier, and shown a clearer path forward.
Budgeting Broken Into Three Simple Categories
Alongside saving, Kanyimbi introduced budgeting through a straightforward three category framework designed for young minds. Needs, she explained, are things a person must have, using school requirements as a clear, relevant example for her learners. Wants, by contrast, are things a person likes but can live without, sweets being the obvious example given the preliminary activity's results. The third category, savings and goals, covered money set aside deliberately for future purposes, tying the budgeting lesson directly back to the saving concepts she had already introduced.
This three part structure gave children a simple mental checklist they could apply to nearly any spending decision going forward, a practical tool considerably more useful to a young learner than a more complex financial framework designed with adult budgets in mind.
A Message Meant to Travel Home
Kanyimbi closed her teaching with a single, memorable take home message for the children to carry with them: save a little, plan wisely, and your money will help you achieve your goals. Condensing two days of lessons into one simple, repeatable phrase gave the children something easy to remember and, ideally, easy to repeat to parents, siblings, or friends outside the session itself.
What the Children Took Away
The feedback shared by participants suggests the lessons reached well beyond simple memorization. One learner reflected on the broader significance of learning these habits early, noting that saving and budgeting are not only for parents, and that children need to learn now in order to become the best next generation of parents themselves, a striking observation for the intergenerational stakes involved in financial habits formed in childhood.
A second participant connected the lesson directly back to personal behavior, admitting that they did not need a large amount of money to begin saving, and that even the smallest sums should be kept for the future. This learner specifically acknowledged a pattern of spending on sweets, a want rather than a need, and committed to begin keeping and budgeting money starting from that day forward, a direct, personal echo of the very behavior the preliminary money test had first revealed.
A third participant focused on the practical value of budgeting itself, recognizing that it could help avoid overspending and encourage wiser use of money, committing to apply budgeting whenever possible going forward. Together, these three reflections show a group of children moving from unconscious spending habits toward a deliberate, self aware relationship with money, precisely the shift Kanyimbi's two day project was designed to produce.
Early Habits, Lasting Impact
In her closing reflection, Kanyimbi tied her project to a broader belief about childhood financial education, that teaching children to save and budget early helps them grow into adults capable of managing money with confidence and making sound financial decisions. Her project offers a clear, evidence based illustration of that belief in action, moving from an honest baseline measurement of children's existing habits to a structured lesson addressing those exact behaviors, and finally to reflections showing genuine, personal commitment to change.
Kanyimbi described the experience as one she genuinely enjoyed, expressing continued commitment to supporting her community through financial literacy work going forward. That commitment, paired with her willingness to build her teaching around real observed behavior rather than assumptions, suggests an approach likely to remain effective as she continues engaging young learners in future sessions.
A Method Worth Noting
What sets Kanyimbi's project apart is its structure. By beginning with an unannounced test of behavior rather than an announced lesson, she avoided the common pitfall of teaching financial concepts in the abstract, disconnected from how children actually behave when money is placed directly in their hands. That grounding in observed reality, rather than assumed knowledge, gave her subsequent lessons on saving and budgeting a directness and relevance that a purely theoretical session might have struggled to achieve.
Report Summary
Tereza Kanyimbi, a Cohort 34 fellow from Malawi, conducted a two day financial literacy project for primary school learners on the importance of saving and the impact of budgeting. The project began with a preliminary money test, giving seven children 400 Malawi Kwacha each to observe their spending and saving instincts, revealing that only three of the seven kept their money while the rest spent it primarily on sweets. Using these results as a foundation, Kanyimbi taught the meaning and value of saving, connecting it to goal achievement, confidence, and patience, before introducing a three category budgeting framework covering needs, wants, and savings or goals. She closed the session with the take home message to save a little, plan wisely, and let money help achieve future goals. Participant feedback reflected genuine shifts in understanding, with learners recognizing that saving and budgeting habits matter for their own future, committing to save even small amounts, and pledging to budget more consistently going forward. Kanyimbi concluded that teaching children saving and budgeting early builds the foundation for confident, wise financial decision making in adulthood, and expressed continued commitment to supporting her community through financial literacy.
