Elevate Cents Visits Camiling Tarlac

Elevate Cents recently had the opportunity to hold a financial literacy session at the Science High School in Camiling Tarlac, where we worked with more than 100 students on some of the financial topics that can have the biggest impact on their future.

Every student also received an Elevate Cents Financial Literacy Handbook to bring home, so the lessons from the session would not end once the program was over. Students were also shown how to access and use the financial tools available on the Elevate Cents website directly from their phones.

For this session, we focused mainly on three areas: budgeting, investing, and debt. Throughout the session, we kept things interactive by asking students questions about the lessons and having them apply what they had learned to example financial scenarios.

We started with budgeting. Instead of treating a budget as something restrictive, we talked about it as a simple way to take control of your money. Students looked at how everyday choices like spending, saving, and deciding between needs and wants, can shape their financial habits over time. We also mentioned how the idea of a 50/30/20 budget was flexible, and that it could be adjusted to fit the costs of your needs.

From there, we moved into investing, and one of the most important ideas we wanted the students to understand was compounding interest. We showed how money can grow over time, and when returns begin earning returns of their own. What stood out to the students was how much of a difference time can make. You do not always need to start with a large amount of money for investing to matter, as starting early and being consistent can create very strong returns.

However, we also wanted students to see the other side of compound interest.The same force that can help grow your savings can work against you when you borrow money. During the debt portion of the session, we went through different loan examples, and we specifically went over 5-6 loans, which are very common in the Philippines. We also compared interest rates, repayment periods, monthly payments, and the total amount a borrower would eventually pay.

That led to an important discussion: the cheapest-looking loan is not always actually the cheapest. A lower monthly payment might seem more manageable at first, but if the repayment period is longer or the interest rate is higher, you can end up paying much more overall. We wanted students to get into the habit of looking beyond the monthly payment and asking, “How much is this really going to cost me?”

One of the main goals of Elevate Cents is to make financial literacy feel practical and relevant. These are not lessons students should only encounter once they are already earning, borrowing, or investing. Understanding these ideas earlier gives them more time to build good habits and avoid costly mistakes.

Seeing more than 100 students take part in the session made the day especially meaningful for us. We hope the students left with a better understanding of how money works, but more importantly, with the confidence to ask better questions and make more informed financial decisions in the future.