What’s Your Future Self’s Story?

Financial literacy may seem like an overwhelming or taboo topic, but did you know that 1 in 3 millennials ranked saving money as their number one goal for the year, even ahead of living a healthy lifestyle?  But while saving was a top priority, a majority are still struggling with high levels of debt and a lack of a personal budget to help save for the future.

For the past decade, Ad Council and AICPA’s Feed the Pig campaign has helped improve financial literacy among Americans ages 25-34 by encouraging them to make savings part of their daily lives. Check out our hilarious but poignant past PSAs highlighting the benefits of smart purchases here.

To better meet this challenge, Feed the Pig is introducing a new digital game about saving called Yesterday’s Tomorrow (www.game.feedthepig.org).

A result of the Feed the Pig Challenge (a partnership between AICPA, Ad Council and Games for Change), the game asks players to consider how financial decisions they make now impact them later in life. By tapping into their passion for gaming, Yesterday’s Tomorrow can empower players to develop healthy financial habits.

MORE ABOUT “YESTERDAY’S TOMORROW”

• Yesterday’s Tomorrow is a narrative game that takes approximately 15-20 minutes to play.
• The game asks players to consider how financial decisions they make now impact them later in life, and encourages players to develop a relationship with a future version of themselves – jumping through key life stages and instantly seeing the outcomes of those choices from teenage years through retirement.
• The main interface is presented in the form of a photo album with snapshots that represent both required and elective stories at each life stage. Whether the player decides to buy a car, adopt a pet, get married, or travel the world, their decisions impact the choices they can make later in the game and their finances, career, social life, education, worldliness, and health.
• Yesterday’s Tomorrow was developed by Crafter.life Studios and is free to use at FeedThePig.org

KEY STATS

• 1 in 3 millennials (34%) ranked saving money as their number one goal for the year
• A majority of millennials (65%) attributed their lack of saving to impulse buying and not establishing a personal budget (62%)
• A majority of 18-34 year-olds play video games at least three times a week (Zogby 2014).

Will you help us spread the word about Yesterday’s Tomorrow and the resources available at FeedThePig.org? Here’s how you can help:

• Play Yesterday’s Tomorrow and write a blog post about your experience.
  • Play it by yourself or with your family and chronicle the conversation in your blog post!
• Share your financial successes, failures or challenges.
  • Identify one of the key life stages brought to life in the game. Relate how your experience then was similar or different to the game. Would you have acted differently or benefitted from having this information then?
  • Do you have a personal experience setting and meeting a financial goal? Discuss how the resources from Yesterday’s Tomorrow andFeedthePig.org can help others to reach their goals too.
  • Are you still struggling to pay off student loans or credit card debt? What would you have done differently if you’d played a game likeYesterday’s Tomorrow when you were in high school or college?
  • Whether it’s saving, budgeting or reducing debt, what’s your financial goal?  Share your goal with your readers and discuss how resources you found in Yesterday’s Tomorrow and onFeedThePig.org will help you achieve it.
  • What are 5 things you learned from the game that you wish you knew earlier in life?
• Include Yesterday’s Tomorrow and FeedthePig.org in your financial resource guides.
• Share on social media using #FeedThePig.