Mind Your Money:a mobile phone-delivered digital financial education program for Hispanics

We designed the Mind Your Money program to replicate the in-person financial coaching programs offered in the community, especially among Hispanics in the Los Angeles area. We used the “Your Money, Your Goals” educational material, created by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau (CFPB). We designed our program taking a community-based participatory approach, where our design was informed by the partner organization and we tailored the material to be linguistically and culturally appropriate. All our program material was delivered electronically. Participants received weekly messages by text and email that invited them to complete activities in our platform. Our goal was to provide participants with information and motivation to change behavior to improve their financial capability and reduce financial stress.

Our six-month program covered the following topics in order: 1) setting financial goals, 2) choosing financial products, 3) paying bills, 4) understanding credit reports and scores, 5) dealing with debt, and 6) saving money. Given that our program took place during the pandemic (May 2021-June 2022), we also added optional material related to managing finances during COVID-19 each month from the CFPB website.

Each month, weekly activities focused on learning about financial topics by reviewing information (week 1), applying financial knowledge using an online tool (week 2), taking an action and reporting action (week 3), and reflecting about household finances by completing an assessment of income, expenses, debt, and savings (week 4). Participants were encouraged to complete work at their own pace and were sent reminders to complete tasks by the end of the month. Participants could continue the program if they completed all monthly activities.

2021-04-01

2022-06-01

Retention Rates
Financial Capability Score (FCS)
Financial Self-Efficacy Scale (FSES)
Financial Stress Indicator (FSI)
*Financial Stress - to add later

Retention rates: percentage of participants who completed program activities at 6 months.

The Financial Capability Score (FCS) was developed by the Center for Financial Security (CFS, Collins & O’Rourke, 2013). This scale has six questions whose aggregate score can range from 0 to 8. This score measures whether an individual: 1) has a budget or a spending plan, 2) feels confident about achieving a financial goal, 3) feels confident about covering an unexpected expense, 4) has an automatic deposit for
savings, 5) has living expenses lower than total income, and 6) has been charged a late fee on a
loan or a bill. Higher values represent more desirable financial behaviors.

The Financial Self-Efficacy Scale (FSES) developed by Lown (2011), to evaluate the impact of our program on financial behavior. We used the six-question version whose aggregate scores range from 6 to 24, with higher values indicating higher levels of financial self-efficacy. The FSES measures “how respondents manage certain financial problems and how they cope with setbacks” (Lown, 2011, p. 57).

The Financial Stress Indicator (FSI) asks participants whether they experienced financial stress in the previous month. It has been used by the Financial Health Network (FHN) to assess financial stress in the Financial Health Pulse survey collected though UAS (Dunn et al., 2022). It is a simple indicator that asks whether participants have experienced financial stress in the previous month.

We designed our program as a community-based randomized controlled trial (RCT) with a wait-list control group. This evaluation design allowed us to measure the impact of our digital financial education program while providing a benefit to all participants.

We used block randomization to assign all community participants in a specific workshop session to either control or treatment groups. Participants chose the day and time that worked best for their schedule, without knowing what workshops would be assigned to treatment or control groups. UAS staff randomly assigned UAS participants to either the treatment or control group.

individual

No

NA

125 individuals, where 83 were recruited through the two partnering community organizations (non-UAS group), and 42 were recruited through the Understanding America Study Internet Panel.

70 individuals in treatment group, and 55 individuals in control group.