NC among few states requiring personal finance classes [Video]

Only nine states currently require students graduating in 2024 to take a standalone personal finance class, according to researchers. North Carolina is one of them.

Local entrepreneur Mary Esposito says she doesn’t recall having a class like that when she was in high school.

“My experience was that it was nothing about financial literacy – no checkbooks, taxes, no investments,” said Esposito.

That would’ve been useful for her as she was launching her business, Purple Pear. Esposito started that company when she was a teen. She had learned how to knit while in treatment for an eating disorder and, upon leaving the facility, started selling her art online.

“I had this money and didn’t know what to do with it at 17,” she said.

Esposito wound up teaching herself about investing and personal finance, then created an Instagram account – MoneyWithMary1.

“I originally started Money with Mary to find other like-minded young women in these spaces with these interests,” she …