Your Money Worth: Building the Future of Financial Wellness & Inclusion in Caribbean Communities & Beyond
Your Money Worth: Building the Future of Financial Wellness & Inclusion in Caribbean Communities & Beyond
Share this
I know firsthand how online financial education can transform someone’s life, because it helped me build a $200,000* net worth in 5 years.
Luckily for me, I got to start my personal finance self-education journey in the United States. There, I had access to digital financial education from my employer at work, in my local community library, as a bank customer, and via online personal finance blogs, for free.
Free and accessible online financial education helped me pay off $90,000 in debt, buy a home, invest almost $100,000 for the long-term and overcome life events that set me back financially, like major losses in household income due to:
- Scaling back my work in my engineering career, to be the primary caregiver to my son;
- Going from a two-income household to a one-income household; and
- Transitioning to the financial services field in part-time roles to balance solo-parenting and caregiving responsibilities.
Adults focus more on short-term spending than long-term saving and planning. 44% of adults can't cover a major expense without borrowing, and almost 50% are financially vulnerable.
After moving back to Saint Kitts, I realized there was a big problem of low financial literacy across the entire Eastern Caribbean Currency Union. According to the ECCB’s Financial Literacy and Financial Inclusion Survey Results Report (2023), adults focus more on short-term spending than long-term saving and planning. 44% of adults can’t cover a major expense without borrowing, and almost 50% are financially vulnerable. This is not a problem just for individuals because financial consumers’ poor financial health affects the financial system at large; fueling the region’s unsustainable rates of non-performing loans (NPLs). Meanwhile, there is a scarcity of free and readily available financial education resources and structured programs for adults.
To tackle the problem, I founded Your Money Worth, a tech-enabled company to build digital financial education solutions to reduce non-performing loans & empower communities in the region and beyond.
Building the Your Money Worth Digital Financial Education Platform
Summer 2024 | Organisation of Eastern Caribbean States Global Startup Hub x Draper University Hero Training Program
In 2024, I was one of 22 technology and technology-enabled startup founders selected by the OECS Global Startup Hub to participate in the Draper University Hero Training Program in Silicon Valley, California. Over the course of five weeks, this immersive, entrepreneurial training provided me a transformative experience where I honed my skills, refined my business model, and gained invaluable insights from industry leaders and fellow entrepreneurs across 30 countries.
Summer 2025 | Financial Education Event Series & Alpha Phase Testing
As part of the Alpha testing phase of the Your Money Worth Platform, I hosted the Your Money Worth Financial Education in the Community: Summer Financial Wellness Event Series, from June 17th to July 17th, 2025, in collaboration with the Charles A Halbert Public Library in St. Kitts, the Nevis Public Library Service and the Caribbean Confederation of Credit Unions.
More than 90% of attendees chose to participate online and a subset registered on the Your Money Worth web platform, revealing technical bugs to resolve.
This initial test set the stage for the platform’s next stage of development and more collaborations with institutional partners.
2026 | Early Access and Institutional Beta Programs
Just over 100 people signed up for early access and API Harowe, a manufacturer in Sandy, Point St. Kitts, is partnering to bring financial education and financial wellness as an employee benefit to their management and staff, powered by Your Money Worth.
In 2026, individual users and groups of employees and banking customers will test online financial education programs and provide feedback on content and the platform’s usability, as part of Your Money Worth’s Early Access & Institutional Beta Programs.
I’m excited to continue making progress and building more partnerships as Your Money Worth moves towards the next milestone.
Melisa Boutin, CFEI®
Melisa Boutin is a Certified Financial Education Instructor℠, student loan guide author and founder of Your Money Worth, driving the collective financial wellbeing of communities in the region & diaspora.
Melisa Boutin, CFEI®
*All currency is listed in Eastern Caribbean Dollars
About the Your Money Worth Digital Financial Education Platform
Your Money Worth’s Digital Platform combines financial education and financial wellness into one online application. Through partnerships with financial institutions, employers, schools, and grant-making organizations, Your Money Worth drives the collective financial wellbeing of communities in the Caribbean & Diaspora.
Partner with Your Money Worth
Organisations can contribute to product development and access early adopter pricing as an Institutional Beta Program Partner.