It's never easy to learn how to handle money, especially when you didn't grow up with much of it. Representative Gregory Meeks of New York knows what that's like. He grew up in public housing, then played college football at Adelphi University before getting his law degree at Howard University. Now he holds one of the most coveted seats in Congress, a spot on the House financial services committee.  For over nine years, Meeks has supported the Financial Football effort. The game, a partnership between the NFL and Visa, is designed to teach young people, especially in disadvantaged areas, about how to handle money by lending the subject the pace, if not the thrill, of a football game. Each play involves multiple choice questions about personal finance topics including everything from checking accounts to mortgages. Scoring a win leads to harder questions. Now Meeks, the former college football player, spends a lot of time touring with professional players like Drew Brees and Derrick Brooks to talk about what comes next.  We talked to Meeks to find out how his efforts in financial literacy have affected how he thinks about money.  What has been your experience of money? Did anyone teach you about it?  I'm a product of public housing. My parents grew up poor but their dream was to own a home. When I was out of law school I wanted to make sure to help them, to make sure their credit was fixed, to teach them the ins and outs of being homeowners. Watching them repair their credit and obtaining their dream after a couple of years of struggle is what made me realize I had to do the same with my son.  What's the first and best lesson you learned about money? First you have to manage your checking account, and pay attention to how the balance goes so that you're living within your means. That's the thing that's most important. If you put a purchase on a charge card, you're paying it off forever. You have to know how to pay it off before you go deeply in debt. There's also the importance of saving, so that if something goes wrong, you have a cushion. It's about not taking every dime and spending it; it's about putting some aside so that you have it for a rainy day. What spurred you to talk about financial literacy? Being a member of Congress on the financial services committee and going to high schools across my district. It's easy to see that if we educated our young people so that they're financially savvy, we help our country. We prevent future financial crises and keep them away from products that could ruin them. They come to understand the value of a good credit ratings. If I had my choice, every high school would be teaching financial literacy along with math and science.  The people behind the financial crisis, at least the ones packaging mortgages, were financially savvy. It didn't stop the crisis. What do you think accounts for that disconnect?What they were doing is they were able to sell products that should never been sold, [such as] no-doc loans and balloon rates on adjustable mortgages. They were telling people they were qualified for mortgages without checking to see if they were gainfully employed. They thought they would just take the mortgage and sell it and soemone else would be stuck with the bad paper. If those buyers [had] been able to read the paper themselves, they never would have agreed to sign those products. You wouldn't have allowed someone to steer you into a higher-interest loan or be taken advantage of by people who were more savvy.  Money can be an intimidating topic even to people who are used to it. How do you teach kids who don't have money how to think about it? I talk about how this is not just about fun, it's about business. If you don't understand how to protect your money, you'll end up losing it. It's smart for them to understand for themselves that if you have bad credit it's going to cost much more than it would if you had the cash and made the payments timely, and how valuable the money is, and how you can make the dollar last a longer period of time.  Learning how to handle money is often a lifelong process. What financial lessons are you still working for yourself?I am still trying to make sure to save enough money and thinking about how to invest it – at my age, I wonder whether I should keep it in aggressive stocks, or keep it in something that's more safe. Do I do it with a broker, do I do it on my own, do I learn from my friends?  Do you use outside help for your money? Do you think other people should? I always believe that there's advice and counsel [that's useful] if you understand also that you have to know what you're asking for. People can make recommendations to you, but if you don't know how to evaluate those recommendations, you may not be doing the best thing for you. When it comes to investments, I have to go to someone else to understand them, but then I have to make a judgment. I can't do that if I don't have a basic understanding myself.
Representative Gregory Meeks talks about growing up poor and teaching young Americans how to take care of their money