Banzai is Free!

Posted by Kendall Buchanan on 4 September 2008 | 0 Comments

Since we started working on Banzai over a year ago, we have looked forward to the day when we could make Banzai accessible to everyone for free. We're thrilled to announce that, starting today, teachers and students, parents and children, and even lonely drifters, may access Banzai without charge.

Within a few months of Banzai's pay-only release, we noticed that it was young people who grasped the system most quickly. Youth have yet to be indoctrinated with poor financial habits. Banzai teaches that the most important concept in financial literacy is knowing what your money is for. Every other system in the world gets this wrong, choosing to focus on topics that don't have immediate bearing upon students' lives. This is why we are so excited to announce our new focus on education.

After spending time testing the system in classrooms and receiving feedback from hundreds of teachers. Banzai is now an educational tool. We want to help students grasp desperately needed skills in financial literacy, and there is no better way for them to get their hands dirty than by using Banzai. Teachers can easily monitor their students' progress as they learn to budget, reconcile accounts, use credit cards responsibly, and make a financial plan they can stick to for life. A case study describing one high school's successful experience with Banzai can be found here. We have created many useful resources for teachers including lesson plans and ideas for assignments. Also, getting classes set up is simple—students can sign themselves up in minutes.

If you are already using Banzai, have no fear, the application has not lost any functionality. We welcome parents to consider using Banzai in your families (you can sign up as teachers, your children as students). It will make for an effective way to monitor your children's spending. Also, with our new educational focus, we are actively adding more content to the site in the form of Banzai.edu posts, ideas for teaching, and new features.