a very good idea

McDonald’s Corp. is offering a money management program to its more than 500,000 unit-level employees in the United States, company officials said Thursday. McDonald’s partnered with Visa Inc. to offer the “McDonald’s Practical Money Skills” program, which includes a budgeting guide to track expenses and access to an instructional video and an online resource center at www.practicalmoneyskills.com/mcdonalds. The materials, which are also available in Spanish, are based on Visa’s financial education program, "Practical Money Skills for Life."-- "McD Offers Budget Advice to Workers," Nation's Restaurant News, Dec 4, 08Given the paucity of personal-finance classes in most U.S. public school systems, and given the tremendously diverse nature of much of McDonald's workforce, this could end up being a very good way to educate several different segments of American society. I've been poking around the online resources, and they include a budgeting journal and some helpful loan calculators.I'll be curious to see how McDonald's promotes the program among its employees -- it's one thing to offer it, but another to make your teenaged workforce think realistically about money.