USD Alumna Uses Personal Experience to Spread Message of Financial Literacy
Wintle, originally from Huron, South Dakota, graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration and mathematics from USD in 2017.
At USD Wintle began to explore how she could use her expertise in finance to help others. She thought of her own personal experience as a child helping her father raise lambs that sparked her interest in business. “At eight years old, I was learning things about finance that I didn’t even realize at the time,” Wintle said. “I thought, maybe, I could use those lessons to help others.”
Thus, she developed Money $heep, a non-profit organization dedicated to spreading financial literacy.
“My finance education was helping me understand the logistics of the budgeting process,” Wintle said, “The basic core concepts – things like budgeting, income and saving – I thought I could help others understand.”
One of the organization’s first projects was creating the children’s book, “Mr. Money $heep,” which is aimed at grades third through fifth and includes guided practices. “Mr. Money $heep” is centered around the five foundations of financial literacy: budgeting, saving, income, loans/debt, and investment risk. The goal is to deliver a copy of the book to third to fifth graders in South Dakota in recognition of Financial Literacy Month on April 30 or as Carrie calls it, "Money $heep Monday."
Wintle is now a master’s student in accountancy valuations at Vanderbilt University and has completed prestigious internships at the nationally leading accounting firm, KPMG. Still, she says she is drawn to help South Dakota and that wherever the future takes her, she is thankful for the friendships she developed at USD.
“I could not be doing this without the connections I built in Vermillion,” Wintle said. “I think it speaks very highly of the university and the types of relationships you can build there that people are still willing to support you even after you’re gone.”
