Even though our project has ended, we will still continue to share interesting resources for you and share some glimpses of our project with you! So, stay tuned! Today, we bring you a workshop from our Curriculum on financial literacy!
Many young people see influencer careers as attractive, creative and financially rewarding. On social media, they often see successful creators travelling, promoting products, working with brands and presenting flexible lifestyles. What they usually do not see are the financial responsibilities behind this kind of work.
This is exactly why the InfluVET Curriculum includes the workshop “Financial literacy and influencer income.”
The workshop is part of the Curriculum “Empowering VET teachers and experts on career management in the influencer era” and is designed for VET teachers, trainers, pedagogues, psychologists, career counsellors, youth workers and other professionals who support students in career development. It is a teacher-training activity that helps educators understand how to discuss influencer income with students in a realistic and responsible way.
The Curriculum describes this workshop as a 120-minute session focused on the financial realities of influencer careers. It helps educators explore different income streams available to influencers, such as sponsored content, affiliate marketing, brand partnerships and product sales. At the same time, it opens discussion about the less visible side of digital entrepreneurship: irregular income, budgeting, financial planning and tax obligations.
This topic is especially important because many students encounter online stories that present influencer work as quick, easy and highly profitable. In reality, influencer income can be unstable and depends on many factors, including audience size, engagement, platform changes, content quality, brand cooperation and long-term consistency. For young people making career decisions, it is important to understand both the opportunities and the risks.
One of the strongest parts of the workshop is its practical approach. Through myth-busting activities, budgeting exercises and group discussion, VET experts can reflect on how to make financial literacy more accessible to students. The Curriculum also includes a worksheet where participants create a monthly budget for a hypothetical influencer with an income of €2,000. They are asked to think about rent, food, transport, business equipment, software, taxes, savings and remaining income. This exercise helps show that gross income and real available income are not the same.
For VET experts, this workshop can be useful in many training contexts. It can be tested during teacher training, professional development sessions, career guidance seminars, entrepreneurship education, youth work training or Erasmus+ follow-up activities. It can also be adapted for different national contexts, especially because taxation, social contributions and self-employment rules differ from country to country.
The workshop also connects strongly with different VET sectors. It is relevant for students in economics, business, media, design, ICT, tourism, services and entrepreneurship-related programmes, but also for any young person who needs to understand digital work and financial responsibility. Even students who do not want to become influencers can benefit from learning about budgeting, unstable income, online self-employment and the difference between lifestyle shown online and real financial planning.
By testing this workshop, VET educators can strengthen their own confidence in discussing money, digital careers and self-employment with students. They can also help young people ask better questions: How do influencers earn money? What expenses do they have? What happens when income changes from month to month? What does it mean to pay taxes as a self-employed person? How can I recognise unrealistic claims about online earnings?
The goal is not to discourage students from exploring influencer careers. The goal is to help them make informed choices. Influencer work can be creative and entrepreneurial, but it also requires planning, responsibility, financial literacy and realistic expectations.
The InfluVET project encourages VET experts to test the “Financial literacy and influencer income” workshop and adapt it to their own professional context. In the influencer era, career guidance should not only ask students what they want to become — it should also help them understand what that career really requires.
Try out this workshop with VET experts and support students in seeing beyond the idea of “easy money” towards a more realistic understanding of digital work, entrepreneurship and financial responsibility.