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Curriculum · Stage 4 of 7 · Ages 18–24

Life skills for young adults, 18 to 24

Leaving home turns life skills into necessities. Renting a first place, a monthly budget, credit, a pay stub, taxes, a retirement account, five dinners without a recipe, a flat tire, a carbon monoxide alarm: the 18 units in this stage are the ones people most often say they had to learn the hard way. The checklist below lists the skills that start at 18; the teen checklist covers everything before.

18
units
60
outcomes
24
lessons
20
on the checklist

What to be able to do by 25

By area

Body

Routine health checks

  • Can name your last blood pressure reading and whether it was in range
  • Can keep dental and medical check-ups without anyone else booking them
  • Can keep vaccinations up to date
  • Can stand up and move at least once an hour in a desk job
1.12 How to stretch your hip flexors1.16 Knowing your blood pressure

Mind

Solitude and loneliness

  • Can spend a whole evening alone without a screen on
  • Can tell being alone from being lonely
  • Can make a plan to see people when lonely, and carry it out
2.15 Spending an evening alone without screens

Stress and burnout

  • Can notice when “fine” is not true
  • Can leave work on time without apologising
  • Can take a real break with the work phone off
  • Can tell ordinary stress from burnout and say something before one becomes the other

People

Workplace communication

  • Can make small talk at a work event, and leave it
  • Can say one useful thing in a meeting
  • Can send a short follow-up with decisions and next steps
  • Can answer “how are you?” with something other than “fine” when it matters
3.16 Speaking up in a meeting

Money

Budgeting

  • Can list monthly income and fixed costs
  • Can track spending for a month
  • Can stay inside the budget
4.9 Making a monthly budget

Credit

  • Can name what raises or lowers a credit score
  • Can get your credit report free and read it
  • Can use a credit card and pay it in full each month

Reading a contract

  • Can find the cancellation terms, auto-renewal and fees
  • Can read a lease before signing it
  • Can refuse to sign anything with blanks in it
4.10 Reading a contract to find how to cancel

Pay and taxes

  • Can read a pay stub: gross pay, net pay, deductions
  • Can file an income tax return, to the IRS in the US or the CRA in Canada
  • Can keep the records a return needs
  • Can name the usual deadline: April 15 in the US, April 30 in Canada
4.13 Filing your own tax return

Retirement saving

  • Can explain how a 401(k) or IRA (US), or an RRSP or TFSA (Canada), saves tax
  • Can take the full employer match where one is offered
  • Can explain an index fund and why its fees matter
  • Can make saving automatic
4.14 How retirement accounts save you tax4.15 Index funds and why fees matter

Safety

Carbon monoxide

  • Can fit and test a carbon monoxide alarm
  • Can recognise the symptoms: headache, dizziness, nausea, several people at once
  • Can refuse to run a generator, grill or engine indoors or in a closed garage
5.8 Carbon monoxide detector beeping: what it means and what to do

Information

Reading a study

  • Can tell correlation from causation
  • Can ask how many people, which people, and who paid
  • Can read past the headline to what the study measured

AI at work

  • Can check AI output before it goes out under your name
  • Can follow your employer's rules on what data goes into which tool
  • Can say when you used AI

Kitchen

Five meals from memory

  • Can cook five different dinners without a recipe
  • Can turn vegetables that are going soft into soup
  • Can scale a recipe down to 1 or up to 4
7.15 Five dinners you can cook from memory

Meal planning

  • Can plan a week of dinners and shop once for it
  • Can tell a quality date on a package from a safety date
  • Can freeze food and thaw it in the fridge, not on the counter
7.11 Reading food date labels7.12 How to thaw chicken fast7.16 Planning a week of dinners with one shopping trip

Home

Renting your first place

  • Can photograph a rental's condition, dated, on move-in day
  • Can set up power, internet and renter's (tenant) insurance
  • Can split chores and bills with housemates in writing
8.14 Reading a utility bill8.16 Recording a rental's condition on move-in day8.17 Splitting chores with a housemate

Home maintenance and preparedness

  • Can keep a weekly cleaning routine
  • Can test smoke and carbon monoxide alarms monthly
  • Can patch a nail hole in drywall
8.12 Building a 72-hour emergency kit8.15 How to clean a dryer vent

Hands

Assembling furniture

  • Can follow an assembly diagram that has no words
  • Can sort and count the parts before starting
  • Can anchor a tall bookcase or dresser to the wall so it cannot tip onto anyone
9.17 Assembling flat-pack furniture

Basic car care

  • Can change a flat tire using the spare and the jack, on level ground with the parking brake on
  • Can find the correct tire pressure on the sticker inside the driver's door, not on the tire
  • Can check the oil level
  • Can jump-start a car, connecting the cables in the right order
9.14 How to put air in tires9.15 How to change windshield wipers9.16 Checking the oil and other fluids under the hood9.18 Changing a flat tire

Take the 2-minute test