Boy Scout devotees be prepared for a comeuppance: When it comes to financial literacy merit badges and other awards, Girl Scouts out earn their male peers over six to one, 348,500 versus 54,000

That’s how the cookie crumbles.

But as with so much in finance, one set of numbers does not tell the whole story.

The “win” comes because Girl Scouts tend to be much more oriented at rewarding the achievement of specific skills (such as preparing a budget) in grade school while the Boy Scouts incorporate money learning into their overall program for kids in their younger years.

However at the highest level of Scouting (Gold Award for Girls, Eagle for Boys), the focus is reversed, with young men required to earn a personal management badge to achieve the honor while young women are’t.

An increase in the Girl Scouts’ efforts to nurture the ability of young women to respect and manage money is one of the many aftershocks of the recession.

“The financial crisis brought a level of urgency,” said Girl Scouts of the USA Chief Girl Expert Dr. Andrea Bastiani.

In a 2012 directive, the national headquarters declared financial literacy a mainstay goal because of the gap from the lack of comfort many parents have in talking about money with their offspring and the lack of time schools devote to the skill.

The increased effort in teaching personal financial skills is being brought to a willing audience.

Nine of 10 girls 8- to 17-years-old polled by the Scouts two years ago said it is important to learn how to manage money and to set financial goals.

With the nationwide call to start financial education as early as possible, the two most commonly earned badges in this category among Girl Scouts are Money Counts for kindergarteners and first graders (82,000) and Money Manager for second and third graders (88,000).

For Money Counts, a youngster learns how to count coins and paper money and the basics about how much things costs.

The Money Manager learning and activities go deeper with a stress on the difference between wants and needs and setting a savings goal for a want.

The badge program is addition to the much more widely known and older financial education the group has done through peddling snacks.

Girl Scouts started selling cookies nearly a century ago in 1917. With 50 million unique customers a year, this retail operation has a fan base roughly equivalent to Groupon and QVC.

The success of the youth group as a force in American commerce far outpaces its $800 million a year in cookie sales.

Nearly 80 percent of women small business owners once were troop members. Fortune 500 c-suite residents with Girl Scout time on their resumes include Yahoo! President and CEO Marissa Mayer, IBM Chairman and CEO Virginia Rometty, Lockheed Martin President and CEO Marilyn Hewson DuPont Chairman and CEO Ellen Kullman.

While none of the money girls earn from cookie sales goes into their own pockets, they do get to decide how the funds are spent that goes to their units.

The spending ranges from troop trips to charity. As one example of the latter, Brownies in Purvis, Mississippi, bought a handicapped accessible swing for a community playground with the fruits of their labor.

For the Boy Scouts, financial literacy is less of a cause. The group’s primary badge promoting education on saving and spending is called Personal Management. To earn it, a scout is required to set up a savings plan for a major family purchase and decide how to get the best deal. In addition, the teen sets a personal budget for 13 weeks.

Since 1972 when it was first offered, the Personal Management merit badge has been one of the most highly sought by Boy Scouts since it is a prerequisite to becoming an Eagle Scout.

In 2013, it ranked 11th in popularity among the 130 merit badges offered: immediately just below Family Life and just above Emergency Preparedness.

First Aid was number one with over 84,000 while Programming was at the bottom with 480.

Despite the increased clamor for financial literacy among the young, the number of Personal Management merit badges awarded last year dropped to 53,000 from 54,000 in 2012.

A Scout spokesperson defended the decline by saying there is a natural fluctuation in the numbers.

The same can be said about nearly all aspects of financial matters including the stock market, personal savings and wages.

The approach to financial education for grade schoolers is more ingrained into the overall program with the Boy Scouts than individual honors to be sought after and displayed as in Girl Scouting.

For Tiger Cubs (ages seven and eight), one of the many achievements Scout leaders are encouraged to promote is a basic understanding about banks. The adults are urged to take the youngsters to a bank so an employee can describe what banks do. Also, the instruction manual suggests a Tiger Cub be told how much money he would have at 21 if he puts $20 in a bank in first grade.

Of course, anyone who accurately forecast interest rates for more than a decade should be promoted to Federal Reserve Chairman rather than Eagle Scout.

Leaders for Bear Cubs (age 9) are directed to have them participate in Save Well, Spend Well activities which include opening a savings account, discussing family finances with their parents or guardians, playing a board game with play money, keep a record of how much money they spend in two weeks and calculating the cost of a meal for each family member.