Personal Finance Lessons Learned

Despite the importance of finance, accounting, and consumer intelligence, these topics are typically neglected in high schools. Unfortunately, personal finance is often learned by trial and error. The problem with this method of learning is that it only takes one costly financial mishap to set you back for years. This is why I created a basic personal finance book for total beginners. With these concepts you can use the other books in the Smart Money series to further build your knowledge of personal finance topics.

The context of the lesson is three fold: First, to enhance literacy and utilize digital tools to research, communicate, produce and present. Developing these skills will be of immediate use, as these students have at least two more years in an academic setting. Secondly, they will be acquiring life skills as they define and internalize the concepts of budgeting and personal finance. Thirdly, in the broadest context, they will be able to apply this knowledge when they go forth into the job market and begin making short and long term investments. This lesson is appropriate and timely for these students as they will soon be leaving high school and embarking on various life and career paths. It is of critical importance that they understand how credit works and how to be fiscally responsible early on, so that they can avoid making bad decisions that have long-term and life altering ramifications. This demonstrates my commitment to their lifelong ability to learn and use information

Whew, where to start? The personal finance class through Dame Ramsey’s Foundations in Personal Finance textbook and video series really had a lot of useful information, and it is hard to pick out the most impactful chapters and topics. However, I think the most important stuff for me was his five foundations for financial success, which were reinforced throughout the course. I am not downplaying the other important stuff in the course, including learning about the history of credit, budgeting, consumer awareness, investing, insurance, and taxes, but I think that mastering the fundamentals is important, which is why I am choosing to highlight them in this paper.

This course provides an overview of the elements necessary for effective personal financial planning and the opportunity to apply the techniques and strategies essential to this understanding. Primary areas of study include creating and managing a personal budget, understanding and paying taxes, working with financial institutions, wise use of credit cards and consumer loans, financing automobiles and homes, and the use of insurance for protecting one’s family and property.

c. Smaller payments mean more time in debt. d. Your lower interest loans also get rolled into the deal so you end up with minimal savings.

1. Describe a real or made up but realistic situation that could cause you or someone you know to have to use money from a financial reserve. (3-6 sentences. 2.0 points)

The first reason why college students should be required to take a Personal Finance class is to help them learn how to balance a checkbook. Balancing a checkbook is a very crucial thing when trying to manage the expenses that come up in everyday; such as paying bills, buying food, filling up the car with gasoline. Knowing how much money that is in the student's banking account at all times can be very beneficial to the student, especially if an emergency arises unexpectedly. A balanced checkbook is important for many other reasons such as being able to catch fraud; Thieves today do not need to physically

This personal finance paper will concentrate on the insufficient amount of guidance that is available concerning student loans. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how prospective and current college students are ill prepared in their education and understanding of student loans. Three major issues that will be outlined in this paper include the large majority of college students are no longer able to pay for college out of pocket due to the rising costs, the effect that national debt has on students degrees, and finally the lack of early financial education to make crucial decisions. Strategic recommendations these issues include for students to

The goal of this course is to get you thinking about personal finance issues at a point in your life when you still have time to benefit from the power of time in generating wealth to accomplish your other life goals. The financial decisions you make early in life with determine in great extent the quality of life you will enjoy later, especially given the turbulent and uncertain economic conditions. Money isn’t everything, but a lack of it will impact almost every aspect of your life and those who surround you.

Economic knowledge is very important to have, especially in modern America. Dave Ramsey, a speaker, and guide for the public helps better educate on the importance of money and how it works. From a series of videos by Dave Ramsey, he brought to my attention a few important parts of saving. One of them is to always pay with cash. Another being avoiding acceptance of loans. Lastly, Ramsey hammered in the idea of always looking for opportunities to save money. These three points stood out to be most important to me.

Lewis Townsend, a financial educator, came to talk to Radford students about how to stay out of debt. He is from Chicago, but has been in Virginia for 3 years educating students on how to use their money wisely. Townsend had a comical outlook on finance, he wasn’t boring everyone with just numbers. His favorite quote is “Rich people stay rich by living like they are broke, broke people stay broke by living like they are rich.” Lewis said that on average women have better credit than men. He talked about the 3 credit bureaus, Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion.

Future initiatives with financial education can change the landscape of an individual’s life and the economy in which we live. If there is limited focus on learning about personal finances we continue to set our economy up for constant failure. There is a substantial amounts of education provided to school age children that does not directly impact their financial education for their future. In high school individuals learn

Financial literacy is essential in living in today’s society, therefore it should be taught at a young age because people have been going bankrupt more than ever before. According to Kelly Walsh, “Students between ages 18-25 have at least one credit card. By the time they graduate half of them have four or more credit cards that have an average balance of $3,000” (Walsh). If students were taught at a younger age how credit cards actually work; they would better understand the consequences of debt. For instance, if students were to research different credit

helps a person to manage his personal finances and also to describe the three products of

Growing up with parents who didn’t know much about money put me in a position where I had to learn how to be financially responsible at a young age. Before my 18 birthday I wanted to open my own checking account and eventually a credit card in my name without any cosigner. With this in mind before my 18th birthday, I research every bank from big banks such as Bank of America to little credit unions like Arizona Federal. I learn about the fees, how to avoid them, the advantages and disadvantages of a big bank and credit unions, credit reports, the different type of credit cards available and what the best way to obtain them is. Then at 18, I opened my first bank account and subsequently a credit card a couple months later all without a cosigner. With the knowledge I have obtained on my journey, I know I would be an excellent fit for the company and looking forward to working with the team, and ready to educate the public about finances.