Personal Finance

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.

1. If you are borrowing money and paying interest, would you prefer an interest rate that compounds annually, quarterly, or daily? Why? (2-4 sentences. 1.0 points)

Your final project will integrate what you have learned throughout the course into the core elements of a financial plan. Although not comprehensive, and in fact only the beginning of what should be a living document, this project will allow you time to organize and reflect on key areas of personal finances that you will need to address throughout your financial life cycle.

You would think that somewhere between kindergarten and undergrad, there would be at least some semi-regular course curriculum in personal finance. Alas, there isn’t. Your children won 't learn about money in elementary school, middle school, high school, or college.

When I asked Ms. McGlashan what were the three biggest personal finance mistakes that she sees young people struggle with, she said, “Savings, young people don’t invest, or invest in the wrong things.” Ms. McGlashan

Within the book, Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in Your Twenties and Thirties, author Beth Kobliner provides plentiful knowledge to help with financial literacy. Kobliner, a journalist, author, and personal finance expert has set this book up to answer a variety of questions that aid in a better understanding of one’s financial affairs. The questions divided into different chapters cover specific financial choices and problems people are faced with. Unquestionably, this book is useful to incoming college students, because it details how to set financial goals, manage debt, banking tools, insurance advice, and how to get the most from taxes.

When it comes to saving habits for younger generations, it is fairly hard to believe that the majority of adolescence do not have a lot of assets saved. Despite the fact that, in the article of “Investing: Money Plus (Lots of) Time Equals Excitement”, Carl Richards, a financial planner in Park City, Utah has come up with the idea of compound interest in such a way that, “If you start with one penny and double it every day for 30 days, you’ll end up with $5,368,709.12” (Richards, 2013, para. 5). This idea of compound interest relates to the norms of investing early and or starting to save up for assets into account. From here, it is significant to know that as a young adult, putting more savings into account allows a person to accumulate more,

Although the reliance on student loans continues to increase for college students across the nation, the vast majority of American teenagers are not required to attend and complete a Financial Literacy course before graduating high school. According to Jillian Berman, only five states scored an A on the 2015 Report Card on State Efforts to Improve Financial Literacy in High Schools, and those same five states are the only states in the country that require students to take a dedicated semester of personal finance courses before graduating (Marketwatch.com). There is an obvious problem with the state efforts to properly educate finances when 14 out of 50 states rank in at a failing grade. Money is an essential asset to life on Earth, and proper education on financial management is vital for the basic requirements to sustain life. Education on how to manage money in order to afford food, shelter, clothing should be the main priority of the Financial Literacy courses. More in-depth are topics

When you are young you always hear people saying it is never too early to start saving for retirement, but at that age the last thing you want to do is put your money towards ending the career you are just trying to start. It is hard to imagine a time where you won’t have to go to work on a daily basis, to make a wage, in order to pay your bills, but the ultimate goal is getting to that time in your life where you don’t have to go to work and the bills are already taken care of. The hope for everyone is that the bills are taken care of and you are able to focus on leisurely things you did not have an opportunity for while employed. What we fail to realize is that the longer we wait to save the more we have to be concerned with the pressure of time running out and not enough money saved. Not to mention the sooner you start saving the more time you give your money to grow.

My mother says, “We are blessed to have an education, an education that holds key ingredients to being successful, a successful life filled with endless assets.” My teachers says, “Education can lead one to many roads ahead of one’s life.” However not one talked about the reality of financial literacy, money talk. The value of how money can make one rich or one poor. Quotes Robert T. Kiyosaki, “Simply put, without financial literacy and the knowledge of how money works, they are not prepared to face the world that awaits them, a world in which spending is emphasized over savings.” It is this reality that makes my life and career choice stressful—endlessly.

The most important part of having any success in your financial security is to have a sound financial plan. This is the process of managing your money to achieve personal economic satisfaction (pg. 5). Throughout this course I have learned many strategies that I will be able to use to gain financial security. Reading these chapters has helped me to realize that I do not have a good grip on my finances. I hope to take what I have learned and be in a more secure financial state that will be beneficial to me as well as my family.

Money management skills are not part of the regular curriculum taught in schools, and as the population ages, more and more American’s are finding themselves deeper in debt. The younger generations can no longer gain these skills at home, and they too struggle with the same financial woes as their parents (Scheper, 2017). By increasing their financial literacy through self-education, they can gain these skills. An important tool that will help is to draw up a spending plan, or budget. A budget is a plan that raises awareness of spending habits, and gives a roadmap that will help to reach financial goals. It will help to track income and expenses to increase positive

As a college student, I understand that financial literacy should be very important because it holds one of the keys to success. Reminiscing to the first time that I tried to apply for college, I realize that I had to pay a college application fee. I thought to myself where am I going to get the money. So I started to look for free college application, but then, I realized that the college tuition was going to be a factor. Henceforward, my mind started thinking about my high school Economics’ class, and how important it is for me to learn about financing. Therefore, I started to get in order and prepare for a college financial budget, organize my current finances and lay out a future money budget plan.

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.

Last year, around 39% of 18 - 24-year-olds were enrolled in college, and about 1.8 million resided in on-campus dormitories. For many students, college is the first time that they can gain financial freedom from their parents. Some even carry the financial burden of paying for college out of their own pocket, paying thousands of dollars before they even complete their first year. The complexity of applying for student loans and managing debt can be made simpler if students are guided through the admissions process. On the other hand, some kids decide to skip out on college, around 60 percent of these students didn’t even apply to college at all! Those who enter the workforce straight after high school need extra assistance in filing their own taxes, balancing a check, and applying for their first credit card. Since no one is born understanding how to manage money, it’s important that they build a strong financial foundation for kids to learn at an earlier age because once the wrong habits are formed, they are hard to break. According to a recent survey by XXX REPORT only 26% of 13-21 year old surveyed recently said that their