Free Financial Literacy iPhone App

FinLitTV just released a free iPhone app. I am proud to say I hand in creating the app. The app includes two terrific features:

• A Financial Literacy Clips (FLiC) is short video that illustrates a specific financial literacy concept. They can be shared in a number of ways with others, including social media. As you can see from the embedded FLiC, they serve as wonderful hooks for personal finance lessons.

• The quiz is an ideal tool and enjoyable way for students to prepare for final exams. Each of the questions are consistent with Jump$tart National Standards, and have varying degrees of difficulty. 

Did You Know - American Personal Finances

If you are having trouble loading the video above - Click Here to watch it on Vimeo.

A special thank you to the personal contributions in this video:

Jason Alderman (Senior Director, Global Financial Education at VISA Inc)

David Anderson (Executive VP, W!SE-NY)

April Bond (VP, BizWorld)

Palmira Buten (Former VP, 5/3 Bank; Co-Founder, Budget Challenge)

Dan Hebert (Financial Education Consultant)

Dr. Billy Hensley (Director of Education, NEFE)

Catherine Hutton Markwell (CEO, BizWorld)

Nick Jacobs (Program Director, CARE)

Dan Kadlec (Author & Journalist, TIME & Money Magazines)

Greg McBride (VP, Bankrate)

Bill McNabb (CEO, Vanguard)

Holly Pressman (Co-Founder & CEO, FinLitTV)

Louise R. Raymond (VP, Corporate Responsibility & Sustainability, McGraw-Hill)

Jason Terrell (Director, Griffith Foundation)

Many thanks to Mollie Kuramoto for producing the video.

Note - this video is designed solely to raise awareness of the current state of American personal finances and financial literacy. It is not to be used to generate a profit of any kind.

Financial Tools for HS Seniors & College Students

April is financial literacy month. I created a LiveBinder of financial tools for high school seniors and college students. My goal is to provide a 'One-Stop-Shop' of resources they can rely on to make wise and informed financial choices, consistent with their own values and goals.

Please participate in financial literacy month by sharing the following LiveBinder with others: Personal Finance for Recent Grads

Betting for Retirement

This week's $540 million dollar Mega Million jackpot is the biggest of any lottery in history. I just played Mega Millions. I played more out of fear than hope. I love to teach, and if I win the lottery I will continue to teach. However, most of the teachers pulled together to buy tickets for this weekend's drawing and I am afraid of being the only teacher in the school that does not win. My contribution was budgeted as an entertainment expense, but I have to wonder how many people are playing to bet for their retirement?

According to the Cleveland Federal Reserve, our national personal savings rate spent most of the decade below 4%. In a recent survey, one in four Bankrate survey respondents reported having zero emergency savings. Yet, in 2010 we spent $58 billion dollars playing the lottery. Although these numbers are concerning, there is a service some states use that mitigate the consequences of gambling and create a habit of savings.

Prize-linked savings programs (PLS) allow savings account holders the opportunity to win prizes or cash. Think of it as a lottery program that does not take your money. The winnings are not as lucrative, but the mechanics of the program reward appropriate savings behavior. D2D piloted a successful PLS program, which you can read about here. PLS programs need to be broadly provided to reinforce and reward responsible consumer behavior.

March Madness, Money, and Osmosis

Christian Laettner is the source of one of the most memorable moments of March Madness.

After attending Duke University, Laettner was drafted as the third overall selection in the 1992 NBA draft and signed a multi-million dollar contract. To be more specific, he made $61.5 million dollars during his NBA career. As you can read here, Laettner has not only squandered his fortunes, but he owes around $30 million dollars.

Laettner's financial problems are far from anomalous to the rich. Some of my favorite celebrities have had to file bankruptcy including Kim Basinger, George Best, and Archie Griffin. Ironically, the founder of General Motors and Chevrolet (William C. Durant) went bankrupt. Unfortunate for him, the government did not believe in bailouts then and he finished the rest of his life managing a bowling alley in Flint, Michigan. It seems that having a lot of money does not necessarily correlate with knowing how to manage money.

Dan Kadlec just noted in this piece that based on research, most parents do not know how to talk to their children about money. Yet, affluent school districts across the country do not feel it is necessary to provide their students with financial tools and concepts to make wise and informed choices. I recently asked a local district leader why they do not incorporate financial literacy into their curriculum. His argument was that because the families in his district are affluent, those are not the kinds of problems their students will have to face. As if money management skills are learned through osmosis.

You can follow me on Twitter @FinEdChat

Taken

When I watched Taken with my wife, I walked away believing those kinds of things did not happen very often. I thought it was just a movie. What I learned, and what my business students learned, is that human trafficking is the world's largest business for organized crime and only 1% of the girls who fall victim are saved.

In my last post, I explained that my BEMA syllabus was a clean sheet of paper for my students to craft a course full of their interests and ideas, with one exception. This project was the exception, and of course the students were excited to participate. Vicki Davis, a tremendous educator in Georgia, recommended human trafficking or human slavery as the focus for a collaborative project. I agreed, and was excited about the experience my students would have collaborating with students in Georgia to complete the project.

A couple of weeks ago I attended a meeting in Columbus about human trafficking. Sue Helmreich was kind enough to introduce me to various leaders, one being Sister Nancy. I shared a few ideas my students had come up with to raise money for the cause, and she directed me to Destiny Rescue. They are a perfect fit for what we are trying to accomplish. My students are currently writing the business plan for our social enterprise, which is to serve as a promotional arm for Destiny Rescue.

I set up a Skype with Peter Everett so he could explain to my students what Destiny Rescue does. My students and I were amazed. What their Rescue Program does is just like Taken. Some of the girls they have rescued from human trafficking were as young as six years old. So far they have rescued over a hundred girls, an amazing accomplishment if you can imagine the challenges of taking on the mafia and corrupt police in Southeast Asia. After they are rescued, they provide the girls with the counseling, care, and education they need to eventually care for themselves.

Within a few weeks we will announce how we are going to move forward with our Social Enterprise. What the students have in mind is brilliant, and is big.

Closing Letter to My Students...

I can remember vividly being a high school student, anticipating the feeling of relief as I prepared for my final examination. I wanted to move on, thinking very little about any future events beyond playing sports and hanging out with my friends. I did not consider the ripple effects of learning or not learning.

Imagine throwing a pebble deep into the center of a crystal clear pond. The result is ripples that wave one after another throughout the pond, deep from the center, slowly to the periphery.

Whether you want to hear it or not, your choice to both prepare for your final examination and apply what you have learned in this class to your everyday lives is much like the pebble hitting the pond. Your future financial choices will send a wave deep into every aspect of your life and the lives of others.

Your first wave will begin just after high school with your post-education choices and subsequent college debt. While at the same time, you will be testing your discipline with a credit card and future car debt.

Before you know it, you will be a young professional deciding whether to fill your bartenders’ pockets with your discretionary income or fill your own future pockets by adequately investing for retirement.

Sooner than you may imagine, it will shape your family’s quality of life and your subsequent peace of mind.

Eventually, it will guide your opportunity to reach financial freedom at a young enough age to enjoy retirement as others struggle to live on a fixed income, working well into their seventies.

In the periphery, lies the legacy for your future children, and your ability to prepare them for a world full of financial trickery and hidden wealth.

Just as the ripples in the pond get bigger and bigger, so will your financial responsibilities. Being financially responsible is not the result of a high school or college course, nor is it the result of being disciplined and conscience of your choices. It has to be both, and your financial education has to be ongoing.

Now as you have envisioned what you can expect as you move forward, I want you to imagine the waves of choices you will be faced with in a different lens. For a moment, envision shouldering a responsibility much greater than your own financial future. For this moment - - internalize your responsibility as a next generation American.

Our country desperately needs waves of economic change that will transform where we are and the direction we are heading. Our country needs a generation full of financially astute and responsible leadership that will guide us out of consumer and government debt massive enough to change the United States as we know it.

My challenge for you is to understand how to responsibly manage the waves of financial challenges that you will face throughout your life, while making waves for your country that will better the lives of the generations to come.

Let what you have learned in this course be the pebble that creates the first wave of change that we all need.