Personal Finance

Here's a few Brain Games videos that I watched over the weekend that can help students uncover scams: Pigeon Drop Con Artist Handbook The Scam Illusion Questions Have you ever fallen for a scam? What techniques do these scam artists use in these videos to con people?  Which of the three scams do you think you would most likely have fallen for?  What lessons can you learn from these videos so that you are not conned?  -------------------- Create A Financial Scam Guidebook is a great activity where students research common financial scams and develop strategies on how to a...

Answer: $143 billion Average credit card debt of $830 billion (Experian study, 2019) multiplied by an average credit card interest rate of 17.27% (creditcards.com) Questions: Why do you think that so many Americans have credit card debt, meaning they don’t pay the full balance on their credit card statements every month? Does credit card debt carry a high or low interest rate? What ideas do you have on how you can avoid getting into credit card debt where you can't pay your balance off every month? Imagine using your credit card to buy $100 of clothes.

Because of our social nature, another principle is to benefit others with our money. Studies performed by Dunn and others have shown that participants who spend money pro-socially disclose a higher level of satisfaction. While personal spending did not diminish participants' happiness, it did not in...

Hat tip to Jessica for finding this resource which allows students to tweak variables to find out how much they can save through D-I-Y coffee. It also provides opportunities to discuss investing as one of the variables is "investment return."  Here are the variables (the dark rectangles are calculated fields while the white rectangles are user-generated:  For those students who don't drink coffee, they can identify something they might buy several times a week (e.g. snacks) and Put in $0.01 for the bag (retail value)  Input the cost of that item purchased in the cup (retail v...

I can't remember how I found this site but thought it might be engaging to your students because it takes a budgeting principle and allows students to see how it actually applies in their community.  The simulation starts by explaining the 50/30/20 budgeting rule of thumb which is the idea that 50% of budget should be spent on needs, 30% on wants and 20% on savings and paying down debt. It then has students select from one of three scenarios: Married couple with 2 children in Boise, Idaho Single adult male in Chicago, Illinois Single mother with one child in Cleveland, Ohio It then com...

Put yourself in a better financial position after you graduate by avoiding these money mistakes.

Your financial well-being tells the story of how you manage your money. For Financial Planning Month, we have 25 tips to improve your finances and overall financial well-being.

At 2.25 percent interest over a period of a thousand years, Fry's bank balance has grown a lot since the 20th century.

Summary: This chart shows the percentage of new car loans and the term of their loans (in months).  Questions: How would you summarize the trend in the length of new car loans over the past decade? Increasing or decreasing? Which loan term has seen the sharpest increase in the past decade?  What is the relationship between the term of the loan and the amount of the monthly payment? The longer the loan term, the _______ the monthly payment.  The _________ the loan term, the higher the monthly loan payment.  If you wanted to pay the least amount of interest on a loan,...

Answer: 229 times Here are the figures for the top music sites: Questions: Given their average payout for stream of $0.004 per song for Spotify, how many music streams would you have to listen to in order to cover a $9.95 monthly subscription?   Why do you think that the streaming services have such different payouts per stream?  Your friend says "I can make a good living just putting my music up on YouTube." Agree or disagree with him using the data provided above.  Do you think the payouts per stream will increase or decrease in the future?  Click here for the rea...

Answer: YouTube Here's the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom. Questions: Where do you go most frequently? Why? Five years ago, what would your answer have been?  Compare these services from a cost perspective.

Answer: Pepsi Questions What factors do you think contribute to the very different market performance of these companies? Which products do you personally prefer?  Would you make an investment decision based on your personal product preference? Pepsi also has diversified into the snack food business and owns Doritos, Cheetos and Sun Chips while Coke has diversified into the coffee business. Knowing this, which company do you think has better long-term prospects?

Good question to show the power of compounding...of course be sure to tell them that no investment would double on a daily basis for 30 days;) Calculators not allowed!  Answer: Starting with a penny and doubling it every day compounds to $10.7 million after 30 days Day 1: You would have $0.02 Day 2: You would have $0.04 Day 3: You would have $0.08 Day 4: You would have $0.16... Day 30: You would have $10,737,418.24. Questions: How much would the penny have grown to on Day 29? How much did the value increase between Day 29 and Day 30?  Now apply this concept to your own saving...

Sheet1 Start with a penny and it doubles every day starting on Day 1 Day #,Amount 1,$0.02 2,$0.04 3,$0.08 4,$0.16 5,$0.32 6,$0.64 7,$1.28 8,$2.56 9,$5.12 10,$10.24 11,$20.48 12,$40.96 13,$81.92 14,$163.84 15,$327.68 16,$655.36 17,$1,310.72 18,$2,621.44 19,$5,242.88 20,$10,485.76 21,$20,971.52 22...

Here's an activity I did with my class a few years back that helped simulate the psychological aspects of investing.  It's a pretty simple game with multiple ways that you could extend and increase its complexity. Game Instructions You are starting the game with a fictional balance of $100 This game will have 10 rounds The player with the highest balance after 10 rounds will be the WINNER! Game worksheet  How each round proceeds:  Each student independently decides if they want to be IN or OUT OF THE MARKET and marks their spreadsheet IN or OUT. A classmate will verify that t...

Question of the Day Career #32 UPDATED A YouTuber with over 1.4 million views a month can expect to earn about ________in monthly income. www.ngpf.org Last updated: 11/6/20

NGPF Activity Bank Behavioral Finance PLAY: Roll with the Market The basic principles of investing may seem simple - “buy low, sell high”, “set it and forget it”, and more. However, the psychology of investing can illuminate why we human beings can sometimes make investing more difficu...

Question of the Day Budgeting #54 Rank the following cost components for a cup of coffee from largest to smallest: milk cups/napkins shop costs/rent coffee staff costs www.ngpf.org Last updated: 5/22/19

How can we teach students about the stock market when they have no investing experience? I listened to this Masters of Business podcast with Barry Ritholtz interviewing investor and author Joel Greenblatt and picked up a few good ideas. Joel is not only a practitioner (a very successful hedge fund manager) but also an educator having spent the last 20+ years as a professor at Columbia Business School. Joel described the challenges of describing the stock market to a group of 9th graders at a Harlem high school and the ingenious idea he came up (about 48:20-51:00 in podcast): He brought...

High-quality financial education is a powerful force for positive change. However, financial education alone does not create financial well-being. It is one factor in a complex landscape of internal and external elements – some controlled by individuals and some not.

Instead of intentionally hiding the ‘unsubscribe’ button, let customers leave gracefully. They might just come back.

How to Complete Workouts You may choose any of the listed workouts to complete. Workout point values vary based upon effort and time involved. You do not have to complete workouts in any...

The S&P 500 stock price index includes 500 companies. On Friday, five of the six so-called FAANGM stocks (all but Netflix) occupied the top...

Mimic Personal Finance uses decision-theory learning to teach students the basic principles of financial literacy. Students don't just study material; they experience financial decision making.

NGPF Activity Bank Managing Credit Spanish Version Virtual Adaptation Ideas INTERACTIVE: Credit Across US Communities Interactive: New York Fed Community Credit Maps Teacher Tip: This resource used to update annually, but it indicates data was not available for 2018 and it hasn’t bee...

Mi Financial Literacy - MI Fin Lit page for adults.

The financial well-being scale is a free tool to help you measure your client’s financial well-being.