Author Archives: Melissa Hart

Jun 17 2015

Personal Finance Stress Test

To avoid financial disaster, several measurements are available for assessing a person’s personal financial stress:

  1.  The Debt-to-Income Ratio is obtained by dividing your debts by pretax earnings.  Generally this number should be less than 28 percent, without your mortgage, or 36 percent, including your mortgage payment.
  2.  Discretionary Expenses involve spending for items other than fixed obligations and variable nondiscretionary items, such as food and utilities. Purely discretionary expenses may involve recreation and vacations.  An analysis of these categories will allow you to delay, reduce, or eliminate various expenses to avoid financial difficulties.
  3. Emergency Savings should be able to cover three to nine months of living expenses. These funds should be readily available in savings or other easily liquidated accounts. Greater financial greater obligations will require a larger emergency fund.
  1. Additional Income involving wages or tips from a part-time job or selling personal possessions can provide a cushion in times of financial difficulty.
  1. Total Assets, both liquid and non-liquid, will reduce your vulnerability to financial turmoil.

For additional information on the personal finance stress test, click here.

Teaching Suggestions

  • Have students calculate one or more of these measurements for their life situation.
  • Have students prepare a short creative video with a summary of these measurements.

Discussion Questions 

  1. Why is liquidity important for reduced financial stress?
  2. What actions would you recommend to for a person to reduce their personal financial stress?
Jun 13 2015

Basics of Investing in Mutual Funds

“. . . Learn how to invest in mutual funds with these informative tips.”

This Money/CNN article provides the following 10 statements along with a brief explanation of each statement to help beginning investors learn about fund investing.

  1. What exactly is a mutual fund?
  2. Mutual funds make it easy to diversify.
  3. There are many kinds of stock funds.
  4. Bond funds come in many different flavors too.
  5. Returns aren’t everything – also consider the risk taken to achieve those returns.
  6. Low expenses are crucial.
  7. Taxes take a big bite out of performance.
  8. Don’t chase winners.
  9. Index funds should be a core component of your portfolio.
  10. Don’t be too quick to dump a fund.

For more information, click here. 

Teaching Suggestions

You may want to use the information in this blog post and the original article to

  • Provide an introduction to the “basics” of mutual fund investing.
  • Point out that this is just one article in the Money/CNN series. By clicking on the next button at the bottom of this article, students can access more articles and obtain more in-depth information about fund investing.

Discussion Questions

  1. Based on the information in this article, why do you think investors choose mutual funds?
  2. The article mentions that there are both stock and bond funds. What is the difference between these two types of funds?  Which type of funds do you think could help you achieve your financial goals?
  3. Why are taxes and expenses important when you choose a mutual fund?
Jun 10 2015

Saver Survey

Each year, America Saves (www.americasaves.org) conducts a survey or its program participants to determine the attitudes and behaviors of savers.  The most recent study reports that:

  • People save mainly for their emergency fund, retirement, or repaying debt.
  • People in formal savings programs, such as America Saves, report saving larger amounts.
  • Married respondents saved much more than single respondents.
  • Females and males have different saving purposes; females favored saving for an emergency fund, males favored retirement saving.
  • Savers involved in America Saves are saving more, are more confident in their ability to manage their money, and are managing their debt better while feeling more optimistic about their financial situation.

The complete Savers Survey report is available here.

Teaching Suggestions

  • Have students talk to others about their savings habits and goals.
  • Have students prepare a graph to monitor their savings activities.

Discussion Questions 

  1. What actions can help encourage a person to have more effective savings habits?
  2. Why does being involved in an organized savings program result in more savings and better money management activities?
Jun 6 2015

New Health Discovery? The Doctor Oz Effect

In 2015, Lindsey Duncan and the companies he controlled have agreed to settle Federal Trade Commission charges that they deceptively touted the supposed weight-loss benefits of green coffee bean extract through a campaign that included appearances on The Dr. Oz Show, The View, and other television programs.

Under the FTC settlement the defendants are barred from making deceptive claims about the health benefits or efficacy of any dietary supplement or drug product, and will pay $9 million for consumer redress.

The FTC charged that Duncan and his companies, Pure Health LLC and Genesis Today, Inc. deceptively claimed that the supplement could cause consumers to lose 17 pounds and 16 percent of their body fat in just 12 weeks without diet or exercise, and the claim was backed up by clinical study.  In September 2014, the FTC settled charges against the company that sponsored the severely flawed study that Duncan discussed on Dr. Oz show.

For additional information, go to:

https://www.ftc.gov/news-events/press-releases/2015/01/marketer-who-promoted-green-coffee-bean-weight-loss-supplement

Teaching Suggestions

  • Prepare a list of activities individuals can do to stay healthy and maintain a healthy weight.
  • Choose a current issue of Consumer Reports, Money, Kiplinger’s Personal Finance, or other magazines and summarize an article that relates to losing weight.

Discussion Questions

  1. How can you reduce personal health care costs, including losing weight?
  2. Why is it important for consumers to carefully evaluate products?
  3. What are the keys to successful weight loss?
Jun 3 2015

Financial Flowerpots

Many devices are used for effective money management.  One is called “the financial flowerpot system,” with each imaginary pot representing an account where you “plant” the funds for achieving a financial goal.  When you direct money into this account, it’s like watering and feeding your goal.

To fill up the “financial flowerpots,” start a regular saving and investing plan with the money automatically withdrawn from your paycheck or bank account.  This automatic savings plan may be viewed as an automatic watering system for an actual flowerpot.

Three main flowerpots are recommended:

1.  The Solutions Flowerpot is the emergency fund.  These funds are available to solve problems and have a financial cushion, giving you financial peace of mind.

2. The Retirement Flowerpot is to save for your future financial independence.

3. The College Flowerpot is for those who are saving for their children’s education or for their own advanced studies in the future.

Smaller flowerpots may be used for other financial goals.  For each flowerpot, set aside a savings amount each month that will grow to your desired goal in the timeframe you set.

For additional information on financial flowerpots, click here.

Teaching Suggestions

  • Have students obtain information from others about the methods used to achieve financial goals.
  • Have students propose a method they might use to achieve a financial goal.

Discussion Questions 

1. What are the benefits of thinking of savings goals as financial flowerpots?
2. What are other potential savings goals for various household situations?

May 30 2015

Household Wealth

The net worth of U.S. households grew to over $80 trillion at the end of 2014. This change was almost a two percent increase over the previous year.  The increase was mainly the result of higher stock prices.  Also, increased home values added to the new wealth. This increased wealth is expected to result in expanded consumer spending for improved economic activity.

For additional information on household wealth, click here.

Teaching Suggestions

  • Have students talk to several people about the types of assets held by their household.
  • Have students prepare a personal balance sheet that reflects their personal wealth.

Discussion Questions 

  1. What types of economic activity can result in higher personal wealth in a society?
  2. What personal financial decisions affect personal wealth?
  3. What are benefits and potential concerns of a higher personal wealth?
May 27 2015

Why Should I Invest?

“Simply put, you want to invest in order to create wealth.  It’s relatively painless, and the rewards are plentiful. “

This article from The Motley Fool website explains why investing is a smart idea.  The article begins with information about the importance of goals.  Then asks the question, “What are you saving for?”.  The article also explains the power of compounding and provides specific examples to illustrate how time, rate of return, and age can make a tremendous difference.

The article also summarizes 9 common pitfalls to avoid including: doing nothing, starting late, investing before paying down credit card debt, etc.

Note:  this is one of a series of articles provided by The Motley Fool website.  Hopefully, students will use this article as a starting point and will use more of the educational materials available on this site.

For more information, click here.

Teaching Suggestions

You may want to use the information in this blog post and the original article to

  • Stress the importance of beginning a savings and investment program sooner rather than later.
  • Explain the power of compounding examples in this article to illustrate the difference in potential returns.
  • Discuss the 9 common pitfalls that often keep people from starting a savings and investment program.

Discussion Questions

  1. What are the advantages of starting an investment program sooner rather than later?
  2. Where can you get the money you need to begin a savings and investment program?
  3. What do you consider the biggest pitfall that keeps you from starting a savings and investment program?
May 23 2015

Is This Debt Collector Legitimate?

How can you verify whether or not a debt collector is legitimate?  Below are a few warning signs that signal a debt collection scam:

  • The debt collector threatens you. Legitimate debt collectors probably won’t claim that they will have you arrested or claim that they or their employee are law enforcement officers.
  • The debt collector refuses to give you information about your debt or trying to collect a debt you do not recognize.
  • The debt collector refuses to give a mailing address or phone number.
  • The debt collector asks you for sensitive personal financial information.

Tell the caller that you refuse to discuss any debt until you get a written “validation notice.”  This notice must include the amount of the debt, the name of the creditor, and a description of certain rights under the federal Fair Debt Collection Practices Act.

For additional information and to learn more on debt collection practices, click here.

Teaching Suggestions

  • Ask students to draft a sample complaint letter explaining that the debt is not legitimate and demanding the debt collector stop contacting you.
  • Ask students to compile a list of governmental and nongovernmental agencies where consumers can send debt collection complaints.

Discussion Questions

  1. Do all states require debt collectors to be licensed?
  2. If the debt collector is licensed in your state and he/she is not acting properly, what are your remedies?
  3. Who enforces the Fair Debt Collection Practices Act and how this law protects consumers?
May 20 2015

Financial Literacy Month

April was Financial Literacy Month; however, every month should involve efforts to better understand personal financial planning principles and practices. The website 360 Degrees of Financial Literacy offers a wide range of tools and information to help people develop money management skills at every stage of life.

Other resources to provide financial planning assistance include the:

Teaching Suggestions

  • Have students talk ask people to describe their definition of “financial literacy.”
  • Have students obtain financial literacy suggestions using online research.

Discussion Questions 

  1. What are the common elements of financial literacy?
  2. How might a person improve their financial literacy?
May 16 2015

Credit Rights of Women

“A good credit history—a record of your payments—often is necessary to get credit.  This can hurt many married, separated, divorced, and widowed women.  Typically, there are two reasons women don’t have credit histories in their own names: either they have lost their credit histories when they married and changed their names, or creditors reported accounts shared by married couples in the husband’s name only.

If you’re married, separated, divorced, or widowed, contact your local credit reporting companies to make sure all relevant bill payment information is in a file under your own name.  You credit report includes information on where you live, how you pay your bills, and whether you’ve been sued, arrested or filed bankruptcy.  National credit reporting companies sell the information in your report to creditors, insurers, employers, and other businesses that in turn, use it to evaluate your applications for credit, insurance, employment, or renting a home.

The Fair Credit Reporting Act (FCRA) requires each of the three nationwide credit reporting companies—Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion—to give you a free copy of your credit report at your request, once every 12 months.  To order your report, visit annualcreditreport.com or call 1-977-322-8228.”

For additional information, click here.

Teaching Suggestions

  • Ask students to contact the three nationwide credit reporting agencies to obtain free copy of their credit report.
  • Prepare a list of protections provided under the Equal Credit Opportunity Act.

Discussion Questions

  1. What other rights do women have when they apply for credit?
  2. Where can women complain if their credit application is rejected because of sex or marital status?