The Money Mustache Community
General Discussion => Share Your Badassity => Topic started by: monstermonster on October 10, 2015, 05:10:49 PM
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Just taught a 3-part, 3-week class on personal finance to college freshmen at my alma mater. On the class evaluations I got these comments:
(http://i.imgur.com/BDUKFhK.png)
By jove, I think they got it!
Also a favorite: I taught them the definition of FU money, and multiple students said "FU money" as their long-term financial goal.
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That's awesome! Honestly I don't understand how a basic personal finance course isn't a requirement to graduate high school, before you ever get to college. I never took one myself but I worked as a bank teller throughout high school so I picked up the basics (and way more) on the job, but regardless I think it should still be required.
Besides compound interest and FU money, what else did you cover in your class?
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I did a handful of things. I started with the definition of "financial well being" and talked about the values about money and how money is an expression of something's value and worth - including intangible things like "security" and "family".
I made them track all their expenses for a week as homework and talk about what it made them realize - then we did budgeting exercises and I ran through the different apps/methods for budgeting. Everyone determined their appropriate Emergency fund amount and they made a plan for getting there, and for building up a "buffer" (a la YNAB).
We talked about investing (index funds mostly and different retirement wrappers), I showed some savings rate charts (WOO Mr Money Mustache) and the magic of compound interest + financial independence. Also talked about how "saving" for consumer purchases is still spending. Touched on FU money.
Last class was all credit: Understanding credit scores and reports, student loans, Researching credit cards, and how to build credit (secured cards, etc). Since they were freshmen, I shared the fact that I would still be paying $389/month of student loans for the next 10 years if I hadn't worked through college, and we calculated what the difference a 9.5/hour week job during the semester makes over taking out loans for living expenses ($5,000 in interest and 5 years of payments when you graduate.)
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Fantastic, I wish I'd had this class years ago, and delighted that a group of young people are getting the information they need.
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Out of curiosity, how did you get this gig? Are you regularly a college instructor/professor, or was this an "extracurricular" thing for the students to take? I work with a lot of folks in their mid-20s for whom this is their first or second "real" job out of college, and there's a ton of misinformation about general personal finance and how compensation (ESPP/RSUs, etc) or taxes work, and it seems like some stuff like this when they were in college would have been super helpful. I've been doing my best to set them straight- there's a few using YNAB now and the idea of a buffer has been well-received. Haven't brought up FU money/FI yet though, but I think some of them would be on board!