Debit Card Fees

The Personal Finance class is just starting the Checking & Banking unit.  It is quite timely with all the recent news articles about Bank of America's decision to charge their checking account customers a $5/month debit card fee.  What has not received as much press is the fact that Bank of America is not the only bank to charge such a fee.  For example, Wells Fargo is considering a $3 fee.

It is critical to know the fees that accompany all aspects of your checking and savings account.  Even though it has been a discussion item in this unit/chapter for many semesters, it will receive extra attention this semester.  It is not the $5 fee that is the terrible part--it's not knowing where you money is going.  Unfortunately, I think the concept of "free checking" might become something we include when talking about "the good 'ole days" with our grandchildren.  However, with a little bit of time and research, it can still be found today.  And even if you choose a checking or savings account with usage fees, you should at least know why you are paying those amounts!  Just another reason for regularly checking your bank statements!  :)  

Computer/Software Training

Even though I consider myself to be an "above-average" computer/software user, I am always learning new tricks to using software.  As I explore and investigate software tutorials for the computer classes, I usually find at least one new trick with each tutorial.  I have discovered two tutorials that taught me more than one new trick...the first is the one that the Software Applications classes went through this year.

http://inpics.net
This particular tutorial shows you "in pictures" how to do various tasks in various versions of the Microsoft Office suite of programs.

A second tutorial that I discovered this week was published by the Goodwill Community Foundation (I have yet to decide if this is the "Goodwill" or something sort of like it...).  It has free lessons on a variety of topics, one of which being computers.
Free Computer Training at GCFLearnFree.org

I have included the link that will take you directly to the computer portion of their site...you can back up and take a look at the other lessons.  There is a wide variety--from math and reading to personal finance and money!  (Here is the link to see all their topics...http://www.gcflearnfree.org/topics.)  While I am not sure if they all have the feature, the ones I have tried even included video tutorials to actually show the lesson!

**One note...these software tutorials are geared for a Windows-based version of the Office products...I'm sure there are others out there to show Office for Mac and other Mac tools...Apple has great video tutorials showing their iLife and iWork products!

Budgeting & Baking Cookies

As part of an article reflection assignment, a student located a great budgeting article.  It compared budgeting to baking cookies.  The analogy was great in effectively describing the balance between the "non-negotiable" items (like flour in a cookie recipe) and the "nice to have but not necessary" items (like chocolate chips).  The article author also encouraged the addition of a little "sprinkles" in a budget.  Yes, it is important to pay all your fixed expenses...the non-negotiables like your housing payment and any loan payments.  However, you should also plan ahead for at least a little bit of enjoyment in a budget.  No one would want to make and stick to a budget that was all pits and no cherries!  The trick is to get a good balance of fixed and flexible expenses and to plan spending for the actual income you have coming in...not beyond that.

Here is the article link...it's a great read!
Budgeting is like baking cookies

Budgeting

The Personal Finance class just finished the chapter on budgeting.  This topic is can be critical to a student's future financial success.  Living within your means is something that definitely takes self control...I will be the first to admit that is much easier said than done!

One thing we discussed in class is the option of creating a family budget.  I highly encouraged them to go home and use the class topic as a discussion starter.  Maybe you want to save for a family vacation...everyone in the family might be much more supportive of eliminating the "dinner out three times a week" routine if they had all agreed to save that money for the desired vacation.

Attempting...

Here is my official, professional attempt at blogging.  It is my intent to share content-specific information.  I plan on sharing topics related to class discussion as well as great websites and resources I find...I hope you will find this to be useful as well as informative.  I welcome any comments and/or questions!!!