Personal Finance

[MrPanda]

I got hired to teach a Personal Finance course in January and February, once per week, in some kind of "Introductory Term", before students start with their university studies.

My students are going to be around 16-18.

Which would be the main takeaway that you believe that students should have from a course like this?

Do you believe that I should encourage them to save, to buy crypto, to buy stock? To analyze themselves?

I know that students usually forget many of the courses they take, but if we insist in one or two concepts through the term, maybe they´ll remember that all their lives.

[rachel83az]

I would check out Sophia's personal finance course (Taking Charge of Your Economic Future). IMO, it's very well done. I wouldn't copy it exactly, but that is the kind of stuff that should be taught. Evergreen topics, rather than ones that may not last (like buying crypto).

Definitely teach them how to calculate a budget. I would have them pick a real job from the job listings, calculate approximately how much tax will get taken out, and then let them figure out how much has to go to housing (using real listings), to groceries, etc. $20/hr. sounds like a lot when you're a teen, until you realize that you might only get $2000/mo. after taxes, and that most of THAT has to go toward housing, transportation, and food. No gaming console for you.

[Flelm]

Budgets, taxes, types of financial accounts (checking vs. savings vs. money market vs. CD), types of retirement accounts (401k, IRA, Roth flavors of each, 403(b)), how compounding interest works, how credit cards work, the cost of being poor (payday loans, overdraft fees, etc.)

EDIT: Common financial scams (Nigerian prince-type scams, advance fee lottery scam, phony cashier check job scam, MLMs).

[carrythenothing]

You'd want to adapt some sections for regional differences, but this OpenLearn course might be helpful: https://www.open.edu/openlearn/money-bus...n-overview

It was last updated in March 2021 and the license is Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-SA).

Saylor Academy has a textbook on personal finance with some sections that should be useful (published in 2012, also licensed as CC BY-NC-SA): https://saylordotorg.github.io/text_personal-finance/

[Ideas]

I agree with Flelm overall. I think they should learn material that is more likely to apply to their lives.

I had a course where we calculated the cost of student loan debt after many years. And opportunity cost was factored in -- the amount of salary you could have been making instead of attending school.

[dfrecore]

My kids are 17 and 19. I'm trying to teach them these very things right now!

My 19yo is a saver, she has a bunch; so I don't need to talk to her about this, but rather, what savings is doing for her now instead of putting the money in a 401(k) (which she can't do because you have to be 21). For her right now, it's more important to have this money sitting in an account for emergencies, a possible down payment on a house, etc. She will start doing a Roth IRA soon, but it's more important to have access to her cash as a young person. She's buying patience while waiting for the housing market to cool down a bit, and get into the right place to buy a house.

She also needs to know about credit scores, credit cards, car payments, student loans.

She also needs to know realistically what it will look like if she moves out, into an apartment - how much things ACTUALLY cost. She has no clue right now, which is fine, she knows it will be expensive, but she doesn't know what the things are that she has to take into account. Creating a realistic budget is key for her right now.

[bjcheung77]

If I recall correctly, you're not in the US. So, I would focus on "general" topics that will be for all audiences... Credit card, saving, bank accounts, retirement, etc... I highly recommend again, providing a "basic" and "general" approach to getting into their financial situation and knowing their own boundaries... I would refrain from going into too much details for each and everything you want to talk about in an Intro course...

[MrPanda]

Yes, currently I´m in Peru.

But as in most places, you have options about where to place your retirement fund.

I´ll take the mentioned idea of common financial scams, I had known people in my university falling for MLM, luckily not classmates from economics, but from management or industrial engineering.

I´ll check the Saylor course, currently I don´t have the Sophia account, maybe I´ll take it if I see some other course that I would need to take from them later.

I got an email today that I´m starting the January 10th, so I still have some days to prepare.

It´s actually an intro to intro course, since this is not even their first term.

The topic that doesn´t apply here is: student loans (generally speaking, these don´t exist in this country), and also talking about "the cost of going to school vs working" could be treated a bit differently, since most people work, but of course, here their minimum salary for those unqualified jobs is going to be a bit less than USD$ 250 per month.

Thanks for all your input, I was thinking about treating these course as one of the investment classes, but I see that the focus in this case has to be different.

And just as I´m typing this, I realize that I can´t actually use much math, since the kids are just fresh out of high school, and they don´t really know much, and they could even have problems with exponentials or fractions (yes, it happens).

[dfrecore]

Yes, currently I´m in Peru.

But as in most places, you have options about where to place your retirement fund.

I´ll take the mentioned idea of common financial scams, I had known people in my university falling for MLM, luckily not classmates from economics, but from management or industrial engineering.

I´ll check the Saylor course, currently I don´t have the Sophia account, maybe I´ll take it if I see some other course that I would need to take from them later.

I got an email today that I´m starting the January 10th, so I still have some days to prepare.

It´s actually an intro to intro course, since this is not even their first term.

The topic that doesn´t apply here is: student loans (generally speaking, these don´t exist in this country), and also talking about "the cost of going to school vs working" could be treated a bit differently, since most people work, but of course, here their minimum salary for those unqualified jobs is going to be a bit less than USD$ 250 per month.

Thanks for all your input, I was thinking about treating these course as one of the investment classes, but I see that the focus in this case has to be different.

And just as I´m typing this, I realize that I can´t actually use much math, since the kids are just fresh out of high school, and they don´t really know much, and they could even have problems with exponentials or fractions (yes, it happens).

For that age group, talking about investments is a bit premature I think.  BUT, it is not to early to talk about simple things.  Like that thing where person A starts investing $100/mo at age 18 and stops at age 28, and person B invests $100/mo starting at age 28 and never stops, and 40 years later, person A has $1m and person B has $500k or whatever (I can't remember the exact numbers).

And how it's equally easy to get into trouble if you start racking up CC debt early on.

[LevelUP]

I´ll take the mentioned idea of common financial scams, I had known people in my university falling for MLM, luckily not classmates from economics, but from management or industrial engineering.

If we are going to talk about scams, then you should probably mention the popular cryptocurrency scams.  Typically what happens is social influencers decide to pitch usually an Ethereum based coin to their followers.  This crypto coin is then pumped by various influencers as the greatest thing with lots of press releases.  Then they sell and move on to the next scam.  Influencers usually receive compensation via coins and/or cash.
https://www.nbcnews.com/tech/tech-news/w...s-rcna1469

A lot of really smart people get caught up and fall for these scams.