Financial literacy classes in HS

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This is an area that our schools need to teach kids.

Most kids don't know how to balance a checkbook, make a budget, save money, pay credit card bills every month, etc.

It's basic stuff, but how can these kids learn this stuff when even their parents don't know how to do it?

And what should we expect, when the government is in debt?

I was lucky in that I had old school depression parents that taught me these basic things. I had a bank account at age 6.
 
Well, balancing a check book is kind of old fashioned. Though apparently "don't spend more money than you make" needs to get touched upon for a bit.
 
Yeah, the high school course could just cover the basics of finance. Importance of saving, how credit is built up and lost, consequences of defaulting on loans, show how bad credit card debt is and that type of stuff. And maybe hit a bit on investing, how the stock market works etc.

A core college class would hit that first stuff briefly and focus more on investing/stocks/mutual funds etc., how to save for retirement and so on in more detail.

I've got a Ph D, and the only time I learned about investing in school was the couple weeks in an Accounting class that covered the stock market. Thankfully my parents taught me the importance of saving and not running up debt etc. so I've never had issues. I still don't know as much as I'd like about investing though, and just stick with basic, mutual funds where you just pick your target retirement date and the fund managers re-balance them quarterly.
 
I see your finacial class and raise you a basic "life lessons" class. Its not just financials that we are failing to teach kids but also just the most basic of things in other areas like how to change a tire. I have been saying for years that every kid should have 1 year of a class that just teaches them how to survive in the world. It could teach them how to balance a budget, change a tire/oil, grocery shop, protect their passwords online, select a college, where to find various government services and all sorts of other stuff.

Parents now days either baby their kids so the kids learn nothing or the parents just dont give a fuck about their kids so again they learn nothing. Its sad that it falls to the government, but as per usual while I am not a fan of the idea of government stepping in....people are proving they can not do it themselves and thus I feel as though there is no other choice.
 
Hey guess what guys, there used to be classes like that. I wonder what happened to them...maybe it was the slashing the budget on education for the last 30 years along with redlining, gentrification, white flight, wealth disparity, and stagnant wages...Maybe...
 
[quote name='MSI Magus']I see your finacial class and raise you a basic "life lessons" class. Its not just financials that we are failing to teach kids but also just the most basic of things in other areas like how to change a tire. I have been saying for years that every kid should have 1 year of a class that just teaches them how to survive in the world. It could teach them how to balance a budget, change a tire/oil, grocery shop, protect their passwords online, select a college, where to find various government services and all sorts of other stuff.

Parents now days either baby their kids so the kids learn nothing or the parents just dont give a fuck about their kids so again they learn nothing. Its sad that it falls to the government, but as per usual while I am not a fan of the idea of government stepping in....people are proving they can not do it themselves and thus I feel as though there is no other choice.[/QUOTE]

So wait a second.

You want a "life lessons" class to be taught by some third party, but you're not a fan of the government stepping in to do so. It's okay for this third party to tell your children everything that you, as a parent, should be telling them, but if the government is involved, no thanks?
 
He didn't say no thanks. He was saying that families should be the ones to do it, but they can't so he sees no choice but having it done in school.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']He didn't say no thanks. He was saying that families should be the ones to do it, but they can't so he sees no choice but having it done in school.[/QUOTE]

Oh, they can do it, many of them choose not to. Why is that suddenly on someone else's shoulders to burden just because the parents suck at parenting? Where is the personal responsibility?

I actually advocate a financial literacy class for kids and adults. It's just that most people simply don't care about the topic. They'd rather pay attention to (insert generic TV show here) than to pay attention to their own financial well being. This happens across all walks of life, no matter the age.
 
Well it's one of those areas where all of society is hurt when parents fail. People default on debts and it hurts the economy, drives up interest rates for the rest of us, eats up tax money as more people end up on welfare etc.

But yes, it hits across all ages for sure. But doing it in high school is one way to hopefully get more people at least moderately informed on finances as they're hitting adulthood.

I'm not a big believer in the ability to change behavior of adults--particularly those 30 and above. But teens and young adults are still learning how to live and are less stuck in their ways. So the earlier we can teach financial responsibility etc. the better IMO.
 
mtx, it's kind of the cumulative idiot factor. Yeah, personal responsiblity is the ideal, but as we've learned it simply isn't all that common. Just for the hell of it I stopped to help someone change a tire in a parking lot outside of PetsMart the other day. She didn't even know that there was a spare tire in the boot and tools necessary to take care of everything. I don't want to get into "typical stupid girl doesn't know about car" but I probably could have sold her blinker fluid if I had any handy...

I think it's less the education system and more a declining sense of pride in anything. Some people spot a leaky faucet and call the 1st plumber in the yellow pages. Other people head to google and attempt to find some decent informatino on how things work and take care of it themselves. This will slowly become more common as "the economy" remains crappy and people have less cash to splurge on repairs and decide to instead learn how to do things themselves.
There are also some who simply refuse to do anything about anything. My mom's kitchen has only one working appliance. She refuses to have anyone come in since she's worse than half of what you see on that Hoarding show and she doesn't have the patience to learn how to take care of anything. Last mother's day I fixed her sink/garbage disposal/stove simply by checking troubleshooting guides. A plumber could have easily charged three or four hours of labor as well as parts. I got all I needed at Menard's and spent about 6 hours taking care of everything for a case of beer and free dinner (out to eat of course since the stove didn't work...)
 
[quote name='mtxbass1']Oh, they can do it, many of them choose not to. Why is that suddenly on someone else's shoulders to burden just because the parents suck at parenting? Where is the personal responsibility?

I actually advocate a financial literacy class for kids and adults. It's just that most people simply don't care about the topic. They'd rather pay attention to (insert generic TV show here) than to pay attention to their own financial well being. This happens across all walks of life, no matter the age.[/QUOTE]

Following your line of thinking, school itself is just pushing parenting responsibilities off on someone else. Should we close all the schools and force parents to mentor their kids like they did 200 years ago? Do you really want to go back to a time where last names didn't just denote family lineage but occupation?
 
[quote name='depascal22']Following your line of thinking, school itself is just pushing parenting responsibilities off on someone else. Should we close all the schools and force parents to mentor their kids like they did 200 years ago? Do you really want to go back to a time where last names didn't just denote family lineage but occupation?[/QUOTE]

That's funny because I didn't comment at all on what my feelings on the matter are, except that I greatly support financial education in this country.

Others have stated that it's somehow the schools responsibility to tell children how to be financially savvy as well as to learn "life lessons." That burden lies on the individuals themselves (the students to learn life lessons) and parents/society to learn financial responsibility. Schools can lend a hand in this process, but at what point are the parents (and to some extent the children themselves) held responsible?
 
[quote name='mtxbass1']That's funny because I didn't comment at all on what my feelings on the matter are, except that I greatly support financial education in this country.

Others have stated that it's somehow the schools responsibility to tell children how to be financially savvy as well as to learn "life lessons." That burden lies on the individuals themselves (the students to learn life lessons) and parents/society to learn financial responsibility. Schools can lend a hand in this process, but at what point are the parents (and to some extent the children themselves) held responsible?[/QUOTE]

My apologies. Your exact statement was, "Why is that suddenly on someone else's shoulders to burden the responsibility just because the parents suck at parenting?"

This gives the impression that you want financial education but don't want to be responsible for it....
 
People like to talk about goverment constantly as though it is the problem, but frankly I do not see how we as a society have done a good job getting things done on our own. Maybe if we would not have treated blacks the way we did we would not have had a need for the goverment to step in. Maybe if bussinesses had given people proper pay and treatment we would not need regulations. And maybe now if parents would actually teach their kids the proper things schools would not need to do it.

It does not make sense to many people but personally I find that in principle I would LIKE to be a conservative with very small government....but that in practice I tend to be very liberal because people and industry have proven time and time again that they can not be trusted to do the right things for themselves, their employees and their children.
 
[quote name='mtxbass1'] Schools can lend a hand in this process, but at what point are the parents (and to some extent the children themselves) held responsible?[/QUOTE]

1. Kids can't choose their parents, and it's thus not their fault if they get stuck with useless ones. Thus we have an obligation to do what we can within the school system to try and make up for that.

2. There's really no way to hold parents accountable for things like teaching proper life lessons etc. Legally they can only be held accountable for things like abuse and neglect. If they're feeding their kids, keeping them in school, and not abusing them, there's really nothing that can be done for them in not taking an interest in them beyond those basics.

So again the burden is always going to fall on society to pick up the slack for shitty parents, or deal with the consequences of how those kids will turn out of both their parents and society/school doesn't take an interest in them. It's in our interest to keep as many as possible from falling through the cracks of shitty parenting.
 
Who said anything about class? There's plenty of middle class kids who's parents don't give a shit as well.

And even if the low class kid stays in the lower class through their life, they still need to know how to manage money, live under their means etc. Probably even moreso than the middle class and above people who have more money to squander without ending up bankrupt and on welfare etc.
 
[quote name='dohdough']Hey guess what guys, there used to be classes like that. I wonder what happened to them...maybe it was the slashing the budget on education for the last 30 years along with redlining, gentrification, white flight, wealth disparity, and stagnant wages...Maybe...[/QUOTE]

actually, we decided that it was better to force kids to "learn" a foreign language that 99% of them will never use. :roll:
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Who said anything about class? There's plenty of middle class kids who's parents don't give a shit as well.

And even if the low class kid stays in the lower class through their life, they still need to know how to manage money, live under their means etc. Probably even moreso than the middle class and above people who have more money to squander without ending up bankrupt and on welfare etc.[/QUOTE]
You're assuming that the person will make money or remain financially neutral throughout their life. My point veers from the topic but I believed it deserved to be said.
 
[quote name='Afflicted']actually, we decided that it was better to force kids to "learn" a foreign language that 99% of them will never use. :roll:[/QUOTE]
LOLZ...do you really think that having language classes eliminated home ec and shop? Please tell us some of your other zany theories...I need a break from Demon's Souls.
 
[quote name='cindersphere']You're assuming that the person will make money or remain financially neutral throughout their life. My point veers from the topic but I believed it deserved to be said.[/QUOTE]

Sure. But as I said in another thread, I grew up in a very poor rural area.

Many more of the lower class are working poor, slaving away for minimum wage or near it, than are people who aren't working at all. And even the ones not working on getting welfare checks, disability checks etc.

My point is for the most part everyone in our country (aside from the homeless who are off the grid), has some form of income--regardless of how meager.

Thus everyone can benefit from having a basic understanding of personal finances. And one could argue that the working poor need it most of all since they have to budget extremely tightly to get buy on their meager salaries.
 
For all the shit I give my mother about how many things she was bad at, I have to thank her for teaching me to live within my means since I was like 5. I'm starting to creep into debt habit a little bit (I'll charge about $50 a week to my credit card until I can pay it off on pay day) and even that I'm not happy about.
 
[quote name='davo1224']For all the shit I give my mother about how many things she was bad at, I have to thank her for teaching me to live within my means since I was like 5. I'm starting to creep into debt habit a little bit (I'll charge about $50 a week to my credit card until I can pay it off on pay day) and even that I'm not happy about.[/QUOTE]

As long as you pay it off in full each month, and thus don't pay any interest, credit cards are a good way to build your credit score.

Even better if you can get one with a decent rewards program, as it's free money--again if you're paying in in full within the grace period each month and thus not paying any interest.

They key is to just have self control and treat it like cash and never use it to pay for things you don't have the money for, but rather just use it in place of cash/debit card to build your credit score and earn reward points/cash back.
 
Yeah, I'm kind of surprised citi hasn't canceled my credit card considering they haven't made a dime off me in the 3 or years I've had it, but I've gotten over $100 from them in Visa gift cards.
 
Same with me. I've had the Amazon Visa (through Chase) for years. Have to be getting near $1,000 of rewards over the years since I put everything on it and pay it off each month, and have never paid a cent of interest on it.
 
[quote name='dohdough']LOLZ...do you really think that having language classes eliminated home ec and shop? Please tell us some of your other zany theories...I need a break from Demon's Souls.[/QUOTE]

LOLZ...last time I checked financial literacy wasn't something they taught in home ec and shop...
 
[quote name='Clak']Yeah, I'm kind of surprised citi hasn't canceled my credit card considering they haven't made a dime off me in the 3 or years I've had it, but I've gotten over $100 from them in Visa gift cards.[/QUOTE]

actually citi does make money off you... interchange fees. now these aren't anything compared to what they would make on interest... but they also have almost no risk... so it's free money to them.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']Sure. But as I said in another thread, I grew up in a very poor rural area.

Many more of the lower class are working poor, slaving away for minimum wage or near it, than are people who aren't working at all. And even the ones not working on getting welfare checks, disability checks etc.

My point is for the most part everyone in our country (aside from the homeless who are off the grid), has some form of income--regardless of how meager.

Thus everyone can benefit from having a basic understanding of personal finances. And one could argue that the working poor need it most of all since they have to budget extremely tightly to get buy on their meager salaries.[/QUOTE]

I am going to try to be civil and expand upon the poor side of why this is probably not going to work, well at least the financial literacy part. Your view of the poor is extremely one sided. First of all you are basing a big assumption on the standard middle class banking methods. If you truly did come from poor areas you would understand that things like balancing a check book don't even matter since the most undeserved in great numbers don't even qualify for a bank account. Many time banks will place extra "conditions" on poorer people that conveniently exclude them. I would really love to be in a class where a person is being taught how to balance a check book with no ability to get an account in the first place. Hell where I come from people most people don't qualify for an account and instead use some damn charge cards and pay the fee to recharge it every time they get paid, every payday at places like wal-mart you can see a line of the workers all trying to recharge their cards just to pay utilities and such.

I really dislike debates such as these where one side says it because the poor don't know. You know what, for the most part the knowing will never matter, a lot of them never get the chance to use that knowledge at all because the nice man in a suit will always say you don't qualify. Nope these conversations always look the other way on reality and push some "common sense" solution, which despite being well intentioned, are many times are reduced to applying the wrong strategies to the wrong situations. I mean seriously financial advisers are barely seeing these prepaid cards as an alternative to bank accounts, a practice that has been in used by the poor for years now. As for the stupid, well educating a person against it will never work.
 
[quote name='cindersphere']I am going to try to be civil and expand upon the poor side of why this is probably not going to work, well at least the financial literacy part. Your view of the poor is extremely one sided. First of all you are basing a big assumption on the standard middle class banking methods. If you truly did come from poor areas you would understand that things like balancing a check book don't even matter since the most undeserved in great numbers don't even qualify for a bank account. Many time banks will place extra "conditions" on poorer people that conveniently exclude them. I would really love to be in a class where a person is being taught how to balance a check book with no ability to get an account in the first place. Hell where I come from people most people don't qualify for an account and instead use some damn charge cards and pay the fee to recharge it every time they get paid, every payday at places like wal-mart you can see a line of the workers all trying to recharge their cards just to pay utilities and such.

I really dislike debates such as these where one side says it because the poor don't know. You know what, for the most part the knowing will never matter, a lot of them never get the chance to use that knowledge at all because the nice man in a suit will always say you don't qualify. Nope these conversations always look the other way on reality and push some "common sense" solution, which despite being well intentioned, are many times are reduced to applying the wrong strategies to the wrong situations. I mean seriously financial advisers are barely seeing these prepaid cards as an alternative to bank accounts, a practice that has been in used by the poor for years now. As for the stupid, well educating a person against it will never work.[/QUOTE]
Well Said.

Things cost more in poor neighborhoods. There might not be a supermarket, but there will be plenty of convenience and liquor stores.

And while we're on the subject of banks, I believe that there are fewer banks in poor neighborhoods and they're also not conducive to working class folks that can't access their services because of the hours. There was a report a few years ago on this.

Poor people are kept poor. Russell Simmons needs to get fucked.

edit: the report was on predatory lending like there being more check cashing places and pay day loans as opposed to banks.
 
[quote name='cindersphere']I am going to try to be civil and expand upon the poor side of why this is probably not going to work, well at least the financial literacy part. Your view of the poor is extremely one sided. First of all you are basing a big assumption on the standard middle class banking methods. If you truly did come from poor areas you would understand that things like balancing a check book don't even matter since the most undeserved in great numbers don't even qualify for a bank account. Many time banks will place extra "conditions" on poorer people that conveniently exclude them. I would really love to be in a class where a person is being taught how to balance a check book with no ability to get an account in the first place. Hell where I come from people most people don't qualify for an account and instead use some damn charge cards and pay the fee to recharge it every time they get paid, every payday at places like wal-mart you can see a line of the workers all trying to recharge their cards just to pay utilities and such.

I really dislike debates such as these where one side says it because the poor don't know. You know what, for the most part the knowing will never matter, a lot of them never get the chance to use that knowledge at all because the nice man in a suit will always say you don't qualify. Nope these conversations always look the other way on reality and push some "common sense" solution, which despite being well intentioned, are many times are reduced to applying the wrong strategies to the wrong situations. I mean seriously financial advisers are barely seeing these prepaid cards as an alternative to bank accounts, a practice that has been in used by the poor for years now. As for the stupid, well educating a person against it will never work.[/QUOTE]


Hmm... well up until last year almost every bank had 'Free' checking accounts. With no minimum balance and no transaction requirement and a lot of banks didn't do credit checks or use chexsystems (google it), so basically anyone that walked in the door could open 'free' bank account. The account would be totally free so long as they didn't spend more money than they had (ie: could balance a check book).

Fastforward to today... Most banks no longer have 'free' accounts but require minimum amounts or a certain number of transactions. These new fees are directly related to the changes the federal government put in place for NSF fees. Fees which could have been avoided by teaching people to balance their checkbooks.

So I guess it all comes full circle.
 
[quote name='Afflicted']Hmm... well up until last year almost every bank had 'Free' checking accounts. With no minimum balance and no transaction requirement and a lot of banks didn't do credit checks or use chexsystems (google it), so basically anyone that walked in the door could open 'free' bank account. The account would be totally free so long as they didn't spend more money than they had (ie: could balance a check book).

Fastforward to today... Most banks no longer have 'free' accounts but require minimum amounts or a certain number of transactions. These new fees are directly related to the changes the federal government put in place for NSF fees. Fees which could have been avoided by teaching people to balance their checkbooks.

So I guess it all comes full circle.[/QUOTE]
BULLSHIT. Every single bank uses chexsystems and will hold you up even if you have something over 5 years old with a balance under $50.

Or maybe this wouldn't be an issue if banks weren't double-dipping fees at exhorbitant rates. Or to go even further, maybe they should've been declining those transactions like they used to instead of allowing accounts to become overdrawn and getting into the predatory lending business.
 
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/if-youre-poor-forget-about-bank-accounts-1337334.html

Little old and from the UK, but some these conditions are still applied to poorer people trying to get a bank account in the US as well. So yes you are technically correct, though the reality of free checking for everyone was far from a reality. Further more, depending on where you are at on the poverty line maintaining positive balance can be quite difficult if one is living check to check. One it may be incredibly hard to keep track of ammounts (even the best of us do this from time to time, however to some it may mean a couple of hundred dollars in bank fees a person will not be able to afford), especially if a person does not have access to the internet or easy/reliable access to said bank, an issue dohdough brought up.

I am assuming your response was honest and not just an "Aha, this proves you don't know what you are talking about" thing

Edit: If your interested this may be a bit long of a read but still a good source to help understand barrier to banking.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c....pdf+barrier+to+bank+account+poor&hl=en&gl=us
 
I hate to bite on this one...

So if someone writes a bad check, who should bear the expense?

Of course going back to our fun times from earlier, there comes a certain point where it isn't advantageous to put up a nice grocery store in a crappy area. Mainly because it's, well, crappy. So if you want a real grocery store instead of that convenience store that sells mainly junk food, you have to live in an area that isn't economically depressed as well as plagued by crime.

Back to checks, they're basically on the way out now anyways aren't they? Check fraud is so damn easy that the debit card really protects the payee. Of course seeing that they can no longer fuck people over on overdrafts, banks had to devise a new way to collect fees so now it costs a lot for the payee to take the debit card. This raises prices for everyone, other than those reaping the profits. They're the investors, but since we're talking about financial responsibility, investing becomes a part of that and then profit is no longer evil now is it?

So I guess it all comes full circle.
 
[quote name='Afflicted']Yes, you are spouting off bullshit... http://nonchexsystems.org/[/QUOTE]

I can almost guarantee you any bank a poverty line worker may have access to, will use this system.

[quote name='nasum']I hate to bite on this one...

So if someone writes a bad check, who should bear the expense?

Of course going back to our fun times from earlier, there comes a certain point where it isn't advantageous to put up a nice grocery store in a crappy area. Mainly because it's, well, crappy. So if you want a real grocery store instead of that convenience store that sells mainly junk food, you have to live in an area that isn't economically depressed as well as plagued by crime.

Back to checks, they're basically on the way out now anyways aren't they? Check fraud is so damn easy that the debit card really protects the payee. Of course seeing that they can no longer fuck people over on overdrafts, banks had to devise a new way to collect fees so now it costs a lot for the payee to take the debit card. This raises prices for everyone, other than those reaping the profits. They're the investors, but since we're talking about financial responsibility, investing becomes a part of that and then profit is no longer evil now is it?

So I guess it all comes full circle.[/QUOTE]

No checking is not on the way out, there are still very real costs to not having a bank account. Secondly, we should not necessarily have to pay for people who write bad checks, however that is an auxiliary and very small issue of contentment. In all honesty using things like automatic bill pay or automatic money orders for poorer customers would circumvent the problem of bad check writers and give a way for poorer people to gain access to financial services. But we don't do this. Do you know why? Because it is not profitable enough for banks and the only money they can make from poorer customers is though (in my opinion) predatory fees, and never through their business as customers.
 
[quote name='cindersphere']I am going to try to be civil and expand upon the poor side of why this is probably not going to work, well at least the financial literacy part. Your view of the poor is extremely one sided. First of all you are basing a big assumption on the standard middle class banking methods. If you truly did come from poor areas you would understand that things like balancing a check book don't even matter since the most undeserved in great numbers don't even qualify for a bank account. Many time banks will place extra "conditions" on poorer people that conveniently exclude them. I would really love to be in a class where a person is being taught how to balance a check book with no ability to get an account in the first place. Hell where I come from people most people don't qualify for an account and instead use some damn charge cards and pay the fee to recharge it every time they get paid, every payday at places like wal-mart you can see a line of the workers all trying to recharge their cards just to pay utilities and such.

I really dislike debates such as these where one side says it because the poor don't know. You know what, for the most part the knowing will never matter, a lot of them never get the chance to use that knowledge at all because the nice man in a suit will always say you don't qualify. Nope these conversations always look the other way on reality and push some "common sense" solution, which despite being well intentioned, are many times are reduced to applying the wrong strategies to the wrong situations. I mean seriously financial advisers are barely seeing these prepaid cards as an alternative to bank accounts, a practice that has been in used by the poor for years now. As for the stupid, well educating a person against it will never work.[/QUOTE]

I get all that. But financial literacy isn't just getting at banking etc.

It starts with the basic notion of living under your means, and not buying luxuries when you can't even afford basic necessities.

I can't tell you how many family members and family friends I have back in the rural shithole I grew up in that are on welfare, food stamps etc. yet have cable or satellite tv, go into credit card debt to by HDTVs or fishing boats etc. I'm not saying that's the norm, as most do live modestly and not spend much on luxuries. But it's also far from rare. We have a ridiculously consumeristic culture that encourages buying luxuries even if you can't afford them.

So I'm more talking basic common financial sense here. Basic budgeting. A common sense understanding that you work to buy necessities first, save up a rainy day fund 2nd, and any luxury spending comes after those are taking care of and if they're not taking care of you do without. Something to try to counteract our materialistic culture and teach the importance of living within your means.

The banking, check book balancing, investing is taught to build off that basic common financial sense foundation. It's crucial knowledge for anyone that ends up in the lower middle class and above. And yes, those are the kids/young adults who'll get the most out of such a class, I agree. And that's fine as there are no shortage of financial morons in the middle class and above who squander their money, have their houses foreclosed on etc.
 
[quote name='cindersphere']http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/if-youre-poor-forget-about-bank-accounts-1337334.html

Little old and from the UK, but some these conditions are still applied to poorer people trying to get a bank account in the US as well. So yes you are technically correct, though the reality of free checking for everyone was far from a reality. Further more, depending on where you are at on the poverty line maintaining positive balance can be quite difficult if one is living check to check. One it may be incredibly hard to keep track of ammounts (even the best of us do this from time to time, however to some it may mean a couple of hundred dollars in bank fees a person will not be able to afford), especially if a person does not have access to the internet or easy/reliable access to said bank, an issue dohdough brought up.

I am assuming your response was honest and not just an "Aha, this proves you don't know what you are talking about" thing

Edit: If your interested this may be a bit long of a read but still a good source to help understand barrier to banking.

http://webcache.googleusercontent.c....pdf+barrier+to+bank+account+poor&hl=en&gl=us[/QUOTE]

The first article is mostly outdated... I don't know of a single bank that requires a utility bill to setup an account. Also there are quite a few that don't do credit checks.

As far as maintaining a positive balance... well if you don't have a checking account you have to make do with what cash you have on hand so that's kind of a moot point.
 
[quote name='nasum']Back to checks, they're basically on the way out now anyways aren't they? Check fraud is so damn easy that the debit card really protects the payee. Of course seeing that they can no longer fuck people over on overdrafts, banks had to devise a new way to collect fees so now it costs a lot for the payee to take the debit card. This raises prices for everyone, other than those reaping the profits. They're the investors, but since we're talking about financial responsibility, investing becomes a part of that and then profit is no longer evil now is it?

So I guess it all comes full circle.[/QUOTE]


You might would have a point here... if interchange fees were something new. They've been around for a long time.
 
I work at the bank, it sucks seeing people struggling to pay back overdraft fees and live check to check.

I love hearing the higher ups when they visit the store and say things like "These new regulations cost the company billions in revenue".
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']I get all that. But financial literacy isn't just getting at banking etc.

It starts with the basic notion of living under your means, and not buying luxuries when you can't even afford basic necessities.

I can't tell you how many family members and family friends I have back in the rural shithole I grew up in that are on welfare, food stamps etc. yet have cable or satellite tv, go into credit card debt to by HDTVs or fishing boats etc. I'm not saying that's the norm, as most do live modestly and not spend much on luxuries. But it's also far from rare. We have a ridiculously consumeristic culture that encourages buying luxuries even if you can't afford them.

So I'm more talking basic common financial sense here. Basic budgeting. A common sense understanding that you work to buy necessities first, save up a rainy day fund 2nd, and any luxury spending comes after those are taking care of and if they're not taking care of you do without. Something to try to counteract our materialistic culture and teach the importance of living within your means.

The banking, check book balancing, investing is taught to build off that basic common financial sense foundation. It's crucial knowledge for anyone that ends up in the lower middle class and above. And yes, those are the kids/young adults who'll get the most out of such a class, I agree. And that's fine as there are no shortage of financial morons in the middle class and above who squander their money, have their houses foreclosed on etc.[/QUOTE]

This is the same as all education, those people you have problems with will always do that stupid shit, just like there will always be that jackass that shoots up a nice party. You really can't teach some people, sad but true. In my opinion your classes will accomplish one thing, take up more of the state budget that can be used else where in the school. The saving up mentality is one that also comes from the idea one can save up for and frankly one that I have always questioned. Truly buying things on credit is not always bad, considering you have access to new credit cards. Hell if you do it right one could borrow money at a rate that is better than commercial borrowing, which is honestly ridiculously low compared to private lending.

I love your attitude on the situation though, they just don't know better. I call BS, everyone buying beyond their means knows they will default, many times they just don't care or don't have an option not to go into debt.
 
[quote name='cindersphere']I can almost guarantee you any bank a poverty line worker may have access to, will use this system.[/QUOTE]

Did you even look at the lists? Bank of America... Chase... Wells Fargo... Fifth Third... etc etc... Seriously you're not even trying now.


[quote name='cindersphere']No checking is not on the way out, there are still very real costs to not having a bank account. Secondly, we should not necessarily have to pay for people who write bad checks, however that is an auxiliary and very small issue of contentment. In all honesty using things like automatic bill pay or automatic money orders for poorer customers would circumvent the problem of bad check writers and give a way for poorer people to gain access to financial services. But we don't do this. Do you know why? Because it is not profitable enough for banks and the only money they can make from poorer customers is though (in my opinion) predatory fees, and never through their business as customers.[/QUOTE]

automatic bill pay? banks charge for this service? I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this?
 
[quote name='cindersphere']
I love your attitude on the situation though, they just don't know better. I call BS, everyone buying beyond their means knows they will default, many times they just don't care or don't have an option not to go into debt.[/QUOTE]

BS that everyone knows that. Plenty of people just don't plan well enough and buy more house than they can afford and lose it when times get tough unexpectedly etc.

But yes, there are those who don't care about defaulting and filing bankruptcy etc. And part of the curriculum should be to show the harm done to the system by such attitudes, and instill a moral sense of the importance of paying ones debts.

But I agree that it may be of limited effectiveness for the worst offenders. So again, any financial course would really be most beneficial for the better of kids who could learn more about investing, the stock market etc.--info they may not be able to get from their parents, as even a lot of middle class families aren't doing much investing beyond their employer's retirement plan. And that's fine. It's important knowledge and most relevant to people in the middle class and up who make enough to save up and invest.

As for whether it's a worthwhile part of the curriculum, that's a fair debate. I certainly wouldn't add the course at the expense of key courses like English, math, the sciences, foreign languages etc. But I sure took my fair share of useless classes in High School, several of which were required rather than electives. So I think there's probably room to put it in without losing any crucial courses or driving up costs at most schools.
 
[quote name='Afflicted']Did you even look at the lists? Bank of America... Chase... Wells Fargo... Fifth Third... etc etc... Seriously you're not even trying now.




automatic bill pay? banks charge for this service? I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this?[/QUOTE]
Banks don't charge for that service. I was saying for banks on the chexsystem an account based around automatic bill pay would be a viable option for allowing poorer people to gain access to the banking system without inconveniencing the rest of the customer base nor at great costs to the bank.


Umm.. BofA still uses it, I assume they are on the list because they use that system and the system they developed that works exactly like chexsystem, which they made to reduce costs. But umm yeah all the banks you listed there use either a combination of either chexsystems or early warning services (the system BofA created which is more colloquially known as EWS). But yeah, your list is the end all of that topic.

Edited because I used a wrong word in the wrong place.
 
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[quote name='Afflicted']
automatic bill pay? banks charge for this service? I'm not sure I understand what you mean by this?[/QUOTE]

Yeah, I've not see any banks charge for this. In fact, many free checking accounts now require using direct deposit and enrolling in online banking to get the free account.

That still would keep some lower class out of the free checking since they're more likely to work for places that don't offer direct deposit I guess. But I think that will get phased out for all but very small businesses as direct deposit is generally cheaper than having to print paychecks unless it's a tiny business.
 
[quote name='dmaul1114']BS that everyone knows that. Plenty of people just don't plan well enough and buy more house than they can afford and lose it when times get tough unexpectedly etc.

But yes, there are those who don't care about defaulting and filing bankruptcy etc. And part of the curriculum should be to show the harm done to the system by such attitudes, and instill a moral sense of the importance of paying ones debts.

But I agree that it may be of limited effectiveness for the worst offenders. So again, any financial course would really be most beneficial for the better of kids who could learn more about investing, the stock market etc.--info they may not be able to get from their parents, as even a lot of middle class families aren't doing much investing beyond their employer's retirement plan.

As for whether it's a worthwhile part of the curriculum, that's a fair debate. I certainly wouldn't add the course at the expense of key courses like English, math, the sciences, foreign languages etc. But I sure took my fair share of useless classes in High School, several of which were required rather than electives. So I think there's probably room to put it in without losing any crucial courses or driving up costs at most schools.[/QUOTE]

Meh I was never one for being overly careful with my forum posts, and yes I do concede that there are people who did not know. There there are some people who who live as optimists and crash hard. Although I would argue that it wouldn't even benefit those people you are talking about either, after all every smoker lives in optimism that they won't get cancer, or at least before they quit smoking. These kind of people will always bet on the my salary will be raised by X amount every year, or the common I will still have this job next year. This goes back to basic incentive theory, if there is an incentive that makes you misinterpret your situation, people will most likely go down that path. Especially when the rewards are closer than the consequences.
 
Well the key is that some people learn fiscal responsibility, and others don't.

Then the key question is whether some courses on that can help increase the number of people who live fiscally responsible lives.

There's no way to know without trying. It may be a thing where it doesn't work and that type of ethic has to be instilled through parenting and kids are a lost cause by high school. Or it may be that it can at least work for some and help them avoid making bad financial decisions as young adults that can really wreck their credit it and make it hard to ever get on track.

In either case, at least some kids should get benefits about learning more about money, investing, how the stock market works etc. that will at least be useful to those that are responsible financially and invest when they get older etc.

So even if it doesn't succeed in bolstering fiscal responsibility, it should at least give useful knowledge to the kids already heading down the right path.
 
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