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moana posted:As an ex-high school math teacher, I can tell you that most of the kids who take a personal finance course do so because they failed their other math and this is one of the easiest math courses you can take to graduate. Teachers who teach personal finance are the bottom of the barrel math teachers and sometimes are not math teachers at all, just other teachers who get roped into teaching the dumb kids about budgets. There is no special training to teach that class, and it's not covered in any math ed masters program because it's not part of the core. So basically I'm not surprised at all although it is sad. I think you'd have to make finance part of the core curriculum to have any sort of real impact, as well as some teacher training. Otherwise it'll stay a joke class. Evidently it's even worse than the students not being able to do math; the article linked gives a couple numbers, including net salary, and asks how much money is in the paycheck you receive. The concept of net salary is enough for that question to be considered part of the second most difficult category. I understand people having trouble with math, but I am just stunned that people without learning disabilities have trouble understanding that your net salary is the amount of money you receive.
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Nov 10, 2014 16:05
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Xyven posted:Evidently it's even worse than the students not being able to do math; the article linked gives a couple numbers, including net salary, and asks how much money is in the paycheck you receive. The concept of net salary is enough for that question to be considered part of the second most difficult category. I understand people having trouble with math, but I am just stunned that people without learning disabilities have trouble understanding that your net salary is the amount of money you receive. Yes exactly. The example question in the article was actually a vocabulary question. It was literal literacy, no math involved.
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Nov 10, 2014 16:16
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At my high school, remedial math was personal finance and taught by the assistant basketball coach so yeah.
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Nov 10, 2014 16:26
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I took a class that included balancing a checkbook register (something I've literally never done), and the track coach taught trigonometry and fancied himself a savvy investor. I remember him telling us in 2002 that he bought a ton of stock in Sun Microsystems and was making a pile of money off of it. Hope he sold before they melted down! So if there was a "personal finance" course at my HS, that guy probably would have taught it and I don't think that's a good thing.
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Nov 10, 2014 16:41
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Switchback posted:So we talk a lot about "if only we could educate the children" but what do you guys think about this article? Personally, I think that a lot of people's financial habits are heavily influenced by their parents', and studies have confirmed exactly that. If your parents aren't good with money, there's a very high likelihood that their kids will end up the same way. And another trend I've noticed is helicopter parents who still manage their kids/grown children's bank accounts. I've spoke with hundreds of parents who still have their names on their kids' bank accounts, even when their kids are in their 20s. And 9/10 times, these parents are doing a terrible job managing the account. There's always some sort of excess fees they're paying, or they're using it as their own little piggy bank. And they're always arrogant as hell if you dare to make any recommendations for the way they're handling the account. So it becomes obvious that these people aren't doing this to teach their kids about proper budgeting. They just want to have control over their kids. And God help those kids when the time comes for them to manage their own money. melon cat fucked around with this message at 16:54 on Nov 10, 2014 |
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Nov 10, 2014 16:41
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We spent a few days on personal finance in my highschool civics class. I don't think it was officially part of the curriculum but the teacher decided it was important. It was pretty basic, how to write a check and balance a checkbook, how income tax brackets work, and an explanation on compounding interest. Maybe something about credit card debt being the devil? I remember being quite bored by it at the time but the information definitely stuck so I am glad he decided to do it.
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Nov 10, 2014 16:58
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MAKE NO BABBYS posted:Uh, yeah, you can't do this with the bar's liquor that you sell. You can do this with your dish soap/cooking oil/etc or your home booze. I never understood though, what's the difference between the stuff in a 1.7 liter vs the same poo poo in a 1 liter bottle.
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Nov 10, 2014 17:02
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Yeah, no young adults are ever good with money. If they grew up affluent then they don't know the value of a dollar. If they grew up poor then they go crazy as soon as they have money/credit. Trying to reform the demand side is going to work as well as abstinence programs. Young people just don't understand the ramifications of their actions. Better to put protections on the supply side. Make it more difficult for an English major to rack up 100k in loans or put expiration timers on any debt incurred by 18 to 24 year olds. Ain't happening, I know. But it's a thought. LorneReams posted:I never understood though, what's the difference between the stuff in a 1.7 liter vs the same poo poo in a 1 liter bottle. The 100mm of water you add to the 1 liter bottle to make it look full.
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Nov 10, 2014 17:10
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LorneReams posted:I never understood though, what's the difference between the stuff in a 1.7 liter vs the same poo poo in a 1 liter bottle. Because you're legally bound to offer what is in the bottle to a paying customer. Truth in advertising. I mean you don't want to pay extra for top shelf liquor to find out its been replaced POSSIBLY with bottom shelf stuff. A lot different than doing it at home. In my job, which is selling insurance, you'd be surprised exactly how many parents screw their kids financially. As I think I've mentioned before, if you cancel a policy before having another in place, this gives you a LAPSE and causes your rates to go way up. Parents intentionally do this because "You don't need to be on mah policy!". Its like teaching a kid how to swim by just throwing them in the deep end, its terrible. So of course these kids grow up thinking this and screw themselves over and over again. They just don't know any better. Or folks that have co signers for vehicles.....at age 50 or some odd, and are asking for all kinds of dodges because they still rely on the folks to financially support them...and the folks did it before them as well. Just a way of life for a lot of people, and I genuinely don't know how you can really solve it. I'm not sure one or two high school classes can convince students that their parents are terrible with money (and possibly by cultural extension for some, terrible or "stupid" people).
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Nov 10, 2014 17:21
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At the 6th grade center I went to, we had a one or two week project in our Gifted math class where we picked a job, researched the median income, then did a budget (the latter part especially relied on a fair bit of asking one's parents, this was also before everyone had a computer/internet at home) and wrote the whole thing up. It was pretty illuminating 
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Nov 10, 2014 17:23
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LorneReams posted:I never understood though, what's the difference between the stuff in a 1.7 liter vs the same poo poo in a 1 liter bottle.
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Nov 10, 2014 17:28
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We did once watch a documentary in high school about credit card companies where they called people who paid their bill in full every month "deadbeats". That was probably all I needed to learn how exactly to use credit cards.Krispy Kareem posted:Yeah, no young adults are ever good with money. If they grew up affluent then they don't know the value of a dollar. If they grew up poor then they go crazy as soon as they have money/credit. Trying to reform the demand side is going to work as well as abstinence programs. Young people just don't understand the ramifications of their actions. I think this is too cynical and there are families that lie outside the extremes of "wealthy and inattentive" and "poor and spend any windfalls immediately". Those families don't generate the anecdotes but they are certainly out there. It's not like financial discipline is some mysterious superpower that can't be taught. Your conclusion is probably right regardless but the people spoken of in this thread do not make a representative sample. Jeffrey of YOSPOS fucked around with this message at 17:50 on Nov 10, 2014 |
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Nov 10, 2014 17:48
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Jastiger posted:I mean you don't want to pay extra for top shelf liquor to find out its been replaced POSSIBLY with bottom shelf stuff. Or worse.like drinking at a TGI Fridays
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Nov 10, 2014 17:52
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I think that's kind of cynical and there are families that lie outside the extremes of "wealthy and inattentive" and "poor and spend any windfalls immediately". Those families don't generate the anecdotes but they are certainly out there. It's not like financial discipline is some mysterious superpower that can't be taught. My parents were certainly "good with money" in most generally accepted BFC ways. But they never really tried to teach me in some kind of organized fashion. I passively learned to do things like take the company match, pay cash for used cars, spending less than I earn, and a basic idea of what was considered expensive. But I never really knew what to do with the money I saved up once I had it sitting there in the bank. Thankfully, most of it went into home equity or cash purchases of vehicles. The bits and pieces I picked up worked pretty well until I was old enough to know how to research it on my own. But it's a far cry from what they could have taught me, if they'd actually tried to teach it expressly. I mean, most people grow up with at least 1 parent who knows how to cook. But everybody I know also ended up having to teach themselves mostly from scratch when they moved out. If you want to teach your kids something that will stick, you need a schedule and a curriculum. I've met very few people willing to commit to that. I mean hear I am preaching it, and while I've taken my kid through an organized curriculum before, it's always been one that I could buy and follow - like math lessons or reading workbooks. I've never sat down and created one. And I get the feeling that's what it would take, and that I won't be able to find it at the parent/teacher store. Hell, it's hard to find decent books for adults.
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Nov 10, 2014 18:05
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I don't know if they've sold out (man), but when I was a tween, my parents gave me a Motley Fool book, targeted to teens, that I thought/think was really good. I then went to a private university so YMMV, but I am handling the smaller decisions a whole lot better than average, and I think it helped with that. A lot of my motivation was not wanting to live like my parents, though.
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Nov 10, 2014 18:18
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i like nice words
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I guess it helped me to observe the results of both my mom's financial habits(good) and my dad's(bad). Suck it folks without divorced parents to play goofus and gallant.
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Nov 10, 2014 18:24
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Zillions magazine successfully taught me to distrust all marketing.
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Nov 10, 2014 18:30
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I think this is too cynical and there are families that lie outside the extremes of "wealthy and inattentive" and "poor and spend any windfalls immediately". Those families don't generate the anecdotes but they are certainly out there. It's not like financial discipline is some mysterious superpower that can't be taught. Your conclusion is probably right regardless but the people spoken of in this thread do not make a representative sample. Obviously it's a generalization. There are people who do great right out the gate and others that stumble, but improve. Most people figure it out in the end. I'm in a good financial spot right now, but when I was 19 I co-signed on a HUD home that later became a crack house because I didn't want to get a different roommate. There's no limit to the stupidity of a teenager. Fortunately time heals most of those wounds. Unless it's a student loan. Then you're hosed.
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Nov 10, 2014 18:32
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Does the whole "no refilling booze bottles" thing apply to ketchup too, because man is it disappointing to reach for a bottle of heinz ketchup and find out they refilled it with hunt's.
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Nov 10, 2014 18:35
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I know car safety chat was like 40 pages ago but Jesus Christ, the whole point is it doesn't matter how attentive and defensive you are when a texting old man in his truck t bones you through an intersection. Sorry you weren't better driver. All you people saying passive side safety improvements aren't important are insane. Side impact improvements are probably the ONLY thing that matters for "perfect defensive drivers"
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Nov 10, 2014 18:35
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I'm not surprised at that last part "Similarly, a study by Tzu-Chin Martina Peng and her co-authors found that having taken a personal finance course in school is unrelated to investment knowledge." High school teachers most likely have no business giving investment advice short of "buy index funds". At my high school like half the personal finance class consisted of competing in some mock investing contest, in which the only viable way to win was to day trade and hope you got lucky. Those kids probably would've been better off not taking the class.
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Nov 10, 2014 18:47
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Folly posted:My parents were certainly "good with money" in most generally accepted BFC ways. But they never really tried to teach me in some kind of organized fashion. I passively learned to do things like take the company match, pay cash for used cars, spending less than I earn, and a basic idea of what was considered expensive. But I never really knew what to do with the money I saved up once I had it sitting there in the bank. Thankfully, most of it went into home equity or cash purchases of vehicles. The bits and pieces I picked up worked pretty well until I was old enough to know how to research it on my own. But it's a far cry from what they could have taught me, if they'd actually tried to teach it expressly. Pretty much what I was taught was to save up for things I wanted to buy. Any savings should be collecting interest in a bank or building society. My grandparents and mother collected rent from a single property each. Unfortunately the missed the boat on a lot of investment opportunities but they just didn't understand any of them. For them the idea of retirement savings didn't matter although that is partly to blame on the environment as Government pensions that everyone would collect were comfortable to live on. The Government promoted this while investing none of the money and running retirement as a ponsi scheme. Of course the media in New Zealand has been telling people for 30 years to save for retirement but few saved or invested until the retirement scheme started here 7 years ago. Financial literacy doesn't really seem to be valued by society. In fact I stated on facebook yesterday that I had decided to invest for more cashflow. I had one friend as what I had posted actually meant. I explained it to him as he didn't understand what the terminology in the post meant. Last night he posted that he needs to understand finance even though he hates the idea. I accidentally inspired one person just by talking about finance. Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I guess it helped me to observe the results of both my mom's financial habits(good) and my dad's(bad). Suck it folks without divorced parents to play goofus and gallant. My mother was better with money but spent any excess savings after the house was paid off on travel. My dad is terrible but at least he owns his own cheap house. He started out well building houses for profit then buying cheap houses for rent. Again excess money was blown on a big cruise ship trip for the family leaving them with nothing at the time (before I was born). Devian666 fucked around with this message at 18:54 on Nov 10, 2014 |
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Nov 10, 2014 18:50
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Jeffrey of YOSPOS posted:I guess it helped me to observe the results of both my mom's financial habits(good) and my dad's(bad). Suck it folks without divorced parents to play goofus and gallant. Mine didn't have to divorce for this to happen, but I also got a lot of "well we could have afforded to do [fun thing] had your mother not run up her credit cards" and other delightful sniping from my dad. I grew up on a farm and my parents kept buying horses and sheep so in that aspect both of them were bad with money since the whole operation has been a giant money pit since before I was born. At least they finally stopped buying new animals (or breeding the ones they had) and sold off the goddamn sheep when the last of us graduated high school. The farm has become a retirement home/deathbed for old horses and instead of being sad when one finally dies of old age I'm just relieved because that's one less they have to feed. At least they spend zero on vet care because my other sister is a vet. On the other hand, good with money: have kids who go into lucrative and useful professions you can take advantage of. I was the English major though so they only did well with 2 out of 3 
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Nov 10, 2014 18:52
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LorneReams posted:I never understood though, what's the difference between the stuff in a 1.7 liter vs the same poo poo in a 1 liter bottle. ABC laws vary state to state, but I am reasonably certain there are laws against or restricting it in every state. It's actually not based so much on health concerns (sanitation) but due to tax issues. Some states even require a bar (in which liquor is taxed much differently than that purchased for home consumption) to have tax stickers or seals on every bottle on the back bar. If you're refilling, you're not paying the tax man properly. It's also unsanitary (especially if you live in an area where fruit flies are present,) allows for cross-contamination and allows much greater potential for fraud - refilling call or premium brand bottles with well liquor to charge more. In every state I've ever worked in, it's even illegal to marry the same bottles - say I have two open and half-used bottles of Stoli. I could not combine them to save space even though tax stamps are not required in my state and I am not trying to defraud people. The ABC/whatever your state calls it is a very scary law enforcement agency for those of us in the business. They have basically free range to do what they want and their authority supersedes pretty much all other law enforcement agencies or local laws. Since alcohol laws are tax and morality laws, they have a free hand to shut you down or fine the business/individual employee. Being bad with money is working as a bartender and not strictly IDing every person in your establishment, oof.
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Nov 10, 2014 18:52
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ranbo das posted:Does the whole "no refilling booze bottles" thing apply to ketchup too, because man is it disappointing to reach for a bottle of heinz ketchup and find out they refilled it with hunt's. In CA, yes. You cannot "marry" ketchup bottles.
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Nov 10, 2014 18:53
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MickeyFinn posted:In CA, yes. You cannot "marry" ketchup bottles. At least not yet. Once polygamy is legal, who knows what's next.
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Nov 10, 2014 19:04
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Wickerman posted:What about seeking therapy to overcome a gambling addiction? The lottery is good with money, if you win. I think people very rarely go to therapy a couple times and feel markedly better. It's often an exercise that takes months and months, or years and years, and most people end up seeing little to no benefit. I just think it's a reckless suggestion for most people's financial situation. As much I would love the world to be puppies and rainbows, and therapy to be affordable for the masses, it's simply not. Devian666 posted:
You're forgetting something. If you kill yourself, you save big on living expenses.
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Nov 10, 2014 19:50
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Switchback posted:So we talk a lot about "if only we could educate the children" but what do you guys think about this article? moana posted:As an ex-high school math teacher, I can tell you that most of the kids who take a personal finance course do so because they failed their other math and this is one of the easiest math courses you can take to graduate. Teachers who teach personal finance are the bottom of the barrel math teachers and sometimes are not math teachers at all, just other teachers who get roped into teaching the dumb kids about budgets. There is no special training to teach that class, and it's not covered in any math ed masters program because it's not part of the core. So basically I'm not surprised at all although it is sad. I think you'd have to make finance part of the core curriculum to have any sort of real impact, as well as some teacher training. Otherwise it'll stay a joke class. I think it would be interesting to have something akin to a driver's license required to get credit cards or mortgages. Just a basic exam that covered the fundamentals of credit.
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Nov 10, 2014 20:02
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I want to buy a $500,000 house on an $80,000 salary. Is that bad with money? I feel like buying a house is always bad with money.
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Nov 10, 2014 20:04
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:I want to buy a $500,000 house on an $80,000 salary. Is that bad with money? I feel like buying a house is always bad with money. Uhhh that sounds a little ambitious, yes. What sort of down payment?
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Nov 10, 2014 20:10
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silvergoose posted:Uhhh that sounds a little ambitious, yes. What sort of down payment? 20%/$100,000. So a $400,000 mortgage would have a monthly payment of about $2,025. Which is just over 30% of the pretax income. So including taxes/insurance/utilities, it would probably hit at least 40% of my post-tax income. Aight gently caress it!
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Nov 10, 2014 20:13
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:20%/$100,000. So a $400,000 mortgage would have a monthly payment of about $2,025. Which is just over 30% of the pretax income. So including taxes/insurance/utilities, it would probably hit at least 40% of my post-tax income. Aight gently caress it! That sounds like an absurdly lenient mortgage rate but you'd still be better served taking advantage of that generous rate on something $150k or so lower.
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Nov 10, 2014 20:20
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Gabriel Pope posted:That sounds like an absurdly lenient mortgage rate but you'd still be better served taking advantage of that generous rate on something $150k or so lower. Crunching it out on my HP12c shows a 30 year term, 4.5% loan, and $400,000 balance as $2,026.74. I figured 4.5% was a conservative estimate if anything!
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Nov 10, 2014 20:27
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Are you taking into account Property Tax and HOA fees?
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Nov 10, 2014 20:29
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And the fact that you have to furnish the thing.
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Nov 10, 2014 20:32
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Cicero posted:I think it would be interesting to have something akin to a driver's license required to get credit cards or mortgages. Just a basic exam that covered the fundamentals of credit. It'll never happen as long as purchasing is an emotional action. Maybe a regulatory-enforced 'stare at this ocean-grey paint sample for ten minutes' period before signing car lease paperwork? 
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Nov 10, 2014 20:32
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so I could say that I finally figured out what this god damned cube is doing. Get well Lowtax.
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Oil for heat in the winter? $200 electric bill monthly if using AC? $100/month house insurance? $250/month taxes? That's over 50% of his pre-tax dollars, and I'm pretty sure I'm low on the last two.
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Nov 10, 2014 20:33
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Not to mention general maintenance and upkeep that comes with owning a home as opposed to renting it.
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Nov 10, 2014 20:53
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GoGoGadgetChris posted:Crunching it out on my HP12c shows a 30 year term, 4.5% loan, and $400,000 balance as $2,026.74. I figured 4.5% was a conservative estimate if anything! Your actual payment is going to include property taxes and insurance, which will likely jack it up about 25%. It is probably technically possible for you to afford that house if you manage the rest of your finances well but it's not remotely good with money.
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Nov 10, 2014 20:57
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If you're concerned with building equity might i suggest a truck of some kind
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