Category: finance

High School Personal Finance

On By JohnIn education, financeLeave a comment

just-shower-thoughts:

In every high school, there should be a class dedicated to teaching how taxes work, how to get insurance, how to rent or pay mortgage, and how to not get into financial trouble with banks.

Interestingly, we had one in my high school way back in 19-80-something. It was called Personal Finance. I don’t recall whether it was a graduation requirement, but I seem to recall that it was only available to the upperclass.

We learned – in as much as 9 or 18 weeks would allow – a bit about taxes, checking accounts, income, household expenses, budgets, and savings.

We also explored some of the basic financial aspects of small businesses. Even having gone as far as creating, planning, and forecasting performance for our mock business.

I would speculate (admittedly rather wildly) that such courses are no longer offered because they do nothing to ensure kids get passing grades on – and the school additional funding from – next April’s NAEP testing.

Fair is Fair

On By JohnIn finance, sociologyLeave a comment

If an establishment insists on using one of those little counterfeit currency pens to see if my bills are legal, I should do the same to them when they hand me change. “I’m sorry, this bill is counterfeit… do you have another form of payment?”

Checks – The Cost of Inflation

On By JohnIn annoying, financeLeave a comment

I don’t write many checks. In fact, I’d wager that an overwhelming portion of Americans don’t either.

But I still have to write checks occasionally, so I keep some on hand.

Also, having just relocated, I thought it prudent to order new checks with the new address.

A couple of things struck me:

– Did you know that you could order checks in smaller numbers now? They used to be in boxes of 400. Now, the default is 100. Same great price per 100 as the old price per 400, by the way.

– When ordering checks, they have loads of scary language about using their preferred, trackable shipping methods. Yes, it’s expensive. Very. In fact, it’s so expensive and so scary that you practically must use it because, the way they put it, the post/parcel delivery service is going to spot your checks and steal them along with your identity, so isn’t it after all worth the extra $52 for trackable shipping costs?

So, just like the Inflation Diet – with new, smaller portions at the same great prices – you also have the wonderful peace of mind that your financial institution will help exploit your very real fears of identity theft.