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Financial Literacy

http://www.cambridge-credit.org -- Most of us are focused on maximizing our earnings - as a matter of fact, many Americans are working harder than ever. Unfortunately, we seem to lose interest when it comes to making the tough decisions on how to manage that money. Surveys show that nearly everyone could benefit from a course in financial literacy, especially when such training is absent from the American classroom. Watch this week's webisode from Cambridge Credit Counseling Corp. to learn more. Host: Community Outreach Director, Thomas J. Fox. Transcription: Hello, and welcome to Your Money 2.0. I’m Thomas Fox, Community outreach Director of Cambridge Credit Counseling. As Americans continue to struggle meet the challenges of our current economy, a lot of people are asking how we got here in the first place? Was it greed, were we fooled into thinking that this prosperity would last, or was this downturn simply an inevitable factor of modern life? In truth, there may be no easy answer. What we do know, is that if more of us were better prepared to make financial decisions, things may have been very different. It should also come as no surprise however that financial literacy has become a hot topic at the moment. Until very recently many of us had no problem focusing on ways to maximize our earnings, but we seem disinterested in learning how to manage our money. We have somehow forgotten that financial success isn’t solely based on the income you take, but rather what you do with it once you’ve got it. That’s because few of us have ever had any form of financial literacy training. Not in high school and certainly not in college. In fact, financial literacy education is absent in the American classroom. In 2007, only nine states required any kind of personal finance instruction at the high school level and only seven states made it a prerequisite for graduation. If our most recent difficulties have taught us anything, it’s that the public needs to be able to make informed financial decisions. We need to know how to effectively shop for a mortgage, prepare for our retirement and use credit appropriately. If we can’t take a financial literacy class in school, where can we turn? Cambridge Credit Counseling and other non-profit agencies like ours are an excellent option. Cambridge focuses on providing consumers with the education, tools, and budgeting skills they need for them to become more financially responsible. Our agency has conducted more than 2500 free seminars for more than 40000 residents of our local community and we’ve provided education at no cost to more than 4000000 Americans nationwide. Cambridge’s Education Department staff offers conducts its seminars for social service agencies, traditional and vocational high schools, colleges, veterans groups, housing and homeowner assistance organizations, correctional authorities and other non-profit entities throughout our community. We have been fortunate enough to work with organizations and programs such as the Hampden County Sheriff’s Department, the Massachusetts treasurer’s money conference for women, Heading Home, Westover Job Corps, Junior Achievement, Habitat for Humanity, HAPHousing, and with homeless veterans served by West Haven, Newington, and Northampton Medical Center. Among the initiatives we are most proud of is our Net Gain program which was a partnership with USA TODAY and the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame. Over a ten week period Netgain offers high school students and teachers innovative and practical lessons on the basis of credit, debt, and personal money management. As of December 2008, Net Gain has been taught in more than 400 high schools to more than 160,000 students in nine states. Finally, in an effort to broaden the reach of our education programs we recently launched two new ventures: Money America, a weekly radio program which airs on WAIC 91.9 FM and the Your Money 2.0 video series which includes the program you’re watching right now. Why so many programs? At Cambridge we believe that a lot of the difficulties we’re dealing with right now could have been avoided if ordinary consumers were better prepared to make decisions about the money they earn and the money they spend. It may border on the cliché but education must really be the answer to most of our problems. If you or a member of your family could benefit from the financial education and money management services Cambridge provides call us today. We’ll show you what you need to know. Well, that’s it for this edition. We welcome your feedback and ask for your thoughts and suggestions by e-mailing us at yourmoney2@cambridgecredit.org. Thank you for watching. Until next time, I’m Thomas Fox for Cambridge Credit Counseling.