New York Today: Teaching Teens the Financial Ropes

More people need to read the books by Suze Ormand, the financial advice/budgeting guru.

back in the mid 70's when I was in high school we all had to take a class called Survival Living. Had balance a check book, calculate interest payments on a credit card, learn to iron a shirt. thanks in part to that managed to graduate college with manageable student loans and paid off mortgage in 20 years. should not this be required for all students?

Dear Mr. Wolfe & NYT, Thank you for this excellent and very important article!!! Kudos to Ms. du Pont Bell!!! This should be a national program in all US schools. I am just shy of 64 and have worked 98% of my life in the performing arts/music field. My folks around 90, have a very good retirement thanks to hard work and working together, but Dad was both very, very smart (coupled with having a very good investments man, and some good luck) and at same time new when to be frugal. They have owned 3 homes (built 2 of them) and are able to stay in their retirement dream home until their demise. I will never have what they have, partly because I knew little to nothing about taxes, investments, wills, credit, insurance. I am OK, but not in great shape and could be in bad shape when I hit 65 if Trump & his minions have their way. Unfortunately, any time I went to my Dad to ask/talk about such stuff, he kind of brushed me off. It was not until within past 10 or so years that I could pin him down to learn from him. What Ms. du Pont Bell is doing is something I have saying for decades, we need to teach high school and undergrad college students, at the very least, the basics on such things as taxes, investments, credits cards, creating a will and general financial literacy. I wonder how many things we are teaching in colleges & high schools that will actually truly benefit people in their daily living throughout their lives. This article and what Ms. du Pont Bell is doing is spot on!

WINTER STORMS Flights galore are being called off (Traveler's miserable bane); So too, alternate parking rules-- One man's pain, another's gain.

Everyone, from every walk of life, needs and deserves to be financially literate. Yes, it can (and should) be taught in school. The 21st Century Student's Guide to Financial Literacy - Getting Personal is a comprehensive and classroom-ready personal finance and money management curriculum for Grades 7-12. financialliteracylessons(dot)com. Everyone deserves the opportunity to learn about the importance of building personal wealth. Having some knowledge of personal finance and money management is essential to the ability to live and thrive in the modern world.

Recently my 15-year-old daughter expressed frustration at learning nothing about practical money-management in school, and she asked for a conversation with me about bills, taxes, investment, and how far a salary really goes. We talked for two hours, and she couldn't get enough. When I was in high school in the 1970s, we had to choose an occupation, and then the teacher came up with corresponding incomes and how much we'd have to pay for rent, utilities, etc. We also had to choose a stock to "buy" and follow on the stock market. Forty years later, I remember those class sessions clearly. The world is even more complicated now. Kids need this knowledge.

We are an average middle class income. I bought my first house when I was 22. My son has owned a rental house since he was 18 years old. He took his savings and graduation money and bought a 2 bedroom well updated home back when the market was low....he now has 70 Grand in equity due to property values and paying down the mortgage. Its possible to teach teens that they can do it if they plan and put effort in it.

"The frequent disappearances of a Bronx woman’s daughter put a strain on her family’s finances and the amount of time she has for her other children." Mrs. Santana is a single mother of six. Birth control, please. It's how the middle class makes ends meet.

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Bravo to this program. Economic literacy should be a skill taught in junior and high school. My husband had divorced NYC parents who were financially illiterate. The mother hordes money in her rent controlled apartment and had low interest bank deposits--never mutual funds. His father, who died a few months before I met the son, had zero savings and lived in one of the five most expensive buildings of Chicago. It was not until we married 4 years later ( I paid for wedding and honeymoon) that I began to realize my husband didn't know even how to balance a check book. He kept using his whole paycheck as spending money, relying on my career to pay household expenses, insurance, investments, etc. , to my dismay and disapproval. Then four months into the marriage, I insisted that he let me see his medical school loans paperwork--loans with payment deferred until he finished residency 4 years in future. I was astounded that the interest rates were 20%, and more astounded that he didn't realize that meant the balance was increasing each year. He was very resentful when I insisted he sit down with an accountant and me and learn some financial discipline and the reasons for it. He continued to want to live beyond his means the first years of the marriage. It nearly broke the marriage, and he resented me greatly for insisting the medical school debts be paid off as soon and much as possible. No more delay.

I am not sure why a banker with a good income should have a problem: don't spend more money than you make (or get from home). It's another story for people who have to get along on today's minimal incomes.

What goes around comes around! Graduating from high school in 1965, I recall classes in budgeting/maintaining a checkbook, local/state and federal government functions. These subjects were mandated for some students who were not continuing on to college, and were elective for some of us who were planning to go on to college. Drafting, and civics were some I chose to take, advanced placement courses were not yet available, or developed, one took all academic course requirements, then filled in with electives. However, I can recall nearly all of us, regardless of weather we were in the academic, business, or industrial arts (shop) track; we understood the basics of banking, checking, credit and paying our bills; and preparing to participate in the governing of our town, state and country once we reached 21 years old. Today? Not so much; as the bonehead trump might tweet, Sad!

Important to mention another upside to Cents Ability: a woman who can feed herself and her children with her own money is much less likely to be a victim of domestic violence. Money is the key to female self-determination.

Thank God. Financial illiteracy is a huge problem in our society. Happy to see someone try to address it--this from a life insurance agent.

Great lead story, though finances confounding even a Harvard grad doesn't feel like something to sing about, at least not early in the morning! :) But I guess that's what keeps us CPAs working and money coming in here! “an evening of readings, speeches and footage of its founder, Joseph Papp, at The New York Public Library.” Recalling his legacy and the first show I ever saw with friends on my own, rather than my folks having to buy the tickets! Tune of “Mack the Knife” (from Mr. Papp’s legendary 3-Penny Opera production) Oh, the Park had great free shows, dear And the line went on a mile And a landmark show of Joe’s, dear Was his smash by Brecht and Weill Tonight, we’ll cheer the Public’s founder A complex but brilliant chap Was there ever judgment sounder Than the taste of Joseph Papp Footage, readings, and orations There’s a preview on their app! Let’s go make our reservations To remember Joseph Papp So you lovers of great theater Come to this night of Joseph Papp!

I am glad to hear about this program. When I worked with adolescents in psychiatric facilities and learning disabled young adults in the early '80's, education about handling money was called Independent Living Skills. Before that, as a pre-school teacher, I taught the basics of buying, (apples at the corner market) and selling (to the other students at the school) to teach basic skills relating to cost/profit/saving. I am sad and surprised that a middle class, educated woman, somehow missed out on these basic skills. Money represents many things: reality, security, making good choices about "now" and "later". These skills, if not begun at home at a young age,

Teaching personal finance to high school students is a great thing and I commend Alexa for starting it. I remember many years ago one of my children telling me about someone at school who wanted to borrow money from her and she didn't know how to handle it. So I explained that in a way a lender and a borrower establish a relationship going forward and does this person have a good history with her. If their relationship is negative then she should not enter into a lending relationship. While on the other hand if this is a friend then she should say to the friend, OK I can lend you five dollars but you have to agree to these rules: that you tell me when you will be paying me back and that you understand that if you don't pay me back I will never lend money to you again. So when I explain this mechanism to her, I was thinking why isn't this kind of thing taught in schools and so here we are.

There is no question that a person who is illiterate is at a monstrous disadvantage in today's world. S/he will, almost certainly, be taken advantage by some of those who are literate. A person who is innumerate is at a similar disadvantage. Add in ignorance of "financial" basics and s/he WILL assuredly be taken advantage of by those who are not innumerate - particularly "financial institutions". (Witness the recent debacle involving impossibly lenient mortgages - or the usurious rates associated with credit cards!!). The FDIC has developed an excellent curriculum on the subject of Financial Literacy and the materials for same are available (at little or no cost) online. I used these materials for teaching the subject during my high school teaching days. There are two or three other programs available from other sources. Demonstrable competence in Financial Literacy should be a mandatory requirement for graduating high school - in every state! Otherwise, we will become a nation of "suckers" - to use P. T. Barnum's very appropriate word - ripe for the picking.

Alternate side parking rules are suspended until Wednesday for snow removal :)

Quite ironic that a Harvard grad with a job in finance can't keep her own books in order. Youthful folly? I think of my own mother with a 9th grade education and a service job that can make her ashamed of her "new" way to get financial literacy.

A young sixth grade teacher taught me and my classmates the elements of household finance; mortgages, insurance, pensions. I have never encountered similar instruction elsewhere outside of a university accounting course.

New Jersey has state standards for "financial literacy" that are increasingly demanding as students move from elementary through high school. It's taught in school as part of the curriculum. I suppose this class gives new meaning to the old term "Home Economics."