Archive for financial literacy

Press Release- Financial Beginnings and Operation HOPE seek inspirational business people to speak to Oregon youth

September 14, 2011 financial literacy, Uncategorized No comments
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact

Melody Thompson

Melody@FinancialBeginnings.org

800-406-1876×1

Financial Beginnings and Operation HOPE seek inspirational business people to speak to Oregon youth

PORTLAND, Ore., September 13, 2011—Financial Beginnings and Operation HOPE, both nonprofits that provide free financial education classes to youth and young adults, are partnering and recruiting speakers for two special fall events.

Global Dignity Day –Operation HOPE is hosting an event in Portland on and around October 20th, 2011 to celebrate Global Dignity Day.

Speakers will touch on:

What dignity means to them?

The role personal responsibility plays in contributing to the local economy and a healthy community?

Sharing tips, ideas, and advice that would help motivate students to start living a life they would be proud of?

Sharing challenges they have faced and what accomplishments they have celebrated in leading a dignified life?

National Entrepreneurship Week – Financial Beginnings is hosting events the week of November 14th-20th 2011 to celebrate National Entrepreneurship Week. This community event will raise awareness of Financial Beginnings’ new Entrepreneurship program.

Speakers will touch on:

Who or what originally motivated them, and from where they continue to

draw inspiration?

What entrepreneurial spirit means to them?

What challenges have you faced and what accomplishments have you celebrated?

The role an entrepreneur plays in a thriving community and how entrepreneurs contribute to the local economy?

Community leaders, educators, business professionals, and youth will gather to celebrate, learn, and share inspiration and ideas. Financial Beginnings and Operation HOPE are seeking speakers for these events and/or an ongoing basis to inspire youth and young adults in the over 100 schools and community groups throughout the Northwest which they serve. If you are interested in getting involved please email info@FinancialBeginnings.org or call 800-406-1876.

About Financial Beginnings

Formed in 2005 and based in Portland, OR, Financial Beginnings is a nonprofit organization that provides multi-session courses, free of charge, to students and young adults throughout the Pacific Northwest through visits to their individual schools or community groups. The courses incorporate all aspects of personal finance to provide individuals the foundation needed to make informed financial decisions. More information is available at www.financialbeginnings.org.

About Operation HOPE

Founded in 1992, social empowerment nonprofit Operation HOPE’s mission is to expand economic opportunity in under-resourced communities through financial literacy education. HOPE promotes “silver rights” – making free enterprise and capitalism relevant and effective for the underserved. Raising more than $500 million and directing and restructuring nearly $500 million more in mortgages and economic support from the private sector, for a total of approximately $1 billion dollars in economic activity, HOPE seeks dignity and empowerment for all.

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An end to my year of service.

August 19, 2011 financial literacy, Uncategorized No comments

A year has passed since I arrived at Financial Beginnings. It does not seem that long ago that I first stepped into my office at the Bank of the West. My time at Financial Beginnings is one that I will always cherish. Working closely with Melody Thompson and David Bell has been one of the best experiences of my life. Their passion for Financial Education is matched by none that I have met.

During my time at Financial Beginnings my main focus was on programs. I brought on over 2000 new students and 20 new schools. Schools I brought on, such as Minter Bridge and Free Orchards, have already begun signing up for 2011-2012 school years. I have to say it feels really good knowing that I made a sustainable impact.

I also helped revise our student materials while serving on the program committee. Working with a small but highly efficient committee allowed me to implement changes within our curriculum. While there are still plenty of improvements to be made, I am delighted to know that some of the ideas I brought will live on in our student text long after I am gone.

While this is my last day with Financial Beginnings, this will not be the last time you hear from me. I plan to stay on as a guest writer. I am off to a Master’s Program in Statistics at UCLA. Without a doubt I will come across interesting topics related to finance and I plan to share them accordingly. Thank you for reading!

Is it worth it to buy an extended warranty?

July 15, 2011 financial literacy, Uncategorized No comments

Whether it’s a car or computer, each time we make a purchase, there is a risk of product failure. To be a smart consumer, we have to weigh the costs and the benefits of a warranty. We must ask ourselves, what is the worst that can happen? And then contemplate how much loss we are willing to accept. For me, a warranty almost always makes financial sense. I tend to have bad luck with my products – they are simply not built to last.

I have an extended warranty on my PS3, it cost me $80 and nothing has gone wrong. But the two year coverage ends this Monday, so now I can only hope nothing goes wrong. I have a three year warranty on my television (only one year left!), and a five year extended warranty on my car (only two and half left!). My car warranty cost me $2,500 in 2009 but since then, I have saved over $8,000 because of it. My car has been extremely problematic.

Most products come with a limited manufactures warranty, like my cell phone. I had it for five months when it started acting funky, so I took it to the Sprint store and they gave me a new one for free. Credit card companies also offer free warranty extensions on products purchased with the card. Check your card member agreement terms to see if this is available to you.

I read an interesting argument against purchasing extended warranties. The idea is, instead of purchasing the warranty, you take the money you would have spent on the warranty and put it aside in a separate saving’s account. Do this for every product for which you could have bought extended warranty. You have now created a funding source for repairs. Since it is unlikely that all your products will break at the same time, you can withdraw funds as items fail.

This strategy would not have benefited me due to the ridiculous problems my car has had, but for some people, this strategy would work. Everyone has a warranty story, some good, and many bad. What’s your story?

The cost of being a disposable society

June 10, 2011 financial literacy, Uncategorized No comments

Remember my blog a few months ago toting about all of the money I am saving by getting rid of cable and just using Hulu and Netflix? Well it’s a good thing I have created the savings in my budget because I ended up having a huge expense on my TV last week. A couple of weeks ago we heard the dreaded POP while we were watching TV. It was immediately apparent that the picture bulb blew out on the TV.

I purchased this TV in 2006 and was told that the bulbs usually go out about every two years. They encouraged me to purchase the few hundred dollar warranty because I was bound to need to replace a bulb within the three year warranty period. Well either the salesman severally underestimated the average bulb life or I watch less TV than most people. Quite honestly both are plausible reasons.

Josh’s asked his friend who repairs TV if he’d be willing to help. Within five minutes sitting in my inbox was a link to where to purchase the bulb and a copy of the owner’s manual. The bad thing was that the part was almost $200 dollars. Josh said that my husband or he could easily install it, but that since it was so old maybe I should just go buy a new TV. Old? It’s only six years old! I remember a few years ago I gave away a TV that was over 20 years old and still working perfectly fine (well except that it didn’t have a remote). How could I even consider buying a new TV?

The following Sunday when I was sitting down looking at the advertisements in the Sunday Oregonian I understood why Josh suggested I buy a new TV. The TV that I purchased six years ago could be replaced by a newer, thinner, clearer (all together better) model for about a third of the cost that I paid for my current TV. So I was faced with either spending $200 to repair my existing TV or spend about $800 for a totally new one that was way better. Tempting right?

It seems we have become a disposable society. When it almost costs as much to replace an item as it does to repair it then people are not motivated to keep it and repair it and then we are left with disposing of the old item. What a waste.

So I sucked up the $200 cost of the bulb and it took a whopping 5 minutes for my husband to replace it and hopefully I am good for another six years. Do you think it was the right decision?

Is it worth it to buy discounts?

June 2, 2011 financial literacy, Uncategorized No comments

A few weeks ago Josh talked about the web and social discounts available and I thought I’d expend on it with my own personal experience. Yesterday I realized that I had six deals that I had purchased through Groupon, Living Social and Travel Zoo that I had not yet used. I was determined to utilize these deals which I had purchased over the last several months.

So yesterday I:
• ordered $40 of personalized stationary which I purchased for $20,
• ordered five bottles of wine which I had purchased a $75 certificate for $25, but I ended up paying an additional $20 because of shipping and the cost of the wine, and
• Went out to a 4 course meal with wine which I had paid $50 for. I left a $20 tip.

I still have yet to use:
• 3 sessions of kickboxing which I purchased for $15,
• 20 fitness sessions at a women’s gym, and
• $60 of ceramic painting which I paid $30 for

There have been numerous other deals which I have purchased over the last several months like lodging, golf, yoga accessories, tea, hot yoga, and the list goes on and on. But now I’m wondering was it worth it? It has been great trying out new businesses and experiences, but am I really getting a good deal? Many times yes, but many times no.

For example with the work out sessions, many times they only give a short period of time to use the sessions. Over Christmas I purchased 20 sessions of Bikram yoga for $25, the only caveat to that was that they had to be used within 60 days which meant that I would have had to go 2-3 times per week. Do you know how hot it is in there? It took me a good week just to get up the nerve to go again so I ended up only going about 4 times. Still, a reasonable deal averaging just over $6 per session, but still I may have stuck with it had I more time to get use to the excruciating experience.

I’ve also been burned by some of the online retailers because of the shipping. I purchased $25 worth of yoga accessories for $12. I figured this was good because I could purchase a new yoga mat which I was in need of. Well, what I did not know was that the shipping was going to be over $10 so I likely ended up paying the same price as I would have if I had just gone to a shop here locally.

The thing that is important to pay attention to with these deals is that we are still spending money out of our budget. Most of the deals I have purchased are extras in my budget. Some do give me good deals on things that I would have purchased anyway like the wine, or golfing. But many just sound fun and like a good deal so I purchase them, like the ceramic painting.

So now the questions is do I purchase the $20 certificate for $10 to Old Navy which is on Groupon today?

Student Loan Consolidation- Part II the Dispute Letter

May 25, 2011 financial literacy, Uncategorized No comments

Student Loan Consolidation- Dispute Letter

It’s been a long time since I’ve had to write a dispute letter, but I’m quite experienced in it since I worked in collections for several years. I finally had some time today to sit down and sift through the notices I’ve received over the last several months regarding my student loan consolidation. Unfortunately the more I dug into the paperwork the more it scared me how unorganized they were during this whole process. In March they sent me a notice telling me that they were planning to complete the consolidation 09/01/10, but that they sent it in 02/25/11. They didn’t bother to call the previous loan company to get a new payoff amount since I had still been making my regular monthly payments. It’s important that anytime you are doing a consolidation, refinance or any type of Quick and easy loans change that you continue to make your regular monthly payments on time.

I sifted through all of the paperwork and tried to outline as clear as possible my situation of them receiving a refund from my previous service provider, which then caused my principle balance to go down and somehow caused my payment to go up.

Some important things to know about sending dispute letters:
• Always send dispute letters via certified mail and save the delivery receipt,
• Send the notice to multiple departments if you think it will help,
• Send copies of any documents you are referring to,
• Document and cite names and dates of conversation you have had with the company,
• Clearly state the problem and what you want to know or what your suggested resolve is, and
• Be sure to follow up!

I will be sending the disputer letter out today. I’m sending it to the processing center Texas and the Consolidation Department in Kentucky. Cross your fingers on my getting a response.

HOPE and FB Volunteer Overcoming the Odds and Giving Back in Return

May 18, 2011 financial literacy No comments

When Cameron Vondrachek was a young boy he struggled with a severe stutter. With the help of hard work, a loving mom and a special device, he overcame much of the stutter, but still has trouble with articulation. But this does not hold Cameron back one bit.

Now a senior in high school Cameron recently visited his 5th grade teacher and her current class to teach the Banking on Our Future program. The teacher and the students loved it. Cameron did an amazing job.

He mixed the important lessons with fun activities and games. The class was hooked. Cameron’s proud mom, Diane Vondracheck from Bank of America, is also a volunteer presenter in Oregon. She said that this opportunity helped Cameron “gain so much confidence and he had a good time teaching the kids. Thank you for giving him the opportunity to do this for his senior project.”

Student Loan Consolidation-Part 1

May 16, 2011 financial literacy, Uncategorized No comments

Though I was able to get through my undergraduate with very few student loans, my graduate education was a different story. I am the type to say that one should invest in their education, but I must admit that my going back to school to get my masters was truly to fuel my own ego. I was already running Financial Beginnings so obtaining the masters did not further my career or pay. I just really love school and quite honestly if I felt I could afford it I would continue on to get my PhD.

After finishing my masters I was left with paying for three student loans to three different companies. Last year I received an offer to consolidate from one of my loan providers and I proceeded with it. Not only would it lower my payments, but it also would make it easier for me by only having to make one payment each month instead of three.

I completed the loan consolidation paperwork early last summer. For some reason the loan servicer only brought over one of the loans now leaving me with two student loans. I contacted them and they asked me to provide the information again in order to consolidate the third loan, which I did late last summer. Since then there’s been little information until early this year when I started hearing more from the finance company that my other loan would soon be paid off and estimating the monthly payment.

In the middle of March my loans were paid and the payment was then recalculated. Unfortunately I had since moved and did not receive the notice of this until after the new payment date had already passed. This was unfortunate for me because my payment went from $80 to $280 and the three week notice they provided for this was not enough time to go through the mail forwarding process and they attempted to take an additional $200 out of my account which I was not expecting. Still this is a moot point to my story.

In mid-April another notice was sent informing me that the loan payment had changed again and increased by $21 because they had received a refund from my previous lender of approximately $1800. What? They received money back which resulted in my loan amount being less and that caused my payment to go up? They said this was my fault because I kept making payments on the other loan. Well of course I would continue to make payments because if I had not then my loan would have been in default for 7 months. It didn’t make sense to me and quite honestly to many of the six people I spoke with during a 1 ½ hour conversation on Thursday that the decreased principle would result in a higher payment. I was assured that all of the loan terms stayed the same, but because the principle balance went down it caused my payment to go up. I assured them that my Master in Finance (which the loan paid for) taught me enough to know that was not mathematically possible. Unfortunately the answer I received from them was that the calculator says it’s so, so it must be so. I went round and round with six people, getting bumped from department to department because nobody was willing to explain the calculation only to find that I had wasted a huge portion of my day.

So now what? My husband says it’s only $21 and we can afford it, but that’s not the point. One of the examples I gave to the loan representative was that if the previous lender would have sent me the $1800 I could have sent them the amount as a payment and my payment would not have gone up. She agreed, yet did not understand why I was laughing when she agreed.

Now I will be sending a dispute letter via certified mail. I will have to dig through the paperwork they sent to me (which is surprisingly little for a $50,000 loan) and see if I can find any information to help to explain why my loan payment would go up when the principle amount went down.

My worry is that because the loan is through the U.S. Department of Education and from what I know about student loans they don’t have the same rules as other loans that nothing is going to happen. So if the rules are different for student loans do they bare the same responsibility to the Truth in Lending Act? I guess I’ll be doing some research this week.

If you build it…will they come?

April 11, 2011 financial literacy, managing a nonprofit, starting a nonprofit, Uncategorized No comments

This is a question we all ask when planning educational events. Though its common knowledge there is a huge need for financial education usually the people who need the information are not going to seek it out. One of the struggles many of our partners who serve adults face is getting people to attend their events. Financial Beginnings is fortunate we don’t need to recruit our audience because our classes are in the in schools or community groups where are audience is already gathered. They are stuck hearing form us if they want to or not.

Last week was Money Smart Week in Oregon. Financial Beginnings and Operation HOPE decided that we wanted to expend our efforts beyond our youth in school programs during Money Smart Week. I have always wanted to have an open forum for adults to be able to ask their questions regarding personal finance. With laws and industry norms changing so frequently in addition to money always being viewed as a taboo subject I thought people have a forum to where they can ask questions would be wonderful. Money Smart Week gave me the push I needed to finally organize one of these forums and we named it Unraveling the Mysteries of Your Money. You’d be surprised how long it took us to come up with the name.

At Portland State University we brought together experts within the financial industry including; Jim Hunt from OnPoint Community Credit Union, Michael Parker from the Oregon College Saving Plan, Nelson Rutherford from Alten, Sakai & Co, and Diane Childs and Fernando Velez from the Oregon Division of Finance and Corporate Securities. The moderator of the panel was Brent Hunsberger, It’s Only Money columnist for the Oregonian Newspaper. Brent’s diverse knowledge in personal finance combined with his reputation in the community really helped to bring exposure and credibility to this event. You would think that with this great group this would have been the hard part of my task, but this was easy.

The hard part was the promotion and getting people to come to the event. I hear it time and time again from event organizers that it is so hard to get people to come. Having the event be free may even make it more difficult in some respects because of the perceived value. If people pay for attendance to an event they may tie a higher value to it and may be more likely to attend.

As of the three days before the event we had less than 10 people registered to attend. My anxiety level was high and I was so worried I was going to waste the panel’s time because nobody would show up. So we marketed it hard with the help of this Email Marketing Agency. All of the panel members helped to promote the event. Brent wrote about it in the paper and Nick Allard from KGW brought us on the bricks to promote it. We ramped up our social media and contacted all of the business professors at Portland State.

The registrations started flooding in, we maxed out the registration. We even added more seats because our experience has shown that usually only 2/3 of those that register end up attending free events. Our predictions were correct and we ended up with about 2/3 of those who registered attending.

I was so pleasantly surprised by the diversity of the crowd and their eagerness to hear from the panel. We had several planned questions in case the audience did not have questions right away, but Brent was only able to get one of the planned questions out and the audience took over from there. I saw several individuals in the crowd filling out multiple pages of notes. When time ran out several audience members flocked the panel for additional questions. It was like they were rock stars.

Aspects I see attributing to the success of the event:
• Having Brent Hunsberger of the Oregonian as the moderator added a lot of credibility to the event and his writing about it gave the event more exposure.
• Holding the event at Portland State University also added credibility to the and highlighted the educational component of the event.
• The panel was made up of high level and respected individuals.
• The varied marketing proved to be successful based on a pole of those attending reporting how they heard about the event.

We will definitely hold the event again next year during Money Smart Week. We have created a great foundation for the event and will be able to build upon this more next year.

Panel

SURPRISE! You owe on your taxes

April 10, 2011 financial literacy, Uncategorized 3 comments

Turns out my poor tax planning hurt me more than I had expected.  On Friday we went to pick up our returns in the best of moods because we assumed we would be getting a couple of thousand returned to us.  We were already starting to plan the vacation we would take with the money we got back.  Well….turns out we owe a couple of thousand.  Both of us were dumbfounded when the tax preparer told us.

How could this be?

  • Getting married hurt us- In 2009 I was able to file head of household and deduct more.
  • Not owning a home- In 2010 we rented our home so we did not have home mortgage interest that we could deduct which both of us had in previous years.
  • 401k rollover- I rolled over a 401k from a previous job into my Roth IRA.  It was only about $6000, but that’s $6000 that I now needed to pay taxes on.
  • Charitable contributions- We did a poor job keeping track of our charitable contributions.  We both volunteer a lot outside of our nonprofit jobs and we could have deducted mileage and other expenses that we incur when volunteering.  We also donated several loads of items to Goodwill, but never collected the receipts.  You’d be surprised by how much you can deduct when you itemize these donations.
  • Rental expenses- Though we do a good job of keeping track of the direct costs we put into repairs on the homes we rent out, we did not track the mileage for driving to and from the homes and smaller costs like paint brushes or cleaning supplies.

Though I know we were new clients and we came to the firm towards the end of the season I also felt that our return was rushed.  If it had been brought to our attention that we were going to owe we could have worked to gather more of the documentations some of the charitable contributions or rental expenses.  Also, we hosted an exchange student and were surprised when I asked what our deduction for that was and she said nothing.  I came home and researched it and found that in there in fact was a deduction of at least $50 a month we could have taken.

So do I gather more information and pay them to restate it?

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