I recently read an interesting article about the racial wealth gap, called “Making it in the US: More Than Just Hard Work” by Pam Fessler.  In the article, the author argues that wealth is passed down through the generations instead of individuals building it.  An example given in the article describes two women who make similar incomes but one is wealthier because her family background. How? Perhaps the woman’s parents were in the position to pay for her college (so she has no college debt) or to help her with a down payment on a home. Maybe she lived in a neighborhood with better schools or she inherited money from her grandmother and invested it.  It seems that the author’s main point is that people do not start out with the same financial resources available to them and where they end up (financially) as adults is both a reflection of their hard work as well as the family background and societal situation they grew up in.

I was moved by this article.  I feel that I have seen similar situations in my own life and at work.  Now that I am working at Financial Beginnings, I think it would have also been interesting if the author had examined the connection between people’s income and the knowledge of how to successfully manage their money.  Perhaps it is not only wealth that passes through the generations but also the knowledge of how to manage it?

I recently read an article on NPR illuminating a surplus of unused dollar coins in the Federal Reserve that has now topped over a billion dollars. The banks keep returning the coins to the FED because they do not want them! This got me thinking about our fiat currency once again. I love coins because they can stand the test of time – the oldest coins in the world are thousands of years old. I love coins because they have touched so much history, so many places, and so many people. The introduction of dollar coins in America brought these feelings to life for me once again.

When I first saw the Sacagawea gold coins I was really excited, but my excitement quickly faded. Not only was it difficult to use them in vending machines, but I can count the number I have received during my entire life, through day to day transactions, on one hand. Sure, I can go to my bank and exchange a $10 bill for 10 dollar coins, but it nevertheless it remains unlikely that I will ever receive one back when buying goods or services.

I am lucky enough to have traveled to Europe many times in my life. Their one and two Euro coins, or alternatively British one and two pound coins, work well and no one thinks the wiser! Something funny (and a hidden cost) is that people in countries with heavier coins require their pant pockets to be fixed considerably more often than their American counterparts.

What do you think? Is it time to stop printing dollar bills?

After college graduation I decided I wanted to apply for a Master’s program in Statistics. I began preparations for this program almost immediately after graduating from Willamette University. My focus in college was economics; as such I was required to take five math classes at Portland Community College and one math class at Portland State University to have all the pre-requisites from the MS Stats program.

One morning in mid-April I received a welcome letter from UCLA. All my hard work paid off and I quickly began to celebrate. As I reviewed the details of the cost, my celebration was halted. I realized it would be twice as expensive to attend graduate school at UCLA since I no longer lived in California.

The next step was figuring out how I could get in state tuition. I filled out my intent to register and claimed I was a California resident for tuition purposes. My logic was, I grew up in California, and while I have been living in Oregon for the past six years, I was in college most of the time, I still paid most of my taxes in California, and my permanent address was in California. The university rejected my claim. This meant an extra $22,000 a year for out of state tuition.

Luckily, with the rejection notice, came another letter that indicated I may be eligible for tuition exemption based on the fact that I attended high school in California for more than three years. This was music to my ears, I hastily sent in all the required paperwork. Last week I received news that I had been approved for instate tuition; this is a glorious victory that is going to save me over $45,000 over the course of the program.

Thank you exemption program :)! I still need to come up with the rest of the money, stay tuned to find out how.