Next Gen Personal Finance: January 2015 Newsletter

Happy New Year!  Enjoy our January 2015 Newsletter:

Welcome to Next Gen Personal Finance's January 2015 Newsletter  Next Gen Personal Finance (NGPF) is a non-profit organization that believes all young people deserve a free, quality education to develop their financial capability. We hope you enjoy our first newsletter of the New Year. My goal is that you will find at least one engaging idea (and hopefully more!) that you can use in your classroom immediately. This idea might be a lesson from our FREE Lesson Library (60+ lessons and growing) or an activity, question of the day, lesson idea or current events analysis that comes from the NGPF Blog. Please send me an email ([email protected]) and let me know how we can help provide you with the resources you need to succeed in the classroom.    Regards, Tim Ranzetta, founder NGPF Featured Unit: Paying For College With college acceptance letters and financial aid packages right around the corner, there is no better time to announce the launch of NGPF's Paying For College unit! Paying for College Basics FAFSA: The Gateway To Financial Aid Student Loans:  Friend or Foe? Grants & Scholarships: Free Money! Here are a few of the engaging activities students will complete during NGPF's Paying for College unit: How Much Should I Borrow for College? What Do I Need to Know Before Completing the FAFSA? What's The Difference Between Sticker and Net Price?  How Do I Calculate The Value of A College Education? Find Scholarships and Grants (for Me!) Activity Ideas/Case Studies Research tells us that students learn by doing. Here are some activity ideas that will engage your students: Case Studies:  How To Be A Financial Detective What Is Your Investing Risk Profile? Online Simulation:  How Does Online Banking Work? Who Has the Best Wireless Phone Plan? What Is Your Financial Resolution? Popular NGPF Lessons At Next Gen Personal Finance, we find and curate engaging videos, articles, activities and performance tasks and package them into full lessons. These lessons provide your students with both the practical knowledge and application to develop their financial capability. Looking back at 2014, here were the top lessons:     Budgeting Basics Credit Card Basics Reading Your Pay Stub Checking Basics The Costs of Not Paying Off Your Credit Card Bill What's the Catch?: Creating Savvy Consumers We have to create savvy consumers to navigate the minefield called the financial services industry. Our What's the Catch? posts provide students with opportunities to develop their financial savvy: Case Study:  How A High School Student Generated $72 Million in Stock Market Gains (or Not) Checking Accounts:  A $4.95 Fee To Not Overdraw Your Account? Do You Want Free Data On Your Smartphone? Video Resources You know students love videos but you also know finding great video resources can take time. At NGPF, we spend hundreds of hours looking for resources so you don't have to. Here are a few video (and one audio) resources that we uncovered the past month that we thought your students would enjoy: A Banking Rap (3 minutes) What is the Best Approach to Investing? (2 videos; 5 minutes total) Audio Resource: Financial Advice For The New Year (3 - 6 minutes) Questions of the Day Here are questions to engage your students in current events and serve as great ways to catalyze classroom discussions before you jump into your lesson: If You Dropped a Dollar In the Mall, What Are the Odds It Would be Returned? Are You Wasting Cash? What Percentage of Consumers Find Errors In Their Credit Reports? What Does It Cost To Make Our Most Popular Coins? How Much Would I Need To Save Monthly To Have a Million When I Retire?

Chart of the Month We often see stock market returns described in media reports in nominal terms, such as the S&P500 returned over 13% in 2014.  Well, it turns out as a result of expenses, taxes and inflation, the REAL returns are often much lower.  Which of these can investors control to maximize their real returns?  See this NGPF blog post and find out.                 Community Activity Next Gen Personal Finance actively supports the financial literacy community through workshops, conference sponsorships and volunteer teaching. We are based in the Bay Area but travel constantly so e-mail me at [email protected] if you are interested in discussing a speaking or sponsorship opportunity. Previous Events: October 18, 2014: FBLA Conference (Santa Clara, CA) - NGPF provided a workshop for FBLA Advisors and students November 8-10, 2014: Jump$tart Conference (Los Angeles, CA) - NGPF participated as an exhibitor November 15, 2014: CBEA State Conference (Monterrey, CA) - NGPF exhibited and conducted a workshop for personal finance educators November 19-21, 2014: AFCPE (Bellevue, WA) - Exhibitor December 9-12, 2014: Pilot at Palo Alto High School (Palo Alto, CA) Upcoming Events: January 21-23, 2015:  Collaboration with Harvard University Winter Session Personal Finance Course (Cambridge, MA) January-March, 2015: Pilot at Eastside Prep (East Palo Alto, CA) February 28, 2015: Common Ground Speaker Series (Princeton, NJ) February 28, 2015: FBLA Bay Section Conference (Daly City, CA) April 10, 2015: FBLA California State Conference (Santa Clara, CA)