Financial Education Campaign guides discussion

Giraffeseeker

I thought it might be relevant to post this here:

http://www.youneedabudget.com/blog/

Tells students how they can get YNAB, and why the company feel it is important to give the software to students for FREE.

CloudsinSky

I heartily agree that financial education is imperative, and it could be made a very interesting subject as well. There's no need for your brain/mind to go blank as mine has, as soon as the subject of economics is raised, for example.

I haven't read the thread yet, but I promise I will (now, as I've promised, or it might never happen). It's not just student finance since finance touches every sphere of life I would have thought, or it seems to me.

I'm half way through a "Making the Most of your Money course" at the Children's Centre, which I thoroughly recommend, or whatever similar is available to people. So it's not too late for any of us grown-ups either.:j

It's not just finances, but other areas of life which make no sense to be left for us to muddle through when we're adults. Learning another language for a start, which I believe is also compulsory for schools to teach from September 2014...?

And how about bereavement education. I'm not sure I'd call it that, but dying is another area that we seem to shut off and it makes it so much harder for each of us to deal with. The grief can come out in illness, so the repercussions can be great (and expensive, to the NHS, for example. This could also be discussed in financial education, life insurance, funeral expenses, etc.) But of course the emotional impact must be addressed before any of that. It's a normal part of life but I feel our society can make it feel far from normal. Perhaps this is now changing, it well might be. Also the taboos around the way we die are strange if you think about it, and maybe we wouldn't have them if dying was reintroduced back into the full stream of living, as an accepted part of it.

I'm glad this forum has ground rules and that Martin Lewis is working so hard to change to benefit society, else I wouldn't feel safe to post these thoughts here. Forums seem to be a very intimate place in a way, to expose your deep inner thoughts where you wouldn't otherwise feel able to (well, at least not to potentially such a huge number of people)

Have a peaceful, restful Sunday, anyone reading :rotfl:

kellyH

Hi. New to this but anyways my mum and dad took a child insurance thing out for me when I was a child and I was supposed to get a check for it when I was 21 but haven't received anything and my mum has forgotten the name of the company anybody and ideas on what I could do to get my check ?

cepheus

View of Bobby Duffy - Guardian:

......some moves are under way to help increase our financial skills and knowledge – in particular, financial literacy was made a mandatory element of the national curriculum for the first time in this school year. This is an important step, as we need to start much younger and normalise financial education. But it is largely symbolic – studies suggest school-based financial training has limited impact on its own, not least because it is hard to make the content current and relevant when the big decisions will come later in life.

Much more effective is more tailored and targeted interventions, such as a nine-month scheme for social housing tenants run by Citizens Advice trainers, which saw impressive results in increasing saving levels and broader financial resilience.

http://www.theguardian.com/money/datablog/2015/jul/07/britons-know-personal-finance-wrong-datablog?CMP=twt_gu

greencycle

hi - We are a very small CIC but we were one of the biggest of financial literacy eduction in the SW during 2014 (and beyond - Isle of Scilly to Staffordshire).

Our program stopped because funding was withdrawn by a major sponsor (Barclays) as FL was due to become a curriculum subject (we are ex teachers the way).

We absolutely loved delivering FL (we worked alongside Bank staff & our colleagues from the CAB). When our project finished we felt sure that schools and colleges would 'pick up the baton'.

That now does not seem to be the case. Anecdotally, and through direct experience we have arrived at the conclusion FL is simply not gaining the traction we might have expected. As a result we are considering reviving our FL outreach work.

What do other people (particularly teachers and lectures) think?