Financial Literacy         

April is Financial Literacy Month. Ok, I know that doesn't sound all that creative, nor even interesting, but no one has the ability to be creative or free unless they have their finances in order.  I struggled with debt most of my life for no good reason except I had no financial literacy. Once my eyes were open to how much I was wasting by giving it to the bank, I was fired up. Next month, my husband and I will celebrate our fourth anniversary of being totally debt free thanks to Dave Ramsey.  Check out his newsletter. I can't understand why every student in the whole country isn't required to take his course.  Not only is the course critical, it's fun! Can you imagine what a clean start students would have in life if they were proactive instead of reactive to debt? It gets even better. Did you know that Fifth Third Bank will sponsor the teacher and student materials?  Why isn't this course in every school?  

I don't know about you, but I really didn't have anyone teaching me how to make sound financial decisions when I was in high school and college never mind kindergarten.  My parents were excellent examples of money managers and modeled the value of hard work, but we never talked about money. The first time I really heard about handling money was in church.  After decades of paying for things on credit, I finally learned about the miracle of compound interest, but that it was working against me. We stopped borrowing money and slowly worked on removing debt, but it wasn't until we heard about Dave Ramsey that we became "gazelle intense."   We paid more off in 8 months than we did in 8 years.  We now have NO mortgage, NO car payments, NO credit cards and NO payments.  Be encouraged.  If we can do it, anyone can.  And just imagine, if we set the next generation up from the beginning, they will never even struggle through the debt removal trials. Making financial literacy a requirement for all students will do more than any standardized test score and will turn our nation around. Can you imagine a generation of givers? If our students never go into debt, they will be savers who not only support themselves, but help those who are less fortunate. It doesn't matter what tool is used, it only matters that we give them the wisdom to never go into debt.  

How long do bills last? The Federal Reserve System lists the following life spans:   

                  $ 1 for 22 months

                  $ 5 for 2 years

                  $ 10 for 3 years

                  $ 20 for4 years

                  $ 50 for 9 years

                  $100 for 9 years

ipadio   

LiveBinders 

Doceri 

NASA's Image Gallery 

Popplet 

Zoey's Room
Finance in the Classroom
Fotopedia 

The Common Good Forecaster  

Google Earth 

UJAM 

Symbaloo.edu 

Google Science Fair 

Stossel in the Classroom
Word Sift 

Lee Kolbert