Answer: About 70 times more time is spent watching TV (85 hours/month on TV compared to an hour and 12 minutes on finances)

Questions:

• What are three reasons why adults spend so little time on managing finances? 
• How do you think that technology has impacted the time required to manage personal finance? Explain. 
• What are examples of activities that adults do to manage their finances? 
• How important do you think it is to spend time on financial management? 

Here's the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom.

Behind the numbers (from the Ascent):

But even if you add the average time spent on household financial management and use of professional financial and banking services, it comes to just two minutes and 24 seconds a day -- one hour and 12 minutes a month. Which isn't a lot when you consider that 48% of people say they want to be financially prepared for the future. Or that people spend 85 hours and 12 minutes every month watching TV.

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Help your students save time managing their finances with our online bank simulation (with Teacher Tip too!). It teaches them valuable lessons in how to automate savings and bill pay too! 

About the Author

Tim Ranzetta

Tim's saving habits started at seven when a neighbor with a broken hip gave him a dog walking job. Her recovery, which took almost a year, resulted in Tim getting to know the bank tellers quite well (and accumulating a savings account balance of over $300!). His recent entrepreneurial adventures have included driving a shredding truck, analyzing executive compensation packages for Fortune 500 companies and helping families make better college financing decisions. After volunteering in 2010 to create and teach a personal finance program at Eastside College Prep in East Palo Alto, Tim saw firsthand the impact of an engaging and activity-based curriculum, which inspired him to start a new non-profit, Next Gen Personal Finance.

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