Here are a few resources that I came across recently that you will enjoy:

• Podcast: Why is the milk in the back of the store?: This is a must listen to help students understand how retailers set up their stores to encourage certain behaviors (17 minute podcast on Planet Money)

• Video (3 minutes): Have you ever overdrafted (Pew Charitable Trust)?  Hat tip to Jessica for pointing me to this very informative video in which the videographer takes to the streets to find out what the people know about their checking accounts and their fee structure.

• Newsletter subscription: I found this new free service (hat tip to CB Insights), Finimize, that delivers 2-3 top financial stories to my email box every morning. What can you not like about their mission?

“Finimize is financial news for everyday people. We strive to demystify finance by making financial news easy to understand, succinct and relevant to our readers. By enhancing their financial literacy, we give our readers the ability to make more informed decisions when it comes to their own money.”

• Experiment: More student loan counseling (US News and World Report); the need seems obvious to me:

However, the Department of Education recently announced an experimental initiative to examine the benefits of additional mandatory counseling. This initiative allows the Department of Education to experiment with changes to regulations before actually making the changes. This particular experiment will allow participating schools to require additional loan counseling to some of their students – a test group – while keeping the other students under current counseling rules.

• Interactive: For polling enthusiasts and statisticians (show this to your stats teacher!), there is a great interactive that demonstrates why we should take polls with a grain of salt and understand their margin for error (no mention of Presidential candidates, I promise, in this Rock ‘n Poll interactive)

• Inspiration: One of the MacArthur Genius grants went to a local SF non-profit founder focused on helping people build credit histories (NY Times)

José A. Quiñonez, 45, the founder of the Mission Asset Fund, a nonprofit group in San Francisco that helps people build credit history based on informal lending circles common in immigrant communities and among others without access to bank loans, said he saw the award as a boost for the people he serves.

• Chart of the Week; it’s so important that I put it in this post too (from WSJ):

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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