• Behavioral finance experts weigh in on how to change those bad money habits (The Week):“A more promising solution to fight the urge for instant gratification? Take advantage of technology to keep you in check.

  “More and more financial service providers are offering simple tools for tracking and controlling spending with alerts, customizable spending limits and the like,” Zinman says. Some credit card companies will even send you an alert each time you use your card — reminding you how much you’ve spent so far, and how much closer today’s purchase will get you to your limit for the month.”

• The man behind England’s push to incorporate financial literacy into their educational system (The Independent):

‘Consumers were conned out of £20 billion. Those issues would not have been nearly so seismic if there had been financial education. We’ve got a massive deficit in pensions. Kids need to understand that. We don’t save enough. We don’t understand how to make risk-based decisions. From now on, every child in every school that has to follow the curriculum will start to understand how the competitive consumer economy works.”

• Another survey lamenting the lack of personal finance education in the schools.  Unfortunately all self-reported information and as we know, financial literacy is one of those topics where a little education can lead to a lot of overconfidence (The Street):

“In the Op4G-conducted poll of 2,000 American adults, the majority said they received little or no financial education in high school. The respondents who received little or no financial education were much less likely to rate themselves as proficient in financial concepts than the respondents who reported receiving more financial education.”

• New Zealand launches new financial literacy website to deliver financial literacy programmes and highlight active projects (New Zealand Government press release):

Commerce Minister Craig Foss today welcomed the launch of The Exchange website – a platform to support and deliver financial literacy programmes.  “The Exchange website allows community organisations, banks and others in the finance sector to work together to help Kiwis make better financial decisions,” Mr Foss says.

• Arizona passes financial literacy law, pushes decision-making on curricula down to schools and teachers (AZ Big Media):

“Arizona has joined 24 other states in passing Senate Bill 1449, which requires schools to teach financial literacy in a K-12 setting. It comes after a report from the Center for Financial Literacy, which gave Arizona a “B” for its efforts to improve financial literacy in high schools….The law leaves the methods for teaching financial literacy up to the individual district, school or teacher, but said lessons should include how education, careers and family affect income; how advertising influences spending habits; how to set short-term and long-term goals on spending, saving and investing; the advantages and disadvantages of different forms of credit; and credit history.”

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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