We have a daily discipline at NGPF to create 2 blog posts (our Daily Dose) every weekday during the year which amounts to 500 posts per year. It takes a total team effort to accomplish with ideas springing from all our full-time team members (and interns too!) Why do we do this?  1) It forces us to stay current on the fast-changing world of financial services. 2) It scratches an itch of mine to be creative and come up with ideas on how to bring current events into the classroom in an engaging fashion 3) These posts become a source for future curriculum that we develop. For example, many a Question of the Day, Interactive, Video Library and Data Crunch stemmed initially from a blog post.

We take great pleasure in finding ideas and inspiration for these posts “off the beaten path.”  I wanted to gauge how broadly we search by analyzing the number of sources we relied upon for the 287 posts we completed in the first half of 2017. Drumroll please….I turned this analysis over to our interns, Grace and Nupur, who found that the content for our blog posts came from over 250 different sources! 

Here were the Top 20 NGPF Blog sources with the number of times they were cited in a blog post in the first half of 2017:

So it is no surprise to see the Wall Street Journal, NY Times and Bloomberg sit atop our leaderboard. I ask how many of you have ever heard of the Visual Capitalist or Flowing Data or the Big Picture Blog? Yet, these sources produce some amazing data visualizations, videos, interactives as well as daily links to keep abreast of market activity and commentary. And I can go down the list of websites that have great sources of content (Abnormal Returns, Bogleheads, Of Dollars and Data and Consumerist are a few of my favorites; I better stop, before I get carried away) that you won’t find bookmarked on any teacher’s browsers.

Can you imagine trying to keep up with all of these sources of information? Well the great news is that you don’t have to! You can get the NGPF Daily Dose, 2 blog posts with engaging content, delivered directly via email every morning by just going to the right margin of the NGPF Blog page and entering your email information there.

Taking that two minutes every morning will ensure that you (and your students) stay current and stay creative in delivering engaging content to your students! Don’t forget to brag to your colleagues about how well read you are and that you access your information from over 250 sources!

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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