Gottastopperping: personal finance budgets

It's almost impossible to have good saving habits without first having good spending habits. That's the problem that Burning Money, a new program from FoolProof aimed at teens, hopes to solve. Like the rest of the FoolProof series, Burning Money is an engaging series of real life issues that teens face, challenging them to complete a spending journal that will help them identify poor spending habits.

The free program is designed to be used in classrooms by teachers tasked with teaching personal finance, but Burning Money can also teach adults a thing or two about being a better spender – so that you can be a better saver. The program is distributed nationwide through credit unions and provides teachers with free tools and resources to teach students about personal finance in a real world manner.

Here's a look at one of the videos you'll find in Burning Money that helps teens understand how spending smarter translates into having more fun and doing more with their money.

As students work through Burning Money they'll be introduced to potential ways that they will "burn money" while making bad decisions that can come back to hurt them later in life. In the first section students get a first hand look at how late payments can hurt their credit score and what that means when they want to buy a job, get an apartment and more.

The program quickly jumps off into a reality game which tasks students with living on their own for one month complete with budgeting, writing checks and buying a car. The program walks students through the decisions and provides tips about how to write a check correctly as well as showing them the affect of their decisions on their bank account.

The first lesson students learn is that their car payment is $15 more a month because they have a bad credit score -- and so is their insurance premium; all because they didn't pay their bills on time. At the end of just the first month students are shown how their credit score, combined with some bad decisions have already cost them over $2,000 for the year in higher payments.

Since it's not just the big items that go into making smart spending decisions students will also face everyday choices like buying new jeans, that can be a money burning experience. The video below shows one way that Burning Money uses humor and video to get the point across.

FoolProof continues to be one of the most engaging and honest methods for teaching teens about money and best of all it is completely free. For the past several years we have seen a focus on preparing our kids for the new economy and as a college professor who speaks to graduates about personal finance the importance of learning good money habits early is illustrated to me every year.

I've seen everything from a student who had already been sent to collections numerous times for bad credit decisions which stemmed from the fact that all she knew about credit cards came from the companies offering them to her. On the other end of the spectrum I have three students right now who are some of the smartest spenders I have encountered with more in their investment portfolios than I do! These aren't "rich" kids, just students who know how to spend and how to save.

The best part about Burning Money and the FoolProof series is that it enables teachers and parents to teach teens how to make the right money decisions and good personal finance habits even if they aren't an expert. If you want to help your teens make smarter money choices, send this article to your teachers and let them know about this free resource for teaching teens about money.

One of the reasons Aaron Patzer founded personal finance site Mint.com was because of his frustrations with Intuit’s financial management software Quicken. Quicken, says Patzer wasn’t user-friendly, and in Patzer’s own words “felt like a product from 1996.” Flash forward two years, and Patzer’s Mint.com (which was also a TechCrunch50 winner) was bought by Intuit for $170 million in the Fall of 2009. Clearly, Intuit perhaps agreed with Patzer, who is now vice president and general manager of Intuit’s personal finance group, that its own financial products needed a a makeover. Today, Quicken 2011 is debuting its software for Windows that includes more features from Mint.com.

This is the first version of Quicken to reflect the collaboration of the Quicken Desktop and Mint.com product and engineering teams since last fall. The new version for Windows users includes 360-degree financial view that brings together all accounts, including bank, credit card, investment and retirement. Intuit has also added support for 7,000 more banks and now lists 12,000 banks and credit union in the U.S.

Quicken’s new automated engine categorizes transactions (i.e. business, clothes, groceries, etc.) Credit card payments are automatically matched to transfers from checking or savings, to ensure they’re not double-counted. You can also create budgets within the software based on an individual’s historical spending and the software will include expense alerts and a graph to project cash flow help users avoid late fees and penalties. Pricing for Quicken 2011 ranges from $29.99 to $89.99.

Patzer says of the new version: “It combines the best of Quicken with what we built into Mint.com to help ease the burden on people trying to manage their money…The product is customizable and intuitive, two things that people have come to expect from modern software.”

One feature that is clearly lacking between Quicken and Mint is the ability to sync your Quicken desktop software with your Mint.com web account, and integrate the data (Quicken Online users are being merged to Mint.com). But Patzer says that this will soon be added to the suite of products. His goal is for Quicken and Mint to work seamlessly across all platforms, including mobile.

On another note, the Intuit acquisition doesn’t seem to have stunted Mint.com’s growth. Patzer says that the platform has grown from 1.7 million users in September of 2009 to 4.2 million users currently.

Shepard Smith Inks New Fox News Deal – Deadline.com

EXCLUSIVE: Fox News Channel's signature news anchor Shepard Smith has signed a new multi-year deal to continue as the channel's lead news anchor as well as anchor of FOX Report and Studio B. Smith's most recent pact with Fox News inked ...

Exclusive: Yahoo Courts Former News Corp. Digital Exec Ross ...

He's baaaaaack. Former Fox Interactive Media President Ross Levinsohn, that is, who is the top candidate to replace Hilary Schneider as Yahoo's US head, according to several sources close to the situation.

Fantasy Football News Roundup, Week 8: Does Jon Kitna Have Value ...

Checking in on the fantasy news of the day for Week 8.

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bench craft company complaints

Shepard Smith Inks New Fox News Deal – Deadline.com

Exclusive: Yahoo Courts Former News Corp. Digital Exec Ross ...

Fantasy Football News Roundup, Week 8: Does Jon Kitna Have Value ...

Checking in on the fantasy news of the day for Week 8.

bench craft company complaints bench craft company complaints

It's almost impossible to have good saving habits without first having good spending habits. That's the problem that Burning Money, a new program from FoolProof aimed at teens, hopes to solve. Like the rest of the FoolProof series, Burning Money is an engaging series of real life issues that teens face, challenging them to complete a spending journal that will help them identify poor spending habits.

The free program is designed to be used in classrooms by teachers tasked with teaching personal finance, but Burning Money can also teach adults a thing or two about being a better spender – so that you can be a better saver. The program is distributed nationwide through credit unions and provides teachers with free tools and resources to teach students about personal finance in a real world manner.

Here's a look at one of the videos you'll find in Burning Money that helps teens understand how spending smarter translates into having more fun and doing more with their money.

As students work through Burning Money they'll be introduced to potential ways that they will "burn money" while making bad decisions that can come back to hurt them later in life. In the first section students get a first hand look at how late payments can hurt their credit score and what that means when they want to buy a job, get an apartment and more.

The program quickly jumps off into a reality game which tasks students with living on their own for one month complete with budgeting, writing checks and buying a car. The program walks students through the decisions and provides tips about how to write a check correctly as well as showing them the affect of their decisions on their bank account.

The first lesson students learn is that their car payment is $15 more a month because they have a bad credit score -- and so is their insurance premium; all because they didn't pay their bills on time. At the end of just the first month students are shown how their credit score, combined with some bad decisions have already cost them over $2,000 for the year in higher payments.

Since it's not just the big items that go into making smart spending decisions students will also face everyday choices like buying new jeans, that can be a money burning experience. The video below shows one way that Burning Money uses humor and video to get the point across.

FoolProof continues to be one of the most engaging and honest methods for teaching teens about money and best of all it is completely free. For the past several years we have seen a focus on preparing our kids for the new economy and as a college professor who speaks to graduates about personal finance the importance of learning good money habits early is illustrated to me every year.

I've seen everything from a student who had already been sent to collections numerous times for bad credit decisions which stemmed from the fact that all she knew about credit cards came from the companies offering them to her. On the other end of the spectrum I have three students right now who are some of the smartest spenders I have encountered with more in their investment portfolios than I do! These aren't "rich" kids, just students who know how to spend and how to save.

The best part about Burning Money and the FoolProof series is that it enables teachers and parents to teach teens how to make the right money decisions and good personal finance habits even if they aren't an expert. If you want to help your teens make smarter money choices, send this article to your teachers and let them know about this free resource for teaching teens about money.

bench craft company complaints