A Real-World Guide to Building Money Management Courses

Have you been on the lookout for a winning strategy that will help you develop your very own money management courses? Today’s your lucky day, my friend, because you’ve landed in just the right place. Here, we’ve carefully built an in-depth blueprint that details every step that you should take to achieve your goal.

Money Management Courses: A Blueprint

Integration of Money Management Courses Timetables

Money Management Courses; Bloom & Webb

A Real-Life Path to Achieving Your Goal

In the following scenario, you will get a taste of how a professional successfully pulled off organizing some top-notch money management courses:

Lucy supervises 14 volunteer tutors, who provide SAT study help to disadvantaged youth in her local area. Many of her college-aged tutors had been asking her some questions related to personal finance matters, so she decided to begin organizing foundations of money management courses that would benefit everyone in the group. She was already very much familiar with this whole group of tutors, and she knew the subject matter well, but she still wasn’t 100% confident when it came to some critical pieces.

After she performed a bit of a sample survey with some of the team members, she immediately understood that the majority of the group wanted to learn about the core fundamentals of personal finance.

Goals for Foundations of Money Management Courses

Lucy knew exactly what she wanted to achieve in the near-term, which was to help this group realize enough personal finance knowledge that they could effectively apply it to their own lifestyles. Thanks to the limited free time and unforgiving schedules that this group had each week, she was able to see that the group would be able to participate – at maximum – two hours each week. Knowing that, she was alright with just doing money management courses that condensed fundamental material in an easy-to-digest format.

When the foundations of money management courses were over, however, her end goal was to lift each member of the group as high as the “Applying” level of personal finance knowledge.

Where Success Starts

Since Lucy already had her goals clearly defined, she was then able to move on to selecting the best delivery method for these classes. This group of individuals had varying schedules that were all over the place, so she knew that an internet-based solution would be the answer.

Clearly Focusing on What’s Important

Lucy then needed to do some editing and narrow the focus of her foundations of money management courses. Due to the fact that most of the team members were young professionals, she opted to design the course with a focus on emergency savings accounts.

Appropriate Use of Money Management Courses Best Practices

Concepts for Money Management Courses Opportunities

Getting Expert Assistance

Next, Lucy had to get in contact with a qualified, seasoned educator for some help in delivering this foundations of money management courses. The instructor which she sought would need to have both robust knowledge on the topic, as well as excellent teaching skills.

The educator she ended up going with was a Certified Financial Education Instructor (CFEI) affiliated with NFEC.

Designing the Best Curriculum

Lucy would need to provide helpful courses that could still be beneficial in spite of the scheduling constraints she faced. With that reasoning, she decided to build flexible money management courses that would be divided into smaller pieces that could be done at any time.

Translating Data

Of the 14 tutors who ended up participating in the money management seminar series, 12 were able to successfully make it to the end of the program – with a total average improvement score of 11%. After that, Lucy decided to collect the data so she could generate a summary report that demonstrated to the tutors exactly how much they progressed as a group.

Extensive Money Management Courses Best Practices

Looking Ahead: Motivation & Growth

Lucy understood that this group of people would be best served if she could continue providing them with ongoing help. As this group’s money management courses came to an end, she sent out congratulations to everyone – via handwritten notes.

In the end, she decided to keep offering follow-up lessons at the beginning of every month, so they would get a better chance to maintain what they had already learned with her money management courses.

The ads are all over television, on the sides of buses, and across the Internet: “Get your free credit score here,” and “Build your credit there.” But what does it really mean? According to the National Financial Educators Council (NFEC), money management courses are needed to help people learn the ramifications of poor credit and the benefits of maintaining a high credit score.

The NFEC is widely-recognized for creating a personal finance course to meet the educational needs of individuals of all ages and from all walks of life. They recommend that all such courses discuss credit management. That’s because the first thing lenders consider when a person applies for a loan is that person’s credit history.

People ruin their credit by having large debt loads and failing to pay their bills on time. Lenders look at your credit to determine whether and how much money they agree to lend you. If you have bad credit, you will receive a higher interest rate or—worse yet—you may be denied any loan at all. Personal finance training courses help people understand these negative consequences and offer tips for avoiding them.

On the flip side, people gain excellent credit by paying bills on time, keeping their debt-to-income ratio low, using credit cards and paying them off every month, and maintaining credit cards with zero balances. A good money management course will go over these behaviors and guide people through practical activities to build their credit histories.

Having good credit is crucial to sound money management practices because when you qualify for low-interest loans, you end up spending a lot less money. For example, if you buy a car for $25,000, good credit might get you an interest rate of 6.25% and a monthly payment of $486. If your credit is bad, you might pay 12% interest and a payment of $556. Good credit means more money in your pocket.

NFEC Money Management Course Emphasizes Banking Relationships

Too few Americans seem to place high enough importance on learning to manage their money effectively. For this reason, the National Financial Educators Council (NFEC) has developed a money management course to help build financial competencies among individuals of all ages and socioeconomic status.

Learning to manage money today can secure one’s finances far into the future. One key topic advocated in the NFEC’s finance training courses is setting up appropriate accounts with a financial institution. There are several reasons why having the right bank accounts is important. First, keeping money in a bank is safer than, say, stuffing it in a mattress. Second, banks pay interest on your deposits. Third, bank accounts help you stay organized. And finally, building relationships with financial institutions pays off over time.

Whether you choose a for-profit bank or a nonprofit credit union, personal finance courses will say that long-term relationships with such institutions yield multiple benefits. When you build positive relations with banks, in the future you may receive better terms on auto or home loans, college funds, certificates of deposit, investment dividends and trading fees.

Money management courses like the NFEC program also cover which banking accounts are important to set up. Everyone needs a checking account, and it’s a good idea to choose direct deposit—that is, have your employer send your paycheck directly to your bank account. Savings and checking accounts should be linked to allow easy transfer into savings. And online bill pay is a good feature that enables you to easily pay bills and write checks. The system will do the math, avoiding the need to balance a checkbook every month.

Setting up bank accounts and forming long-term banking relationships is just one of the many topics covered in the NFEC’s program to teach money management for kids, teens, and adults. These skills are critical to forming a solid financial foundation.