About the Author
Beth Tallman
Beth Tallman entered the working world armed with an M.B.A. in finance and thoroughly enjoyed her first career working in manufacturing and telecommunications, including a stint overseas. She took advantage of an involuntary separation to try teaching high school math, something she had always dreamed of doing. When fate stepped in once again, Beth jumped on the opportunity to combine her passion for numbers, money, and education to develop curriculum and teach personal finance at Oberlin College. Beth now spends her time writing on personal finance and financial education, conducting student workshops, and developing finance curricula and educational content. She is also the Treasurer of Ohio Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy.
Reading List for August 23-25
By Beth Tallman
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Aug 23, 2019
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Advocacy, Economics, Investing, Retirement, Insurance, Parent Conversations, Paying for College
A variety of topics for your weekend reading ....
Financial Literacy/Advocacy
As Kentucky enacted a law to make personal finance a graduation requirement for High School, three Universities, with support from banks, have taken on the task of providing training for the teachers. (NK Tribune)
Economics
The world’s central bankers and top economists are gathered for the annual symposium put on by the Kansas City Fed in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. Fed Chair Jerome Powell addressed...
What's New With Financial Pitfalls? (August 2019)
For College Students
Once students turn eighteen, they are legally adults. Their parents no longer have a say in their health care or legal decisions (or grades—unless you and your student sign a Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA) waiver.) So what happens if the student has a medical or financial emergency? An article from Kiplinger has been gaining traction as it advises families to get four legal documents in place when a child turns 18. Many are documents that are...
Reading List for August 16-18
By Beth Tallman
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Aug 16, 2019
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Current Events, Parent Conversations, Paying for College, Investing, Economics, Retirement, Student Loans, Financial Scams, Insurance
As your former students or maybe your own children are heading off to college for the first time, here is some sage advice for them.
Having taught at a college for several years, and living amongst the students for even longer, I cannot agree more with the tips offered by a college professor in this MarketWatch article, like show up for class, turn off the phone, and go to office hours! I like the cartoons too!
And here is one for the parents. Once your child turns 18, their...
What's New With Investing? (August 2019)
There are largely two story lines driving the news regarding investing in recent months—interest rates, specifically, what central banks are doing about them, and uncertainty over the trade situation and if the economy will turn from growth to recession any time soon. We will address the interest rate issue here.
Interest Rates
The Fed cut the Federal Funds rate by 25 basis points at the end of July. This is the rate at which banks and financial institutions borrow money from each...
Reading List for August 9-11
By Beth Tallman
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Aug 09, 2019
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Checking Accounts, Economics, Investing, Retirement, Career, Current Events
Checking
With mobile deposits, checks may be “deposited” more than once. Banks’ systems are not catching all duplicate deposits. This happened to an organization for which I am the Treasurer, and it can happen to you. (Cleveland Plain Dealer)
This is potentially big news for folks living paycheck-to-paycheck. The Fed just announced that they will develop a public sector system for real-time payments (check clearing). (New York Times)
Here is a British perspective on...
What's New With Budgeting (August 2019)?
Budgeting in the News
Single mom and personal finance blogger Kumiko Love, aka “The Budget Mom,” came up with a novel budgeting method that was featured on GMA. She calls it the “Budget by Paycheck Method.” She reportedly used this method to pay off $77K of debt in 3 years. Her method is actually s a combination of the paycheck method, the calendar method, and the cash envelope method. Seems to me that this method is great for those that like to see everything spread out...
Reading List for Aug 2-4
By Beth Tallman
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Aug 02, 2019
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Current Events, Economics, Career, Investing, Paying for College, Parent Conversations
Current Events
Captial One Data Breach
What you need to know about the Capital One data breach. A hacker obtained information on 100 million customer accounts across the US and Canada. Choose your source below for the facts and what to do about it if you are a victim.
From Capital One.
From Consumer Reports
From the New York Times
Fed Rate Cut
Historic rate cut: the Fed announced a 25 basis point drop in the target interest rate on Wednesday, the first drop since 2008! For an explanation of...
What's New With Paying for College? (July 2019)
Who pays for college?
Discover Student Loans, a division of Discover Financial Services, surveyed 1500 parents of college-bound students about who would be footing the bill. Whether the numbers are accurate or not is less of a story than the movement in just one year. 38% of parents expect students will be covering at least half of the cost, up from 31% last year, and 28% of parents say they will cover the entire cost, down from 34% last year. What’s more, fewer parents (41% versus 51%...
Reading List for July 26-28
By Beth Tallman
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Jul 26, 2019
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Financial Literacy, Career, Behavioral Finance, Credit Cards, Paying for College, Current Events
Financial Literacy
Dr. Barbara O’Neil of Rutgers, known to NGPF regulars for her tireless efforts in financial education, read and digested the Government’s report on Financial Education in the news recently, and offers her key take-aways. (MoneyTalk)
A study by the University of Arizona demonstrates that “emerging adults” (college years plus five post college years) with financial knowledge are more successful at “adulting,” including more successful...
What's New With Savings--July 2019
What’s new with savings? Once again, apps and technology are the game changers here. As we move away from cash and piggy banks to digital transactions, it makes perfect sense that we are moving to digital forms of piggy banks. In the old days, you could make purchases with dollar bills and put all of your change in a jar or your piggy bank. When using cards or your phone, you need an app to do the same thing.
Research for this piece turned up several “listicles” of top...
Reading List for July 19-21
By Beth Tallman
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Jul 19, 2019
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Financial Literacy, Cryptocurrencies, Economics, Investing, Paying for College, Behavioral Finance
Financial Literacy
A Forbes article last week tries to explain the drop in financial literacy across the board as revealed in the FINRA 2018 National Study of Financial Capability.
Economics
The St. Louis Fed provides a comprehensive explanation of the Federal Reserve’s dual mandate, and specifically explains the two percent inflation target. (Medium)
Cryptocurrency
The proposed Facebook cryptocurrency Libra faces was the subject of congressional hearings this week....
Oops! How Does One Undo Payment Mistakes?
I speak to users of payment apps about their experience, and they assure me they are very careful and are confident they are always paying the right person the correct amount. While I don’t use Venmo myself (yet), I have watched the demos and watched my kids use it. I like the functionality, and I understand that 99.9% of the time, you are paying funds to or requesting funds from one of your contacts, which explains users’ confidence. (For the life of me I don’t understand why...
What's New With......Credit Reports and Scores?
More data, more control
Far and away the biggest development in the area of credit reporting and credit scores so far in 2019 has been the introduction of a new program from Experian, and the announcement of another one from Fair Isaac Corporation. Both programs incorporate a broader array of metrics to give a clearer picture of a person’s default risk. Interestingly, the two companies are using the same “financial data access and insights “company, Finicity, to drive the...
Reading List for July 12-14
Financial Literacy/Advocacy
North Carolina passed legislation requiring students to take a financial literacy class for high school graduation. The required class is actually a full year course covering economics and personal finance, and the law requires teacher training. (MarketWatch)
Mark Hulbert argues the underlying issue behind poor financial outcomes is more behavioral than ignorance. (MarketWatch) I tend to think this argues for inclusion of behavioral finance in financial literacy...
What's New With....Checking Accounts (and ways to spend from them)?
What’s new with checking accounts, and banking in general? In a word, technology…..it changes how we bank, where we bank, and how banks themselves are evolving to compete with all FinTech players have to offer.
How banks are changing
Banks have offered online bill pay for a while now. According to the Federal Reserve, check writing has declined by 3-5% each year between 2012-2017 as a result. What you might not know is that 20% of these payments are still made with a physical...
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