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.
Question of the Day: A YouTuber with over 1.4 million views a month can expect to earn about _____________ in monthly income.
Answer: $1,400
Questions:
Have you or any friends created a YouTube channel and built an audience?
3% of YouTubers get 90% of YouTube views. What do you think demonstrates about popularity on the internet?
How do you decide what to watch on YouTube? How do you find about popular videos that might be of interest to you?
Do you think $1,400 a month is enough for an independent adult to live on?
Here's the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your...
Chart of the Week: How good of an investment is real estate?
By Tim Ranzetta
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Oct 17, 2018
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Investing, Question of the Day, Chart of the Week, Mortgages, Research
Hat tip to A Wealth of Common Sense blog for this awesome data distilled from Case-Shiller/FRED index of home prices:
Notes:
Positive is number of years that home prices rose in the period 1987-2018
Negative is the number of years that home prices declined in period 1987-2018
Biggest gain is the largest gain in home prices on a year-over-year basis.
Biggest loss is the largest loss in home prices on a year-over-year basis.
Annual Gains is the average annual gain in home prices over this...
Question of the Day: What is the length (in minutes) of the average commute?
Answer: 26 minutes
Questions:
Why do you think the average length of commute has risen by 20% between 1980 and 2016?
How important is the commute for you when it comes to looking for a job? Explain.
Other than time, what are the additional costs of commuting?
What do you think is the relationship between commute length and rental cost (for an apartment)? The shorter the commute to work...the ____________ the rent. Explain.
Here's the ready-to-go slides for this Question...
Podcast episodes with founders of Instagram, Spotify and Slack for your budding entrepreneurs
I started business school with my mind set on getting a job at an investment firm. I really enjoyed investing in stocks for my own personal account and thought how cool it would be to do that for a living (It only took a year in that role to dispel that notion). The most popular club on campus, however, was not the Investment Club but rather than the Entrepreneurship Club which also drew me in. What made the club so appealing? The guests. Founders of companies large and small came to campus from...
Question of the Day: What's the median hourly wage for an UberX driver?
By Tim Ranzetta
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Oct 15, 2018
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Entrepreneurship, Question of the Day, Career, Research, Employment
Answer: $14.73
Questions:
What are the factors that lead to such wide variations in median hourly wages between cities?
What costs would an Uber driver incur which would reduce their hourly income?
Do you think these median figures have been increasing or decreasing compared to three years ago? Explain your answer.
Uber now has over 2 million drivers globally. What do you think attracts them to drive for the company?
Here's the ready-to-go slides for this Question...
Question of the Day; What percent of 18-29 year olds have a primary care doctor?
Answer: 55%
Questions:
In your own words, what is a primary care doctor?
Do you think that having a primary care doctor is important? Why or why not?
For the 45% of 18-29 year-olds that don't have a primary care doctor, who do you think they turn to when they have a health problem?
Here's the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom.
Behind the numbers (Chicago Tribune):
A national poll of 1,200 randomly selected adults...
Interactive Monday: What a map of every building in the U.S. can teach us about economic development
I woke up this morning to a cool interactive from NYT (hat tip to Big Picture Blog) with a map of every building in America. Just type in any town or city that you are interested in and you see a satellite view with the outlines of every building in that area. You can hook your students by telling them they have been hired to be economic development sleuths. They will be using satellite views of their community to figure out what drives their local economy.
So, for example, here's a...
NGPF Podcast: Tim Talks To Gwen Tulin and Victoria Golden of Brain Arts Production (Chicago, IL)
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Oct 12, 2018
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Podcasts, Tips for Teachers, Personal Finance, Activities
Brain Arts Production is the brainchild—pun intended—of Gwen Tulin and Victoria Golden, who have a passion for using the dramatic arts to educate young people about money. This Chicago-based nonprofit has a mission to help students build financial literacy skills through the creative method of learning by doing. The organization teaches students money skills through projects such as pitching a business in a Shark Tank scenarios or staying on budget while producing a short film. Gwen...
FinCap Friday: Playing With F.I.R.E.
How can you possibly engage high schoolers in a conversation about retirement? They haven't even gotten their first real job yet so it's not exactly on their radar screen. By highlighting the F.I.R.E. movement (that's Financial Independence, Retire Early) and the extreme examples of retirees in their 30s, we hope that gets your students thinking "How'd they do that?" That should spur a great conversation about savings rates and the importance of investing while you are young. ...
Question of the Day: What percent of Americans bought a lottery ticket in the past year?
Answer: 49%
Questions:
Do you have family or friends who buy lottery tickets? How often do they play? Have they ever won significant jackpots?
Do you think buying lottery tickets is a wise financial decision? Why or why not?
Would it surprise you to know that more people buy lottery tickets than invest in the stock market? Why do you think that is? Remember that overall long-term stock market returns are 7-9% annually while lottery tickets have a negative expected value.
Here's...
Question of the Day; What is the median savings account balance for Americans under 35?
Answer: $2,000
Questions:
Explain why there is such a big difference between the median and average for each age group?
What is the relationship between age and savings accounts balances? Explain why you think the relationship exists.
How much will you need to have in a savings account to feel secure (sleep well at night)?
Here's the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom.
Behind the numbers (from 2016 Survey of Consumer...
Chart of the Week: How do banks react to increases in interest rates? (Hint: You don't want to be a borrower!)
I have noted this trend before but to see it all on one graph makes it even more powerful. As the Federal Reserve has increased the Federal Funds rate target, the cost of borrowing has risen in lockstep while interest earned from savings accounts still hovers close to zero. In other words, costs to borrow typically have variable rates which automatically adjust upwards in a rising interest rate environment while interest on savings accounts are extremely slow to adjust upwards as banks seek to...
Question of the Day: How Much Do Parents Expect Their Kids to Save for College?
Answer: $15,385
Regardless of whether or not you plan to go to college, how much do you anticipate having saved prior to high school graduation?
Have you had "the conversation" with your parents/guardians about how much they expect you to contribute to college savings OR if you plan to live at home after high school how much they want you to contribute in "rent?"
Why do you think that 40% of parents haven't had that discussion? What makes it difficult?
Here's the ready-to-go...
Question of the Day: How much could the average consumer save by shopping around for auto insurance?
Answer: $417
What types of items do you shop around for before making the purchase decision?
What types of items do you NOT shop around for before purchasing ? Why do you choose not to find other prices for these items?
The average auto insurance policy is over $1,000 in many states. Why do you think that most people don't shop around for auto insurance?
Here's the ready-to-go slides for this Question of the Day that you can use in your classroom.
Behind the numbers (Nerd...
NGPF Podcast: Tim Talks to Financial Writer Morgan Housel
Read a Morgan Housel blog post and you'll get an engaging yarn, an analogy that simplifies a complex financial topic, and perhaps even a history lesson or in-depth look at the behavioral tics that make us human. Having graduated just prior to the Great Recession, Morgan cut his teeth at the Motley Fool prior to his recent gig as a partner at the Collaborative Fund, a venture capital firm. He’s written over 3,000 articles in the past decade, and he’s amassed quite the Millennial...
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