NGPF Blog

401(k) plans have gone from 0 to about $5 trillion in assets in just 35 years. They have become THE dominant way that people save for retirement today as pensions have become a thing of the past. Today on the NGPF Podcast, you will hear from the "Father of the 401(k), Ted Benna." You will hear about his "aha moment" that led to the birth of the 401(k), the challenges of getting employers and employees to adopt the program in the early years and his opinion of 401(k) plans today. Enjoy! Details:...

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Here are the recent posts that have been attracting the most eyeballs: Steal of the Century: Equifax Hacked Looking for more on this event? Check out this list of links I came across today. Let's Pick A Side Hustle Infographic listing 25 "side hustles" which can make for an interesting classroom discussion How to Set Up A Mock Career Fair in Your School The NGPF team participated in this event at Carlmont High School in Belmont, CA. Thanks for John Rowe for inviting us into the...

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here is what they said. Day 1 of our July Summer Institute and we wanted to share with the community the top picks of these outstanding educators. But first, we asked them to explain a few things about this resource. Click on the link listed under Picture of Poster for educator answers to questions about their favorite resource, including: Why is this your favorite? What modifications (if any) did you make? How did the resource work in your classroom? What other feedback would you like to...

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I recently served on a panel with USAA’s Vikram Parekh at the Visa Financial Literacy Summit in Chicago. In my research for the panel, I discovered that Vikram has a really cool job at USAA, which is not your typical financial institution. Their customer base is drawn from military and their families and to say they are hyperfocused on their customers’ financial wellbeing is probably an understatement. You will hear how Vikram uses principles of behavioral finance to get...

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Hat tip to The Reformed Broker for this thought-provoking chart which will get your students thinking about the importance of asset allocations: Questions for students: Note: Equities are synonymous with stocks, fixed income means bonds, think of cash as a savings/checking account and alternatives would be alternative investments like hedge funds or private equity. What are the top four assets that millennials are investing in? Now rank the assets from highest to lowest historical return....

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Getting close to the end of June, so I thought it was worth checking our website analytics to see what new blog posts are garnering attention as the school year wound down in many parts of the country. Here are the top 5: What is Bitcoin and How Does Cryptocurrency Work?: A Primer; NGPF’s newest team member, Hari Vasu-Devan tackled this challenging topic by providing educators with information they can access when the inevitable student query comes, “Should I be investing in...

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Answer: You! To a student with little in the way of financial assets, this is a critical question for them to answer. Why? Because it provides them with the right mindset as they are coming to conclusions about their post-high school life. From “Of Dollars and Data,” one of my new favorite blogs: Nearly all articles written about investment and personal finance (mine included) focus heavily on financial assets despite the fact that most of your value (like mine) is likely not...

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As an educator, I often get this question from students. Yes, I know they have attention spans that are minute to minute (or text to text) but when the subject of retirement comes up, they usually fixate on “How can I get there as soon as possible?” What I love about this post from Mr. Money Moustache (last seen on this blog in 2014), is the simplicity of his answer and how it all comes down to ONE factor:  Well, I have a surprise for you. It turns out that when it boils right down...

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This year, NGPF took our show on the road and taught personal finance workshops in several local schools.  These experiences included a 3 day workshop at the Nueva School (San Mateo), a four session workshop at Castilleja school (Palo Alto), seven sessions with an AVID classroom at Mountain View High School (Mountain View) and our intensive 6 week workshop at Eastside Prep (East Palo Alto). In this post, I will share my experiences at the Castilleja School, an all-girls school just down the...

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Ok, not the best title but let’s run with it. Let’s start with a question: You have a choice between two investments of $100,000: Investment #1: Earns a consistent 8% return every year (put aside the fact that an investment like this doesn’t exist at the current time; it’s been a while since you could buy a 30 year Treasury Bond with that kind of return). Investment #2: Has an average return of 8% per year but has “lumpier returns” aka it has more volatile...

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Interesting thought experiment (wishful thinking!) that demonstrates the power of compound interest and also that getting the market return over a long period of time hasn’t been a bad strategy either. Warren Buffett is out with his annual letter for 2016  which is a must-read for investors because of the common sense, homespun advice from the best investor of our time. For those not familiar with Mr. Buffett’s investing prowess, check out the first page of his report which has...

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Answer (courtesy of Bloomberg): About 1/3 Why is this important? Pensions are becoming increasingly scarce for young people, so the 401(k) will likely become the primary source of financial support for retirees outside of Social Security: According to a Pew Charitable Trusts analysis of survey data released Feb. 15, only 10 percent of workers over age 22 have a traditional pension. Just 6 percent of millennials have a pension while 13 percent of baby boomers do. Why are so few contributing to...

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I have been thinking a lot about this issue of how to make investing simpler. I hear from teachers that this is a real pain point for them. I can see in the NGPF podcast stats that the most popular guests tend to be conversations about investing (Mike Finley, Jonathan Clements and Vanguard’s Jim Rowley to name a few). Then this weekend the lightbulb went off. I was heading to the coast listening to Charlie Ellis on the Masters In Business podcast (kinda dorky I know). Those of you not...

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Earlier this month, we had the opportunity to get back into the classroom at Eastside Prep in East Palo Alto, California (where I came up with the idea for Next Gen Personal Finance). We’re teaching seniors all they need to know about personal finance over 6 weeks (24 hours of content) including lessons on savings and checking accounts, taxes, budgeting and investing. We’ll be releasing this 24 hour curriculum later this spring to help those educators who only have a limited time to...

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I am so proud of the NGPF team (Jessica, Sonia, Laura, Ren, Sid and Niko) that has worked feverishly to deliver a revamped Saving Unit that we released tonight. Why do we continue to revamp our lessons? The short answer can be found in our culture of continuous improvement as we are always looking for ways to make our lessons stronger (your feedback is critical in this process). Here is the longer answer:  The financial services landscape is undergoing dramatic changes and we need to...

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