What is the Most Popular Fund For Retirement Accounts?
Answer (with hat tip to Big Picture Blog who posted this research study 401(k)/IRA Holdings in 2016 published by the Center for Retirement Research): Target-Date Funds now used by 72% of participants in retirement plans at Vanguard.
For more on Target Date funds, check out this NGPF primer with an activity idea too.
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Check out this NGPF Case Study: Compound My Interest in 401(k)s
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Question of the Day: Do More Americans Prefer Spending or Saving?
Here's what Gallup found (and I was surprised by the results): 59% prefer to save money!
Questions:
Which do you prefer?
Why do you think more people prefer saving to spending?
Why does America have such a low savings rate despite the fact a majority of people prefer saving over spending?
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Interested in more savings activities? Check out this page on the NGPF website!
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Two NGPF Interns Took On the Payback Challenge: Here's How They Did!
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Oct 13, 2017
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Paying for College, Student Loans, Savings, Activities
Donnesh:
The first quality about this simulation that stands out is how it gives the user the opportunity to blend their real life choices and starting position, with hypotheticals, to know exactly how much future decisions will cost. I saw what my potential earnings would look like with the major I’ve applied for and saw how my GPA and school really affect how much debt I’ll need to withdraw.
I played this game 4 times to see how different choices led to different outcomes. ...
Question; What Are People Searching For on Google When It Comes To Money and Career?
Fascinating set of interactives (go here to see what else people are searching for and to use the interactive features) that show what people are searching for on Google in different categories (fixing stuff around the house, cooking, etc.). Here is that they found when it comes to "grown-up stuff." The size of the boxes indicate the number of searches for that question. Anyone surprised to see "write a check" on that list?
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Check out the NGPF Resources that correspond to...
Question: What's the Probability That You Will Live to 100?
Talking about investing for retirement may seem abstract to your students, but what if you framed it from a longevity perspective? Do you want to prepare your financial life knowing that you could live to 100? This MarketWatch article provided some actuarial tables showing the probability of living to 100 for different age groups:
So students in your class have a not too insignificant chance of making it to 100 (6.1% for men who are 25 today and 10.2% for women of the same age). Ah, the powers...
Finance in My Life
Just back from vacation and reflecting on various conversations that arose in the course of my travels. As anyone who has listened to my podcasts knows, I like to ask lots of questions but in the conversations described below, finances were brought up without my prompting. Here's what I heard:
A 67 year old cab driver lamented the fact that he was collecting his Social Security check which wasn't enough. As a result, he had this side hustle driving a cab. "If I had only socked some money away...
NGPF Podcast: Tim Talks to Innovative Financial Educator, Lothar Konietzko of Everett High School (Lansing, Michigan)
From his first job delivering newspapers to assorted "side hustles" he had in high school and college, Lothar Konietzo learned early on the value of saving money. I became aware of Lothar's work as he was recently recognized by VISA as an Innovative Educator. You will enjoy hearing about the creative activities he has developed to engage his students. These include using sneaker culture to teach entrepreneurship and how he has adapted the stock market game to teach the importance of long-term...
Question: Can Language Really Impact Savings Rates?
This post created by new NGPF team member, Christian Sherrill:
If you’re a rabid TED Talks fan, as I am, you’ll probably remember Yale Economist Keith Chen’s fascinating talk about the impact of grammar on savings behavior.
Now famously, Chen concluded that - well, I’ll let you learn about it on your own terms:
Video summary (5:53)
Full text of study: The Effect of Language on Economic Behavior: Evidence from Savings Rates, Health Behaviors, and Retirement...
NGPF Podcast: Tim Talks To USAA Product Designer, Vikram Parekh
By Tim Ranzetta
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Jul 16, 2017
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Behavioral Finance, Research, Investing, Savings, Podcasts, Compound Interest
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...
Video: How Can We Overcome Our Behavioral Biases Against Saving?
By Tim Ranzetta
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Jul 12, 2017
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Behavioral Finance, Question of the Day, Savings, Current Events, Video Resource, Retirement
Hat tip to Vikram Parekh of USAA (podcast upcoming) for highlighting the work of one of his favorite behavioral economists, Shlomo Benartzi of UCLA’s Anderson School of Business. In this 17 minute TED video, Shlomo highlights the hurdles to saving and how he designed a savings program (“behavioral economics on steroids”) to overcome these challenges. He provides some good examples that you might use with your students to show how our behavioral biases cause us to fall short of...
NGPF FAVORITES: Our Best OFF TO COLLEGE Resources
By Tim Ranzetta
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Jul 07, 2017
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Activities, Credit Scores, Activity, Behavioral Finance, Career, Paying for College, Budgeting, Savings, Student Loans, Stocks, Current Events, Interactive
This month’s NGPF Favorites List comes from Sid Sharma – one of NGPF’s veteran “Power Interns” who has been with us for 3 years. Sadly, we will wish him well as he heads off to college this fall! We wanted Sid to reflect on his NGPF experience (he has literally “touched” every element in the NGPF curriculum) and highlight the resources that have enabled him to become the knowledgeable, action-oriented, process-innovator that he is today!...
What Are People Reading on the NGPF Blog?
By Tim Ranzetta
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Jun 26, 2017
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Behavioral Finance, Credit Cards, Investing, Savings, Checking Accounts, Current Events, Quizzes, Compound Interest, Cryptocurrencies, Retirement
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...
NGPF's Top 15 Activities, Courtesy of Jessica Endlich
By Tim Ranzetta
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Jun 06, 2017
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Activities, Activity, Budgeting, Personal Finance, Savings, Stocks, Video Resource, Case Study, Interactive
Given the comprehensive nature of our website (full disclosure: Sometimes I forget that we have certain projects/activities/data crunches/blog posts….), teachers often ask us “OK, but what are the best resources that you can recommend?” At that point, we typically turn to Jessica and she always has a few ideas to recommend. So, this month, we asked Jessica to provide us with her “Best of NGPF” specifically for the last days of school.
The responses we got from...
Question: What Is Your Most Valuable Asset Today?
By Tim Ranzetta
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May 03, 2017
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Article, Career, Research, Investing, Savings, Current Events, Compound Interest
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...
Interactive: How Can I Retire Early?
By Tim Ranzetta
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Apr 30, 2017
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Savings, Activity, Behavioral Finance, Investing, Activities, Compound Interest, Interactive
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...
