Financial Literacy

Last week work sent me to a conference primarily on Student Aide. However, a large part of the conference was geared at Financial literacy, how timely! I can not tell you how many calls I receive daily about teachers who need assistance paying their bills. Let me just tell you, in case no one ever has before, if you owe money to someone, and you are having a difficult time paying that bill, pick up the phone and contact said lender. Sometimes it is that EASY! And if you are not familiar with deferment or forbearance options on your student loan - get proactive and learn about your options. Also! Ask about a different payment option. Most lenders are happy to receive something instead of nothing. In case you have not learned about the Public Service Loan Forgiveness option - go read! http://www.finaid.org/loans/publicservice.phtml Public service is such a broad definition that almost anything falls under this federal definition.

I just recently stumbled onto this website www.wesabe.com What does Wesabe do exactly? Let me just tell you, I merged my bank account information with this website and WALA! It tells me exactly where all my money is going! It took me about five minutes to go in and add some word "tagging". But it was very nice to know where the bulk of our money goes everymonth! FOOD! hah! We need to eat, but I think we might be spending a bit excessively in this category...

Also, I am proud to say that my Alma mater, Sam Houston State University offers financial guidance to current students and they are very shortly extending it to alumni as well! So, I am going to guess that if my Alma mater offers this type of information you should look to see if yours does too!

Here is a link to a financial literacy website - really, who couldn't use a little tune up right?
http://www.aie.org/managing-your-money/index.cfm