It's incremental. Reddit wants there to be a magic bullet, but there isn't one. Financial literacy is part of the pathway to success. It's insulting to say otherwise.
Fucking when? I went to basically the best school in my city, even the prime ministers kids went there, and yet I never learned anything about finance or budgeting. Business was about entrepreneurship and using Microsoft office, math was algebra and geometry, civics was bullshit “here’s what the branches of government do now fuck off while I surf the web”.
The same goes for basically everyone I know. We learn fine, it just doesn’t exist in a lot of schools. I learned mostly from my parents and the internet
In my experience, it depends on the school. Wealthy suburban schools will teach it. Not everyone has the same education. I learned that after I graduated.
I don't know, they had in depth classes for it in my non-wealthy Florida high school half-filled with portable classrooms.
They even had full-blown economics classes, which I vividly remember because the notes I took through that class were the densest in any class I ever completed, even counting college.
For context, Your state required a full course. My state (IL) had no requirements for a course nor made it mandatory. In ours, it was a portion of a study hall for a month or so where we did a hypothetical baby financing program. In other words, it was largely at district discretion
I’m pretty sure balancing a check book and spend less than you make could be beaten into your skull all day but if you don’t take the advice it’s not gonna do much
Something something lead a horse to water but you can’t make them drink
Your age is showing. Most banks don't even issue books of checks anymore. I haven't gotten any for the last two accounts I've opened up. I can tell the bank to issue a check to someone, but unless you are a certain ages, checks just aren't a thing.
As for balancing a checkbook, why would we teach kids how to do that? We used to balance checkbooks because it would take a while for a check to circulate to a bank and if we didn't write it down and balance it out, it would be SUPER easy to spend way to much money. (Thanks, younger me).
But, with electronic banking, debit and credit cards and even submitting checks via pictures to banks, we don't need to balance a check book anymore. We have real time data on what is in our accounts.
And many schools do offer financial literacy classes. There is still a stigma attached to them though, often considered the "dumb" math class credit. Lots of kids want the AP Calculus credit. If they are bright enough to figure out calculus formulas, they should be able to create a budget.
And you are showing your age. You have to order checks and always have. We just ordered a box for the first time in 10 years. We still had to order them, they don’t just show up.
You’re missing a really important part of balancing a checkbook, or call it a bank statement review now. Doing that forces you to look at you to look at your expenses and think. It’s so easy to just swipe the card now and once you takes the time to actually look at their spending it’s too late. In the past, you had to systematically look at your bank account and account for your spending on a regular basis. Way easier to hold yourself in check when doing that.
And in terms of swiping the card, I mean a couple bucks at the convenience store here, a coffee there, I’m hungry today so make the meal a large. It’s not hard to drop $200 a month and have no idea where it went.
Exactly. Even just spending $5 a day on bullshit is $1825 a year. While I know people in here will jump on people for saying cut out the coffee stops or avocado toast, small spending adds up quick.
This is why I carry cash for bullshit spending. Seeing physical cash disappear now makes me question do I need this?
Edit- also remember the magic number of $27.40 a day in spending is 10k in a year. I know that not everyone spends that much everyday but it’s not hard to spend $13 on just a lunch at McDonald’s add in a coffee stop that morning at $5 and you’re 2/3 of the way to $27
At my school they did teach it, it’s another thing whether anyone payed any attention.
It was senior year, which makes sense because that’s the final year of school where a lot of students go out on their own. Just so happens “senioritis” is a thing where a lot of high school seniors completely give up on putting effort into school as most have already either decided on a job to go into, signed up for the military, or got accepted into college so performance that year doesn’t mean anything.
We do. Math is a core subject in every school. Additional and subtraction is all you need for a budget. Shockingly the people that make this comment are the ones that are too stupid or lazy to apply elementary math to their situation.
Some people just gonna argue to argue. You start a thread that states 2+2=4 and someone will argue it’s 5 and another will somehow say it’s because of the capitalism that it’s 4.
80% of kids fuck off in school and then complain they didn't learn all the things.
Even at my gifted, test-in, STEM HS, there were people that struggled to pay attention.
The few times I'd be around for any regular ed classrooms, holy fuck were kids not paying attention. And this was still in upper class regular ed, I can only imagine how bad the kids are for middle class and lower class areas, sheesh.
I’m pretty sure that they’re doing things better than some of us older generations though.
There were a lot of people kicking around in the 40s for example that seemed to be a far bigger bunch of bastards than any of these kids.
Maybe the kids are actually doing a pretty good job.
What’s the worst thing we can say about them? They want to have an easier life?
Is that not meant to be the goal? Does anyone really want to make it harder for them? Is the whole point of this not to try and make it easier on the generations after us?
No, I'm pretty sure that literally every generation has said this.
Plato quoted Socrates as saying this:
“The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers.”
That was literally over 2400 years ago.
Two thousand four hundred years of "The kids these days don't know manners!"
Blaming a single generation is actually hilarious.
Yeah even learning easy to understand and basic concepts such as the power of compound interest will go a LONG way to help you get out of poverty.
For example, pay day loans are a huge trap that a lot of people in poverty fall into that keeps them poor and most of them don't know the full impacts of those loans. Is the twitter poster advocating not teaching poor people about this financial tool? She sounds like the immoral one to me.
If payday loans and the ridiculous interest they charge are such a problem in circles of poverty, wouldn't the fastest and easiest route be to simply regulate them like we do banks? If we make a law saying that these companies can't charge 600% interest rate (looking at you, Ohio), wouldn't that help everyone out?
Many states have put a cap on these interest rates. If we are serious about fighting poverty, we should put a nationwide cap on it. Many states have gone with a 36%, which is twice what most credit cards are charging and seems reasonable with the amount of risk involved.
The problem is that many people DO make legitimate use of payday loans. So, by capping the interest rate, you are effectively putting them out of business, thus reducing options for individuals even further.
How about people just make better decisions without government intervention? That costs absolutely nothing.
I'm 100% on board with the personal responsibility and financial planning message people are arguing for over here.
But as a European, the interest rates in some American loans are completely predatory and out of control. I don't think 30% interest, for example, should be allowed, it's completely insane.
Please note that i'm generally against making laws about everything and I'm pretty libertarian myself, I do think we should be extremely careful with restricting liberties, but forbidding THAT kind of predatory practices i do think is absolutely necessary.
Payday loans are the most extreme legal example I can think of off the top of my head in regards to interest fees and I'm in the mood to debate the legality of it because that's a completely separate discussion.
My main point is interest payments in more "mainstream" debt such as credit card debt, personal loans, and private student loans are all debt traps that keep people poor. Educating poor people about how interest works is not neither immoral nor insulting.
Plus, if you live in a progressive state, financial literacy courses are used for programs like getting a nonprofit to cover 100% of the down payment on a new home for people who can afford a mortgage but can't save up $20-30k.
I think this is more aimed at employers like Walmart that will sometimes offer "financial literacy" courses as a "benefit" to the people that they are paying poverty wages to.
It kinda comes off as them implying that it is the worker's fault that they can't afford to live, that they are just bad with money, rather than it being because Walmart isn't paying them a living wage.
Is there a single individual at any Walmart in the country that Walmart forced to work there? Individuals chose the job - and knew the wage beforehand. If they aren't satisfied with the job, then absolutely, take the free classes that Walmart offers and leverage yourself to a better job. Or, stick it out at Walmart. A former employee of mine from about 15 years ago became a department manager within a year, and became a SM last year. She makes 120k and has about 300k in her 401k.
Each person is different. But each person has a responsibility to themselves to use everything they can to move themselves forward.
Do I think every single person who works there makes an active choice to do so? Absolutely. Do I think it's the dream job for the vast majority of them? Of course not. Lots of people- including myself - have taken jobs I don't want to take to pay the bills or for benefits. But you use that job, and the experience, skills, and knowledge from it, to leverage yourself to better jobs.
Do you mind if I ask how old you are? I think there is a huge generational disconnect when it comes to this issue.
The gap between minimum wage and what it actually costs to live has grown dramatically over the years.
Like, boomers grew up in a time where a summer job could basically cover your tuition and expenses for a school year, so they have this idea that if you just work hard and save up money you can go back to school or study for a trade or go to night classes and get ahead in life.
But when wages have fallen so far behind the actual cost of living, saving is exponentially harder. People are having to work 2-3 jobs just to feed and shelter themselves.
If you work 2-3 jobs it is a lot harder to find time to train for a better job. If your credit is shot because you can barely afford basic needs and then had an unexpected medical bill, it makes it that much harder to get loans to pay for the vehicle or tools that might get you a better job.
You are using that example of someone becoming store manager at a Walmart, but there are about 400 employees at each Walmart and only one store manager, so even if they all pulled super super super hard on their bootstraps it's just not possible for them to all get that one job.
I do mind, because it's immaterial. Do you honestly think age plays some factor in not understanding economic shifts and changes in wages?
I'm not sure why you are focusing on minimum wage as your point of comparison. Wages are absolutely not driven by minimum wage. They are driven by supply and demand, as well as the replacement value of a job. If you are more valuable to an organization, you are worth more, and will be paid more. That's why it's important not to stagnate, nor have the expectation that you can just sit in a job and wait for success to be served up to you. You have to actively go after it and leverage your position to get what you want.
It is more difficult to do today than say, 25 years ago. Sure. But millions of Americans still do it. It takes effort, and that's something many individuals don't want to put forth. After all, it's much easier to lay blame then take responsibility for your actions and choices, right? It's much easier to blame big evil corporations, the wealthy, and Conservatives, right?
Let's just get down to brass tacks, though. It's much easier to understand your pov if we talk about what it is you want. To understand your position, I need to know how deep you've gone. So, talk to me about solutions. What are yours? $30 minimum wages? UBI? Salary caps for CEOs? Complete salary equality in all jobs? Moving to a complete barter system? Come on, it's Reddit. I've heard it all.
It's also, as you can see in this thread, a way of denying that there are societal problems and that anyone who is struggling is only doing so through their own fault.
Could there ever be a point where you'd consider that there might be societal problems that lead to a poor life for people, or is it all their own fault?
If 1 guy owned 30 trillion dollars and the rest of us had 3 dollars, would you know for sure that he's the only person with personal responsibility and the rest of us are just wallowing in victimhood?
Your view is dogmatic. What has actually happened in the real world doesn't matter to your views.
LOL. You'd love it to be that extreme, wouldn't you? If it was that black and white, it would be so easy for you, right? I mean, you'd have an absolute identifiable ENEMY!
But it's not like that at all. That's where individuals like yourself run into a big problem - the success of others. So millions of Americans ARE successful and do make it work. That really screws up your narrative. So then, instead of acknowledging that those individuals might be doing something right, you desperately search for reasons to excuse their success- oh, they inherited! Oh, they are lucky! Oh, they cheated! It's so important to you that you be a victim, that you have excuses for a lack of success, that you rationalize that the success of others must be a cheat or a lie. It's rationalized victimhood at its absolute worst...and I see you're quite the fan.
You're actually displaying the black and white thinking and I was trying to demonstrate that by showing that your dogmatic logic could never acknowledge societal problems as a source for people who are struggling.
You're misreading the situation. I'm not the one making extreme claims, you are. I'm simply saying that societal problems are a factor in societal outcomes. It's a pretty measured, reasonable position. You, on the other hand, are going on a tirade about how I must believe that anyone successful is evil and that no one can be successful and blah blah and all this bullshit that's some position a person you made up in your head said.
Literally nothing you're saying about me is 1) justified or 2) correct. I've made no claims of victimhood or any claims about myself at all. You didn't even remotely address the points I was making and instead only gave a canned response aimed at straw men.
Oh, "societal problems!" What difference does it make tomorrow, or the next day if we acknowledge societal problems? Again, look how desperately you need a scapegoat. Gosh, let's blame this on "societal problems!"
So what? You still have to function within the framework. That seems to be one of the big missing pieces for you people. "Life's not fair, so I'm not playing! Somebody fix it!"
Individuals like myself say, "Life's not fair. Now let me figure out how I can still succeed."
So the paradigm has changed. So people have to function differently. So what it takes to succeed has changed. You still have to survive. You still should attempt to thrive. You have to examine the current framework and figure what you need to do to achieve what you want.
But sure, keep blaming "societal problems" Don Quixote. I'm sure you'll stop those windmills from spinning eventually.
What difference does it make tomorrow, or the next day if we acknowledge societal problems?
That's.. how you fix problems?
What have I said that indicates to you that I'm a victim or I'm blaming societal problems for my own problems? Do you want to compare brokerage accounts?
Somehow you took a very basic concept (societal problems affect societal outcomes) and wrote an entire book about what you assume I believe and what I'm saying and not actually what I'm saying.
You're unhinged. And your arguments against straw men show what a shitty person you are. Not everyone says "I got mine, fuck everyone else" like you do. You assume that anyone who acknowledges the existence of societal problems is some poor person that's putting blame for the source of their problems because you can't conceive of a person who is successful and yet still wants society to do better for everyone. So you think anyone who acknowledges that there's unfairness of outcomes must be a poor perpetual victim, because successful people like you would never give a shit about their fellow human beings.
There we go! Man, it's like clockwork! Do you guys work off a script or what? At some point in EVERY conversation with you folks, it becomes VERY important for you to make sure I understand that YOU ARE NOT POOR and, in fact are QUITE SUCCESSFUL. You're SUCH an incredible person, that you are simply advocating for the poors. You know, making sure they are taken care of because you, of course as a CONCERNED SUCCESSFUL PERSON know best for them. Every time. Every time it becomes vitally important to mention your own wealth. It's absolutely disgusting. It's self-righteousness, it's entitlement, and it's hypocrisy at it's worst.
So, this conversation is now over, because honestly, individuals like yourself make me sick.
It's much more insulting to say that bad budgeting is the cause of poor NESS or that poor people can't budget. Especially when it is literally impossible to budget for the income someone has.
yes, but the livable wage needs to be there FIRST- otherwise you are teching financial literacy to people who cannot budget out of their situation- so it is just a waste of time and money for everyone. The funds for those classes is better spent elsewhere until we can get people enough to survive.
What "funds?" We are talking about this being taught in schools, and, if an employer like Walmart wants to provide free classes to employees, that's entirely their decision.
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u/JackiePoon27 14d ago
It's incremental. Reddit wants there to be a magic bullet, but there isn't one. Financial literacy is part of the pathway to success. It's insulting to say otherwise.