Financial Literacy for All Americans

• Make a difference...

• in your own life
• for your children, family and friends
• at work and in your community
• for future generations of Americans

1. Assess your strengths and weaknesses.
   • Money Management/ Financial Health
   • Investing
   • Retirement
   • Tax Planning
   • Specialty areas:
     • Buying a Home
     • College Savings
2. Gauge how you are doing.

   Use the following calculators to track your progress.

   • Savings for Goal
   • Retirement Estimator
   • Getting out of Debt
     • Debt Inventory
     • DebtBlaster Calculator
   • College Funding
3. Set financial goals.

   Using the "Setting SMART Goals Worksheet" choose your top goals (but no more than three) to focus on.

   Once you determine the amount you need to save, set yourself up for success by instituting automatic savings plans from your checking to savings, to an investment plan or to your retirement plan from your paycheck.

   Resources:

   • Tips for paying yourself first.
   • A smart and surprisingly fun way to budget: PERK System in the free online book, Plan Z.
4. Determine your learning style and money personality.
   • Learn more about the basic money archetypes and take the money personality quiz in this article by Brent Kessel.
   • Everyone learns differently so discover your dominant learning style.
   • Take the Felder-Silverman learning style index quiz to see if you favor:

     Active or Reflective Learning

     An active learner might want to join an investment club to learn through study as well as from the other members. A reflective style learner may want to take a series of classes to build on the information each week and have a professional to answer questions.

     Sensing or Intuitive Learning

     A sensing learner may want to use a self study or classroom education program with sections that build skills and concepts in an ordered progression. An intuitive learner may want to work with study groups and participate in case studies and hypothetical scenarios.

     Visual or Verbal Learning

     This may seem the most obvious one but there are a couple of education suggestion for this one. A visual learner may get more out of a webcast where the focused attention is on the computer screen with a live instructor to answer questions (and hopefully they will have excellent graphics!) The verbal learner may get more out of a live interactive workshop where there are generally more questions and comments from other participants.

     Sequential or Global Learning

     Sequential learner—think college class! Since most classes are taught on an outline, this is ideal for the sequential learner. A financial education program you develop for yourself might include lists of topics and resources that build on each other. For global learners, you may want to make a "mind map" using various sources but tie your learning plan together loosely using a central theme but not necessarily needing to build sequentially on the content.

     Now that you have an idea of your learning style—adapt the information about classroom learning to life long learning.

5. Put together a personalized education plan.

   Using the "Personalized Action Plan Worksheet", set up an individualized learning plan.

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