It's Your Money

“IT’S YOUR MONEY”

A Basic Course in Credit and Money Management

Prepared By AMERICAN FAMILY CREDIT COUNSELING, INC.

Introduction

Phase l Personal Money Management

(The Basics)

1. Money is a resource

2. Bank accounts

3. Budgeting

Phase ll The Wonderful World Of Credit

(How to get it – How to keep it – How to fix it)

1. Understanding credit

2. Establishing credit

3. Credit scoring

4. Credit ratings

5. Proper use of credit

6. Fixed term vs. open-ended

7. How to anticipate & handle problems

8. Collection accounts

9. Bankruptcy

Phase lll Saving For The Future

(Become an investor – not an investment)

1. Stop borrowing – start saving

2. Goal setting

3. Select the right plan

THOUGHTS FOR THE DAY

FROM AMERICAN FAMILY CREDIT COUNSELING

KEEP SMILING (

IT’S ONLY MONEY !

Time is money; at least that’s they say money can’t buy

What the credit-card companies’ happiness, but most of us

Believe. Would like to find out

For ourselves.

Budgeting teaches us that the America has the highest

Only way to live within our standard of living in the

Means is to live below our world. Too bad we can’t

Yearnings. Afford it.

Contrary to popular belief, a bill collectors are always

Dollar goes farther than it calling at the worst times,

Used to. You have to carry it like when you’re home.

Around for days before finding

Something it will buy.

Introduction

This is a course about money; how to manage your own, how and when to use someone else’s, how to avoid money problems, what to do when they occur, and how to put our money to work. This course is intended for the average consumer and will only cover the basics. It is designed to be what spring training is for major league baseball players, a refresher course on fundamentals that we all know but often forget, and an opportunity to pick up some new ideas and techniques that can help improve our game.

It will touch on the main issues concerning money that affect average consumers. It doesn’t, however, address everyone’s main concern about money; how to get more of it. That’s an issue we leave to you. We’re just going to try to help you handle what money you have. Anyone looking for an in-depth, sophisticated approach to this subject will be more than a little disappointed. This is just plain talk about everyday situations.

We have structured the course to reflect the average consumer’s monetary life cycle with respect to the use of money in our society. We have divided the course into three sections representing the three phases that most people go through with their money. Phase I is when we begin managing our money for the first time, typically using checking and savings accounts. In Phase ii, we graduate to using someone else’s money and enter the wonderful world of credit. Finally, in Phase iii we wake up to the fact that we need to provide for our future security and start saving. Unfortunately, there are a lot of folks in Phase I and Phase ll, than in Phase lll. These three divisions represent the most common progression in the use of money that we see in this country today.

Money affects our lives in so many important ways that it is hard to imagine a day that goes by when we don’t use it. Yet, for most of us, it passes through our lives like water under a bridge without our giving thought as to how it can be controlled or put to better use. Indeed, few public elementary or secondary schools offer any classes in personal finance. While many parents pass along useful information and training to their offspring on a variety of subjects ranging from auto repair to home decorating, few sit down with their children and show them how to balance a checkbook or use a household budget. The reason for this should be obvious; parents can’t or don’t teach their children about things that they themselves were never taught.

This creates a society in which the majority of its members, due to ignorance of, or indifference to, the management of what is arguably the most important resource available to them aside from their health, are at the mercy of retailers and lenders who know about how to hang on to it. Most of us deal with money on an emotional not intellectual level. When we use money we are feeling and not thinking. Our culture provides us with an abundance of clever little sayings about money, such as “money can’t buy happiness”, “easy come, easy go”, and numerous others, equally ridiculous. It’s easy enough to prove the fallacy of the first saying – it can be done by eating two meals; one at a local mission for the homeless and the other at a country club. In other words, money most certainly can affect happiness. The second saying is only half-wrong. Anyone who puts in an eight-hour day anywhere will tell you that it never comes easy, but it certainly goes easily enough, which is the very reason for this course.

When future civilizations look back on ours and ask “What did the ancients in the 20^th and 21^st century do with their lives?” it is reasonable to suggest they will conclude that we spent our lives buying and selling more and more things to each other. We need to be more aware that when we “shop till we drop”, what we are dropping is our responsibility to ourselves, our families, and our future. Money and money problems can affect our lives in drastic ways. Money problems are citied as often as infidelity as a leading cause for divorce and conversely divorce is a leading cause of money problems.

This short course is intended to be both a wake-up call alerting us to the need for more responsible use of money and a compass pointing the way to a more productive use of that hard earned resource. After all, it’s your money, so make the most of it.