Foundations of Personal Finance

Grade: 99.7%

The great thing I’m learning right away about my new school, Clonlara School, is that I’m able to create classes as challenging as I can possibly handle.

Take, for example, Foundations of Personal Finance. I took this class through Acellus Power Homeschool, an excellent resource for classes. But, even though I give the class a very enthusiastic thumbs-up, I still wanted to learn more.

Personal finance is something that isn’t taught in most schools – which I find fascinating and terrifying at the same time. How is it that the angst-inducing intricacies of Algebra are thrust upon students, but then the same students are set free into the world at 18 years old not even knowing what a credit score is … or how to balance a checking account … or the dire consequences of debt?

And we wonder why students sign up for loans for college that they won’t be able to pay? Or why, around the time of my birth there was a sub-prime mortgage crisis that forced people out of their homes and onto the streets? And each time, there are calls for our government to bail us all out, as though the government can magically snap its fingers and make it all go away.

Meanwhile, our national debt grows to catastrophic proportions.

Sigh. Don’t get me started.

The point is, kids need to learn about finance because financial security brings power. Without it, people are vulnerable to banks, loan officers, corporations, or other entities that stand to profit from people’s ignorance.

So, while the Acellus course was sufficient and an excellent starting point and I completed it with the grade of an A, I rounded out my course by reading two books, Growing Money and The Millionaire Next Door. You can also read my review of Growing Money here.

Then I watched a mind-blowing documentary called I.O.U.S.A. directed by Patrick Creadon which, even though it was produced over ten years ago, still is like a punch to the gut. My dad bought this DVD when it first came out. When I saw it on the shelf in the basement, I dusted it off, screwed up my face at the spaghetti mess of wires that used to connect our DVD player and somehow managed to watch it.

It was worth it!

With these three add-ons to my course, Foundations of Personal Finance had a life-changing impact on me. I implore you, whether you are schooling at home or going to a brick-and-mortar school… whether you are a kid like me or an adult … learn about this topic as much as you can. Only by learning it can we all collectively pull our nation out of the hole of debt we fall deeper into every year.