‘My sister is getting a ton of magazines she didn’t order. Could someone have stolen her identity’?

The answer? Perhaps. Madeleine learned that her sister’s best course of action was to cancel the subscriptions and check her credit report. Those 18 and over can obtain their credit reports for free at www.annualcreditreport.com. Looking at her credit report will reveal if someone is using her personal information for more than just a prank.

Identity theft prevention, credit scores and how they work, and understanding how to get the best interest rate on their savings (pssst… it’s by banking with a Credit Union) are just some of the cool financial literacy morsels that Mr. Ley’s students got to snack on earlier this week.

If you’re looking for more information on identity theft, credit, and savings, check out these sweet resources.

Turns out they were the high school students.  These two, along with fellow DECA students, brought Mayor Lewis, the business community, and several government and not for profits together for an evening that asked participants to rethink money.

Mayor Lewis opened the event by discussing the importance of anticipating the financial pitfalls all of us eventually face, and the rewards of preparing for them.  He asked all of us to embrace the opportunity to prepare for our financial futures, and challenged today’s teens to be the difference that our economy needs when it comes to personal financial choices.

After Mayor Lewis spoke, the group broke into two sections.  One that stayed with me and experienced the Investor Education in Your Community presentation, and another that engaged in business role playing exercises with volunteers from the business, government, and not for profit sectors.  After 45 minutes, each group swapped places.

By night’s end, over 30 teens had learned about the power of compounding interest and how they can easily and inexpensively save for their financial futures by starting as teens.  Additionally, DECA students learned to rethink wealth from another perspective:  Dollars equal opportunities.  The more dollars we have, the more options we have in life.  The larger our savings account balance, the more ways we can impact our communities, either through taking time off from work and donating that time, or giving dollars to causes we care about.

Auburn High School DECA  students should be proud of their well-organized, informative, and fun event.

One of the challenges new investors face is choosing the right account for their needs, or whether or not they should convert to a ROTH IRA. Today I logged into Vanguard’s live webcast to help clear up some confusion around ROTH IRAs, conversions from a traditional IRA to a ROTH IRA, and who can contribute to a ROTH IRA.

Regardless of where your investment accounts are located, now is a great time to consider what type of IRA is best for your retirement planning, and if you can benefit from a ROTH conversion.   Learn more about ROTH and Traditional IRAs here.

Wow.  That seemed a little harsh.  The last thing I expect at the grocery story is judgement from my cashier.  I mean, I wasn’t buying anything that out of the ordinary.  A pastrami sandwich.  A lint roller.  Oh yeah, I also had 24 cans of coconut milk, 17 scour pads, and 22 packages of  mai fun, a thin rice noodle common in Chinese cuisine. 

Okay, maybe it was a bit weird.  But only in quantity.  I mean really, am I going to need 17 scour pads over the next week?  I really hope not.  But I couldn’t pass them up.   Normally priced at $1.89, they were marked down to $.99.  Knowing I always have a scouring pad around my kitchen sink, I figured I couldn’t go wrong stocking up and saving $16.83 on a household item I traditionally buy at full price.

And this is how I’m getting through the recesssion.  I’m a self-employed contract worker who has seen a 40% cut in her income over the last two years, and boy has it hurt.   Just like everyone else, I’ve had to make cutbacks.  Sure, I’m clipping coupons, and shopping two for one sales.  But I’ve also taken it one step further.  Last year I started a price book.

For those not in the know, a price book is a list of all the items you regularly keep in their home, and how much they normally cost where you shop.  I keep track of prices at two stores in my neighborhood.  Everytime my items are on sale, I note the sales price in my price book.  After a couple of months, I generally knew where I could get my grocercies for the lowest prices when they were on sale.  It’s completely changed the way I shop.

Instead of heading to the store when I need something (and being tempted by other things in the store), I have a specific system.  I go grocery shopping once a week with my price book.  I go up and down every single aisle.  When I see that one of my regular items is on sale for the lowest noted price in my price book, I buy it. Even if I have it at home.  And I buy as much of it as I can, thus 22 packages of rice noodles in my cart when I still have seven packages at home.

Am I turning into my mother?  Perhaps.  But I’ve been tracking my spending for a number of years and I find that my price book not only insures I always have what I need on my shelves and in my pantry, it’s literally saving me hundreds of dollars every month. 

Is it a little odd to buy two cases of coconut milk at a time?  Perhaps.  But being a freak for frugality is allowing me to maintain aspects of my lifestyle that I thought the recession was going to eliminate. 

If you want to try your hand at keeping a price book, check out this easy to use template for price books from Organized Home.

73 students in Ms. Fabritius and Ms. Elam’s classes at Capital High school benefited from the Investor Protection Trust sponsored and Dept. of Financial Insitutions Consumer University presentation. Learning all about saving and investing and how to acheive short and long term financial goals, students were blown away by how easy it is to accumulate long term rewards if they begin to consistently save and invest for the future while they’re young.

The number of students that expressed a desire to begin saving for the future now far outnumbered those who didn’t.  Teachers like Ms. Fabritius and Ms. Elam are inspiring students to make a change by bringing this important, non-commercial information in to the classroom.

One often overlooked motivation to save and invest is the opportunity to express your values and empathy to the world through charitable giving. When we save and invest for the future and live within our means, that translates into the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others.

The Haitian tragedy brings to mind that we have an opportunity to make a difference in the world right now. This opportunity also coincides with the worst financial crisis of our times.

If you haven’t yet established a budget, an emergency savings account, or a retirement fund, you might not be in a position to contribute financially to relief efforts in Haiti.

Most communities across the country are engaging in charitible efforts of all kinds. If you can’t afford to contribute money, consider contributing your time and use this as an opportunity to get your financial fitness on track. Doing so means that the next time others are in need you’ll have the option to participate as you wish, be it time, money, or both.

In addition to providing professional development resources to State employed women, they also organize Take Our Daughters and Sons to Work Day, and a myriad of personal and professional growth opportunities via lunchtime seminars.

Through the sponsorship of the Investor Protection Trust and the support of the Dept of Financial Institutions (‘DFI’), I had the privilege of meeting these women yesterday and talking to them about how to wisely and safely invest for their futures.

“Investor Education is crucial to ensuring the future success of our society. Information is power, and when people have the power to improve their lives with sound financial decisions, our communities and economy as a whole improve”, says Lyn Peters, Director of Communications for DFI.

During a lunchtime presentation, the audience learned:

• How to make use of the Deferred Comp Program (the States 401k equivalent)

• How to utilize DFI’s educational tools and support by checking out the background of a stockbroker or investment adviser prior to work with them, insuring the investment their considering is registered, and how to file a complain in the event one has an issue with a financial service provider

• How to ask and answer the questions that will help us determine how to choose investments that will help us reach our individual financial goals.

• The variety of IRAs available to investors and their tax consequences

• How to make use of educational resources such as Valueline.com and Morningstar.com.

Attendees learned about the roll of the Dept. of Financial Institutions in the state of WA, and how securities salespeople and investments can be thoroughly checked out by contacting DFI. They also learned how to identify and avoid the most common types of investment fraud targeting Washingtonians.

One of those small gifts that’s easy to overlook, not often mentioned to our friends when reciting the list of cool things we received, are those checks from extended family.  The $25 from Grandma Jo, the $15 from Uncle Wiley… these are often the gifts from relatives living on a fixed income.  They want you to know they’re thinking of you during the holidays, and they’ve wisely decided money is a better gift than a pink Snuggie.

We often take these checks for granted because they’re a bit awkward to spend on one item.  They aren’t large enough to get us into a new pair of ski pants, but they’re a bit more than the price of  an album. 

I’d like to suggest that instead of spending these small checks the second we get them, we consider another possibility: Invest them.  Yeah, that sounds super boring… until you crunch the numbers and realize the possibilities. 

As teens, you have a serious advantage over adults when it comes to creating wealth.  We all have to spend two things to become wealthy:  Time and Money.   Time is free, Money has to be earned.  When you’re young, you are rich in time, but short on funds.  When you’re an adult, you’ve got more money, but you’re older so you’re short on time.

So how do you get started?  Easy.  First, if you don’t already have a ROTH IRA (a type of account where you can purchase investments for your future), ask your parents to go to a local credit union and get one opened up for you.  Second, deposit $50 into the account.  Third, add to that $50 when you feel like it and watch your interest compound over the years. 

If you do that this year, then add just $13 a month to it over the next 50 years, an 8% return on your money (TOTALLY doable over a 50 year period) will turn Grandma’s check into $105,000!

Reasonable rates of return (or ‘percent yields’) for teens who save over several decades range from seven to ten percent. Crunch the numbers on this calculator for yourself and decide how wealthy you want to be.

The holidays present some special risks when it comes to identity theft.  Learn to protect yourself throughout the holiday season by reading up on identity theft at Verity Credit Union’s blog.