To get started: 5 myths about saving:

Five Strategies to Saving

1. Pay off high-cost debt
2. Save for emergencies
3. Participate in a work-related retirement program
4. Outside of work, save monthly through an automatic transfer from checking to savings
5. Buy a home and pay off the mortgage before you retire

Practical Savings Tips for Every Day Savings

-Try take-out once a month instead of dining out.
-Rent a video instead of going to the movies.  If you really want to go to the movies, go to the less expensive afternoon “matinee.”
-Or better yet, go to your local library and borrow books, CDs, videos, and read the latest magazines and newspapers.
-Bring your lunch to work once or twice a week instead of buying it.
-Don’t grocery shop on an empty stomach or you may end up buying more than you need.
-Cut down food costs by buying what you need on sale, buying generic brands, buying in bulk, and shopping at discount outlets.
-Don’t buy a sale item or use a coupon just for the sake of it being “cheaper.”  Buy an item only if you need it!  Shop with a list.
-Increase your gas mileage by taking care of your car with schedule check-ups, or just drive less. Consider carpooling, walking, taking the bus or metro, or riding your bike.
-Cancel your cable (or at least the premium channels), as well as subscriptions to magazines and newspapers.
-Exercise at home rather than joining a gym.
-Make your own coffee at home rather than buying from a store, or at least cut down the number of times per week you purchase coffee.
-Get health insurance.
-Track your spending and cash – know where every dollar goes!
-Organize a friend/relative/neighbor swap of clothes, toys, furniture, CDs, etc.
-Buy clothes for next year at the end-of-season sales – try garage sales and thrift stores.
-Find a simple hairstyle that doesn’t cost too much to take care of on daily/weekly basis.
-Take advantage of free entertainment in your community – parks, museums, exhibits, etc.  Go to free park concerts and other community activities.
-Try to buy with cash, checks, or debit cards. If you use credit cards, get rid of all but one or two, and pay off the balance each month. You can save hundreds or thousands of dollars a year by avoiding credit card interest charges.
-Always do your grocery shopping with a list of items you need  — and don’t buy anything that’s not on the list. You can save hundreds of dollars a year by avoiding impulse food purchases.
-Compare unit prices on labels when shopping (for example, price per ounce). You can save hundreds of dollars a year by purchasing items with the lowest price per unit.
-Avoid shopping at convenience stores. You pay for the convenience — the prices are usually higher than grocery stores.
-Consider taking your lunch to work rather than buying it. Depending on where you live and what you eat for lunch, you could save $5 a day.
-Review your telephone and cable bills for services you don’t use and cancel them. If you subscribe to magazines you rarely get around to reading, cancel the subscription. You could save tens of dollars each month.
-When choosing a cell phone plan, find one that’s appropriate for the calls you intend to make. For example, if you plan to use the phone only for emergencies, avoid plans with monthly fees or minimums.
-When your doctor prescribes a medicine, ask if a generic is available — you’ll pay less. If you’re taking a “maintenance” medicine, consider a mail-order pharmacy — you’ll pay -less.
-Before buying a car, compare insurance, gasoline, maintenance, and repair costs for comparable models. You can save thousands of dollars over the life of the car by choosing a model with low operating costs.
-Save hundreds of dollars a year on gasoline by making sure your car’s engine is tuned regularly and your tires have enough pressure.

Wider Opportunities for Women (WOW) works nationally and in DC to build pathways to economic independence for America’s families, women, and girls. In addition, WOW has helped residents of the DC Metro Area move towards financial self-sufficiency with their free “Self-Sufficiency Calculator” tool. However, Sarah Gonzalez Bocinski, Program Associate with WOW, notes that, “[our organization] doesn’t really have expertise on financial issues, so to find this expertise…filled an important gap in our program.”

Conducting workshops on behalf of WOW at Planned Parenthood, Healthy Babies, and other programming locations across the city, “the financial literacy sessions…were a perfect complement to the more career and earnings-focused workshops offered by WOW,” Bocinski says. “Conversations around banking have continued among the groups long after the sessions took place.”

Educating on the basics of banking, credit, and savings, workshop attendees were often “so engaged” that “they wouldn’t let the [CFEF] representative leave until all their questions were answered, even though the building was ready to close for the evening,” Bocinski recalls. “It was wonderful to see… a complicated and scary topic [made accessible] and meaningful.”

One workshop participant reported in her feedback following the class: “They are doing a great job! It is truly helping me get back to where I need to be with my finances.” Thank you to WOW and Bank on DC for allowing CFEF the opportunity to empower DC residents!

Finite Mathematics professor Martha Whitty reached out to CFEF after she noticed that students were most interested in the financial literacy chapter. “The topics I cover are immediately useful in their lives, such as budgeting, saving, borrowing, interest…” Whitty says. “However, the students often have specific questions that I can’t answer. I realized it would be helpful to have a guest speaker who could answer the nitty-gritty financial questions better than I could.”

Besides answering questions Whitty frequently receives such as, “Where is the best place for me to open an account?”, or “What credit card should I start with?”, or “Why are credit unions better than banks?”, CFEF gave students tools, resources, and knowledge that they could use immediately. Whitty says she appreciated the sessions because, “I liked how the CFEF speakers spoke to the students as equals. They didn’t talk down to the students. Rather, they spoke to them as peers who just wanted to share their financial hints and advice with others.”

Jonas Singer, Director of CFEF, conducts a financial education workshop at VMT, December 4, 2010

CFEF is proud to be a part of Bank on DC, a collaborative effort between the District Government’s Office of the Deputy Mayor for Planning and Economic Development, financial institutions, and non-profits, bringing together banks and credit unions to offer accounts with no minimum balance requirements, no monthly maintenance fees, and no overdraft charges.

Bank on DC also works with some of the District’s largest employers to offer Bank on DC products and financial education as an employee benefit. One of these successful partnerships is with VMT Long Term Care Management, Inc., a leader in home health and nurse’s aide education, placement, and management.

While educating hundreds of healthcare professionals each year and employing over 200 home health aides throughout District, VMT recognized a need for access to safe and affordable bank accounts for its students and staff. “VMT has offered direct deposit to our employees for many years now,” says Adam Chandler, Office Manager of VMT, “but we have not always had a lot of success with some of our employees who are unable to get a bank account.”  With the help of Bank on DC, Chandler hopes to have “close to 100% of our employees enrolled in direct deposit.”

In addition to offering the Bank on DC account through enrollment drives and Human Resources processes, CFEF has worked with VMT to administer financial education for students and staff. Chandler believes that these efforts, combined with ready access to a Bank on DC account, strengthen VMT’s relationship with its students and staff. “At VMT,” he says, “we understand that our staff is as important as our customers. We hope that by partnering with Bank on DC we will take another step in showing our staff we want to go above and beyond for them as they do for our customers on a daily basis.”

The William G. McGowan Charitable Fund was established to realize and enlarge the magnificent human potential that William McGowan foresaw. Their vision is to impact lives today, create sustainable change, and empower future generations to achieve their greatest potential. CFEF is dedicated to the same mission; we hope to enable individuals across our nation to secure their financial futures by better understanding the tools and options available to them. By mitigating financial distress and exclusion, we foster equality and opportunity across our communities. It is our goal to inform people and help them to connect with the products and services that help them to achieve financial stability for them and their families. It is with great gratitude that we accept the grant from the McGowan Charitable Fund to accomplish this mission.

“Many unbanked District residents are forced to rely on alternative financial services just to cash their checks or pay their bills,” says Michelle Dee, Bank on DC’s Program Manager at DMPED. In an effort to bring about greater financial equality in the city, Dee says that the program can help people “save money on fees, build assets, and save money for the future.”

Over 2,500 Bank on DC accounts have been opened since the program’s inception in March 2010. While Dee counts this number as a success, she finds that one of Bank on DC’s most promising strategies has been the program’s “ability to provide financial products with financial education.” By offering expertise in financial education, outreach, and development, CFEF has been integral to this two-pronged approach. In addition to this financial education strategy, CFEF and DMPED have spearheaded a targeted community and employer-based approach to drive education and account enrollment, including joining forces with Capital Area Asset Builders (CAAB) to register recipients of the Earned Income Tax Credit (EITC) in Bank on DC accounts on the spot.

These approaches, nonetheless, are not the final goal of the program. “A bank account is just the first step to financial security,” Dee adds. “Combined with quality financial education, Bank on DC can garner success by ensuring that everyone in the District has the opportunity to open safe and affordable bank accounts.”

MyStartingPoint showed great success in 2010 by utilizing an effective format that adapts to the needs of thousands of individual users. Allison points out that MyStartingPoint offers not only measurable financial capability outcomes for professional study, but also allows CFEF to learn from actual user experiences, feedback, and traffic analysis. Therefore, MyStartingPoint met 2011 with a new and improved Version 2.0, which boasts an enhanced interface for a more engaging user experience, as well as the development of an array of instructional financial education videos. “They’re brief, witty, and fun to watch,” Allison remarks before adding, “and they’re effective educational tools.”

Looking towards the future, Allison is quick to note that Version 2.0 of MyStartingPoint is by no means a finished product. “We believe the value of MyStartingPoint will be enhanced as we add more and more partners” because the site can reach “entire communities by connecting individuals directly to the institutions that can help them achieve their personal financial goals,” Allison says.

“Washington, D.C. received a failing grade last year based on the results of the 2010 Challenge,” says CFEF Executive Director, Jonas Singer. “D.C. had the lowest participation rate [of students] compared to any state in the U.S. so it is not surprising that student scores also were below average. It seems that these results are indicative of much bigger problems threatening our community. To start, the approach to financial education in D.C. is broken and we intend to help fix it.”

“D.C.’s performance should be a wakeup call to every school, community organization, and government official,” Singer added, “We want to do our part to sound the alarm of the financial illiteracy crisis, which is why we are making this year’s Challenge a priority for the hundreds of students we work with.”

The National Financial Capability Challenge is a joint program developed by the U.S. Department of the Treasury and the U.S. Department of Education. It is an awards program designed to increase the financial knowledge and capability of high school aged youth across the United States so they can take control over their financial futures. It challenges high school teachers and other educators to teach the basics of personal finance to their students, and rewards students, educators, schools, and states for their participation and their success. The National Financial Capability Challenge will be administered nationally, and in the District, between March 7 and April, 8, 2011.

“CFEF works with young adults in D.C. everyday so we know that these statistics are not reflective of the potential of the outstanding young adults in the nation’s capitol. We also have to remember that the participation rates are not the responsibility of the students. In other words, if financial education is not a priority for the schools, how can we expect it to be a priority for our students?”

CFEF (Community Financial Education Foundation) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit foundation based in Washington, D.C. that works nationally with youth, young adults, and adults to inform, prepare, and empower individuals to secure their financial futures. CFEF’s mission is to enhance access to financial education and financial products and services in order to facilitate individuals and communities to build assets and develop financial stability.

At the Thea Bowman House, staff member Hythia Phifer helped coordinate the eight-week financial education sessions in tangent with a Thea Bowman House program called SOME Bucks. The initiative, which encourages students to earn points and prizes in exchange for attendance and behavior, was bolstered by CFEF’s efforts.

“The class helped the children understand currency,” Phifer says, “and fostered an understanding of the importance of being responsible with whatever money they accrued.” After designing their own currency, learning to write checks, holding auctions and participating in other engaging educational games, the weekly classes “only improved [the youth’s] participation in the SOME Bucks program,” Phifer says.

CFEF is grateful to have a community partner such as SOME that recognizes the intrinsic need for quality financial education. “Most of the families [we serve] are just learning how to budget for the first time,” Phifer notes. SOME encourages all recipients of its services to make wise decisions about spending; yet by specifically targeting SOME’s youth population, Phifer believes that SOME can “break this cycle” of mounting debt “and foster financial independence” for all DC residents.

A five part series of financial wellness workshops was held for the parents of E.L. Haynes Charter School.

Workshop 1: Money Management, Budgeting and Weathering the Current Economic Crisis

Workshop 2:  Accessing Public Benefits

Workshop 3: Planning for the Future: College Funding, Investment Strategies, and Financial Resources

Workshop 4: Credit, Debt, Building your Wealth and Teaching Your Kids about Money

Videos

Credit:

Talking to your kids about money:

Photos