Consumer Financial Literacy: Too Important to Ignore

A friend from business school is doing some great work teaching kids – and adults too – about money; a topic that could not be more relevant to our industry. (Note: The friend, Garrett Jay, and I haven’t been in touch since b-school graduation in 1994 and I’ve got no skin in this game. I just like what he’s doing from afar.)

Recently he and his business, Money Lessons for Life, were featured on NBC Nightly News tonight.  In November they sent a television crew to Palm Beach County, Florida, to film one of Garrett Jay’s Money Field Trips at a local Target store. They also filmed middle school students learning practical money lessons.  Here’s a link to that NBC segment: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/3032619/#46103239

Money Lessons for Life was founded February, 2007, to help improve financial literacy. Most students lack even the most basic financial skills and we live in an ever increasingly complicated financial world. Most don’t learn this valuable information in school and many parents don’t teach their children this valuable information because they are either too busy or they think that they don’t know enough about money themselves.

I would love to see all schools adopt a program like this but to the extent that won’t or doesn’t happen; how can we as parents or as businesses step in?

I am such a believer in this concept, and I suspect that many in the ARM industry are too. I pose these questions:

• Once collectors are on the phone with consumers, is it too late to talk about things like this?
• Does anybody have a program like this to which they refer consumers to help them learn how to avoid their current situation in the future – or to help ensure their children avoid it?

Please feel free to share your insight in the comments — or send us an email: editor@insideARM.com.