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High School
Personal Finance and Money Management
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Learn one of life’s most important lessons – making sound financial decisions! In this course, you will practice money management skills using real-life scenarios. This course teaches the skills and knowledge you need to become a wise consumer, saver, investor, user of credit, and planner. Topics include financial attitudes and behaviors, income and taxes, budgeting, buying goods and services, financial accounts, credit and loans, financial investing, and insuring and planning. Build your financial literacy skills to excel in today’s global workforce and society. And if you are still asking yourself, when will I ever use this information? The answer is every day for the rest of your adult life. Personal Finance and Money Management is a half-credit (0.5) elective and offers an option for students to receive honors credit.
During this course, you will learn career-related skills and earn a badge for this accomplishment. A badge is a digital certification of your career-related learning that you can share on social media or with higher education platforms, colleges, potential employers, peers, and colleagues. Select this link to learn more about badges.
Major Topics and Concepts
Attitudes, Education, and Income
- Cognitive biases affecting financial decisions
- Factors affecting career choices
- Costs and benefits of education/training
- Types of income
- Entrepreneurship
- “Gig” employment
- Social Security
- Purposes of taxes at the federal, state, and local levels
- Income tax
- Budgeting
Spending and Saving
- Factors affecting consumer decisions
- Charitable and non-profit organizations
- Contesting an incorrect billing statement
- Conditions of contracts
- Types of financial accounts
- Managing financial accounts
- Government regulatory agencies
- Inflation
- Nominal and real interest rates
- Calculating simple and compound interest
Credit and Loans
- Costs and benefits of using credit
- Secured and unsecured loans
- Completing a loan application
- Home mortgages
- Financing options for post-secondary education
- Credit scores and reports
- Consequences of poor credit
- Assistance for repaying debt
- Declaring bankruptcy
Investing, Insuring, and Planning
- Types and purposes of investments
- Risks of different types of investments
- Tax implications of investments
- Risk v. return
- Diversification
- Insurance and premiums
- Identity theft
- Inheritance
- Financial planning
- Identity theft
- Receiving an inheritance
- Financial planning
Competencies
Factors Influencing Financial Choices
Students will demonstrate an understanding of financial choices by summarizing factors influencing financial decisions, explaining factors impacting income, and creating a budget.
Risks and Rewards of Investing
Students will demonstrate an understanding of the risks and rewards of investing by describing options to grow money, explaining the relationship between taking risks and growing money, summarizing features of insurance, and analyzing identity theft.
Spending and Saving Money
Students will demonstrate an understanding of spending and saving money by describing factors affecting consumer decisions, describing common contracts, explaining types of financial accounts, and analyzing the relationship between inflation and interest rates.
The Use of Credit
Students will demonstrate an understanding of the use of credit by comparing types of credit, describing types of loans, explaining the influence of credit scores, and explaining the management of debt.
