Poor Peezy...

It's fascinating that money isn't being taught in schools. To my recollection, the ONLY 'financial education' I received in all my years of schooling was in second-grade when they taught us how to distinguish the value of coins and then how to add them up to determine how much money you had. It blows me away that their aren't courses about how to budget, credit cards and interest rates, investing, balancing a checkbook, saving accounts, compound interest, etc, being taught in, at the very least, high school. We're forcing our youth to understand history without preparing them for the future.

 

While I agree that there needs to be more financial education in schools, parents have to take some responsibility too. My mother is largely responsible for the financial shape (great!) that I am in today.

 

Joey Porter turned white?

Couldn't resist. But yes, you are right on otherwise.

 

Not only is it not being taught in schools, but we are moving further and further away from physical money.
While I dont always pay in cash, I still write checks by hand twice a month for all of my bills. I don't do any automatic withdraws even if I get a slight discount to do so. I think that its important to keep that physical connection to my money even though its not direct. Its far too easy now. Direct deposit your check, then pay with CC, then have your payment automatically deducted from your account..IMO thats creating a dangerous 'numbness' with your money.

 

Me too. I learned my tightness from Mom.
She's old school. She used to hide cash in envelops around the house. Each envelop was for something specific, like new furniture, or a new TV, or a new...whatever. And she didn't buy it until she had enough $ in the envelop. Well when I turned 16 and bought a car, I did the same thing. I'd cash my check and put put a little money in envelops every Friday. I had one for tires, one for insurance, and another for any other expenses. Then I worked on the edge of the carpet until I pulled it up from the little tacky things that held it down, and stuck the envelops under the carpet and the padding. Now that I think about it, the next time Im over there I should go and check just in case I left one behind.

 

I know a few people who use envelopes. I have different bank savings accounts set up for different reasons. Savings, car, house, stocks, vacation and emergencies. I use a rewards credit card for all of my purchases and pay it off at the end of the month.

Thank God for Mom!

 

A lot of good points in here, that are not "Steeler related"... (Just kiddin`. I couldn`t care less. I like reading the discussion).

When I graduated in `89, there actually was a course we had to go thru, in like 9th grade, that was similar to the old fashioned "Home economics" classes. I vaguely remember that they touched on things like how to balance your checkbook, compound interest and investing your money,etc, while giving a dash of how to do basic home repairs, and strictly "survival" cooking skills...
Nowhere near as comprehensive as some "life skills" courses that I`ve heard are being taught at a few select middle schools around the country now, and being pushed for in many more.
While I agree that it is primarily the parent`s responsibility, I think it would be a great thing if we had more standard education in the school system on those things, for the unfortunate students, whose parents don`t, or can`t teach them those basics...
Then, I just hope they listen, more than I did, to my mother.
God bless her for teaching me all I needed to know, and Damn, do I regret not listening to her!
The older you get, the harder it is to change your ways, and the more you lose the benefits you would have gotten, if you had started doing it the right way to begin with!!!
I also heartily agree that our society makes it difficult to save up and buy something in cash, as opposed to putting it on credit, and paying out yer ass, in interest!
It is MUCH easier to stop spending money, when you only have cash, and when it`s gone, it`s gone...
But America as a whole is trying VERY hard to eliminate cash transactions, and move everything to plastic.
Damn shame.
Is there a lesson in "restructuring contracts", somewhere in here???
LOL... GO STEELERS!!!

 

I don't think it's racial at all. Public school is public school. Ryan Leaf blew through all of his money even while being married to the daughter of a famous financial planner. His problem was/is drugs instead of gambling. "Stupid is as stupid does."

 

Oh really what's Mark Brunell and Curt Schilling excuse for going broke athletes of all races make bad business decisions and go broke.

 

Actually, in the near future we'll be paying for everything with our smart phones. They will replace credit cards.

 

No its definitely not racial.
Broke ass white people from the Trailer Park go broke just as quickly when they hit the lottery.
Its more of a socio economic issue.

 

I know its coming.

It sucks.

 

I saw the special that Dick is talking about and it was really eye opening. For instance how many rookies in the NFL know that they have to pay state taxes in every state they play in? I didn't know that and I am sure that is one of the things in rookie orientation that they tune out. That once that game check comes for the week they have to remember to set money aside for state taxes if it is an away game. The number one reason most of professional athletes have problems they get talked into either making a parent their financial adviser, which can be a 50/50 prospect at best because sometimes the parents aren't any better at that then the player themselves or they let their agent also be in charge of their finances as well which means they get double pay and can make bad choices as well. They had Bernie Koser on there and he was quite open about how he let his father handle his career or mishandle it since his father had somehow arranged for the Browns to pay him a million dollar a year salary for being an adviser or
something.

They talked about the number one money loser besides having an entourage was that if you are an athlete someone will always suggest opening your own restaurant and most of these players know nothing about how the food industry works and end up opening a restaurant only to throw huge amounts of money at it and have it fail. Other ways to lose money were helping childhood friends with can't miss investment opportunities or helping parents with business ventures.

Like Dick was saying it really was an good documentary and like most have been saying the buying things on credit really hits some of these players hard. They see buy now no payments and they go nuts, or car dealerships letting them have cars just for being a spokesman for their dealership.

 

Why does it suck? Europe is sooo far ahead of the US when it comes to payment methods it isn't even funny.

Paper checks are just about dead (can't remember the last time I wrote one) and the days of going into a bank to make deposits and withdrawals aren't very far behind them.

 

OK, Scott, And why is that a GOOD thing?
What happens when the power goes out?
Be a shame, if everything I work so hard for, goes out the window because of a power failure, or computer glitch...
Just Sayin...
I guess the physical bank tellers wouldn`t have to worry about being robbed... And, we wouldn`t need to employ those bothersome checkout tellers anymore, when we can just check ourselves out thru the self-checkout lines, at the store, or swipe our card to get our own fuel at the gas station... oh, wait... Dammit, I just got old, all of a sudden.. sorry...:?

 

At least you're not banking in Cyprus . . . http://www.foxnews.com/world/2013/0...om-banks-as-eu-takes-aim-at-russian-deposits/

 

Yeah, it's a good thing. It's the future. You're going to roll through a grocery store, scan the bar code with your phone, and it's going to go into an account that you pay off (like PayPal). No more checkout stands/cashiers. Everything you pay for is going to be with a swipe of the iPhone. Directly connected to your bank account.

It's basically how I run credit cards in my business. I use the Square. Little device plugs into my iPhone, swipe their card, they sign my iPhone with their finger and, voila, the money is transferred within a day. I mean, I prefer checks so I don't have to pay the 2.75% merchant services fee but, whatever. Nobody carries checks any more.

I learned of it nearly two years ago buying a sandwich from a food cart in Portland,Oregon. Then, in Atlanta a few months later I saw a girl present her Kroger's Club Card by holding her iPhone out. I didn't realize those little club cards they give you at A&P, Giant Eagle, Ralph's, Von's, Publix, wherever you are in the country, was available on an app in your smart phone.

It's all going into the phone. Your driver's license, passport, everything . . .

 

It sucks because it further separates you from physical money.
I'm all for using CCs and debit cards. I use them a lot. But it's just one step further away from handling actual cash and I don't think that is a good thing. Just my opinion even though its in the minority

 

After i had to borrow 3 grand from my uncle, to pay off football bets along time ago.
He told me something that stuck for the rest of my life. There are 2 kinds of
gamblers, LOSERS and LIARS. It has stuck with me for about the last 20 years.

 

It's a good thing because it is convenient.

What if the power goes out and you are trying to use a credit card or a debit card? What if there is a computer glitch now and you "lose" all of your money?

 

Thats crazy. Hopefully our idiots in Washington don't decide to pull the same stuff here.

 

This thread has definitely moved away from the Steelers, Joey Porter, and football in general.

One has to wonder how long before it grabs the attention of the local board police and Officer Glenn and we all get a firm reprimand.

 

Hmm . . . good question. I don't think so. I think it's pretty straight-forward. You can go to squareup.com and sign up, they'll send you a free swiper thingy (ha - I'm sure there's a better name for it), if you swipe someone's card I think it's 2.75% and if you manually input it then it's, I think, 3.25%. I think those are the only fees associated with it. I used to use First Data and had to manually input all of the cards which suuuuuucked (and I didn't want to lug around one of those antiquated card swipe machines. This is EASILY the wave of the future. You will no longer see pest control, hvac guys, etc, come to your door to sign carbon copies on metal clipboards. A swipe of the square. I've had it for a couple of years and people are still shocked to see me ask them to sign my iPhone with their finger.

The ease of use, the low fees, and the brevity in which it gets depostied into your account are absolutely crushing all of the giant merchant services companies (like First Data).