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Personal Finance Challenge Speaker Series

The MCEE Personal Finance Challenge Speaker Series is a dynamic opportunity for students and educators to engage with industry leaders and financial experts. This series brings real-world insights into the classroom, connecting participants with professionals who share their knowledge and experiences in personal finance. Through interactive sessions, students gain valuable tips on budgeting, saving, investing, and planning for their financial futures. The Speaker Series complements the MCEE Personal Finance Challenge, offering participants deeper insights and practical tools to excel in the competition and beyond. Join us to inspire the next generation of financially savvy leaders!

Risk Management, Lessons and Resources

Council for Economics Education – Personal Finance Challenge: Managing Risk

Renters and Homeowners Insurance: When the Unexpected Happens (Page One Economics, Focus on Finance)

Understanding Car Insurance: Premiums and How Coverage Works, Segment 1. This episode uses a radio talk show format to explain various aspects of car insurance. (segments are short 4-5 minutes)

Understanding Car Insurance: Losses, Deductibles and Types of Coverage, Segment 2. In Segment 2, students learn about who is responsible for losses, how a deductible is applied to a covered loss, and different types of coverage available on car insurance policies, including comprehensive, collision, and medical payments coverage.

Understanding Fraud and Identity Theft, Lessons and Resources

Council for Economics Education – Personal Finance Challenge: Managing Risk

Cybersecurity and Personal Finance: Identity Theft What is identity theft and how can you protect yourself from becoming a victim?

Cybersecurity and Economics: Evaluating Websites In this lesson, students access a website to research the Pacific Northwest Tree Octopus, which is a hoax. The initial (false) premise of the lesson is that students are learning to use online research to gather evidence, formulate an opinion, and take steps to contact elected officials.

Teaching Personal Finance: Managing Modern Financial Online Risks The Federal Trade Commission reports that fraud originating on social media has soared over the past five years. Through videos and readings, participants will learn about the different types of identity theft and fraud that users of social media are particularly vulnerable to.

Individual Retirement Accounts

Council for Economics Education – Personal Finance Challenge: Tax Saving Strategies

Social Security and the National Debt

Ways to Save – 401(k) and Roth 401(k) – In this episode of the No-Frills Money Skills video series, students learn that it is important to save for college, cars, retirement, and the unexpected. The video also explains the difference between a 401(k) and a Roth 401(k).

    Taxes

     Council for Economic Education – Personal Finance Challenge: Uncle Sam Takes a Bite

    Exploring Taxes: Navigate the IRS website for the purpose of locating answers to frequently asked questions about income taxes. Define vocabulary terms related to income taxes.

    Taxes Scavenger Hunt: Navigate the IRS website to locate answers to frequently asked questions about income taxes.

    It’s Your Paycheck! Curriculum Unit, Lesson 2 “W” Is for Wages, W4, and W2: Students compute the gross pay for a fictional John Dough given his hourly wage and the number of hours worked. They compare gross pay to net pay. They learn what FICA and federal income taxes are. They learn how to complete a W-4 form and what a W-2 form is

      Budgeting

       Council for Economic Education – Personal Finance Challenge: Spending:

      • Your Financial Goals: This essential lesson focuses on helping students learn to conceive their financial goals and gives them tips and strategies to get there.

      • Budgets are Beautiful: This essential lesson is a reading about a family working through their budgeting differences. Through this reading students will learn the concepts of a family budget, net worth, personal income, balanced budget, and fixed and variable expenses. At the end of the reading, students will answer questions about the concepts.

      • Clayton and Katrina’s Budget: This essential activity shows how Clayton and Katrina spend everything they make but would like to save for future goals. It gives you their register showing what they spend. The students will fill in pg. 1 with additional spending categories and total the amounts for each. See food column as example. Use pages 2 to 3 as discussion prompts to discover where they might be able to save and track their spending in a way to achieve their goals.

      Making a Budget – It’s All About Spending: In this lesson from the St. Louis Federal Reserve’s Making Personal Finance Decisions curriculum students discover that all elements of a budget are essentially spending on goods and services.

      Is it Worth It? From the Council on Economic Education, In this personal finance activity, students will consider the costs of saving to make a purchase. This is an individual activity where students research the price of a new phone or tablet and establishing a savings plan to purchase it.