Thursday, October 8, 2009

In response to Sarah Simmons

Do you think this responsibility fall on the student or the parent of the student? (education about financial debt)

In most cases, when a 17 or 18 year old high school student is looking into college their parents are the ones that will be needing to pay for some part of the tuition or cosign their loans. So in just about every case the parents have something to do with a kid going to college. This is why I think that the parents should try to talk to their kid about financial debt and what to expect when they are all done college. The parents are the ones that have been out in the real world dealing with this stuff for years, so they are the ones have firsthand experience with it all. An 18 year old usually has never had experience with any sort of financial debt. In my high school they had a meeting for financial debt which they talked to us about all the loans and financial aid we can get. This helped me somewhat understand what was going on, but my parents have already gone through the college debt thing so I think that parents with experience in college or any financial debt should help their kid understand it all.

Response to Katie McGarity

Do you think saving all of your receipts is helpful? Do you save all of your receipts?
I also think it is very important for students to keep track of the money they are spending, especially if they are using a credit card for most of their purchases. Many students are so caught up in their studying, school work, work, partying, or with their friends they often aren’t able to pay close attention to what they are spending with their credit or debit cards. Then before you know it, it’s the end of the month and they need to pay their credit card bill, and all the little things have added up and they cant afford their monthly bill. So would saving all of their receipts help them manage their accounts better? I don’t think it would help them with what they are spending, it would only help them if there was a misunderstanding at the bank for some reason. The one thing that I would recommend to help them control their bank accounts is to have an online banking account and check their balance almost every day. That way they can see how much they are able to spend during that specific day. Keeping every single receipt is too hassling and will get confusing if you use them to keep track of your balance. I don’t keep any of my receipts, I just check my balance every day and try to use cash for most purchases.
Is it better to make purchases with cash or credit? Why?