financial fitness essay

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Four weeks to financial fitness: 28 steps to get your money into shape

From pensions to savings, and broadband to energy bills, check if you have made the right choices

I t is the start of a new academic year and while that might not be as associated with resolutions as the day the calendar year ticks over, it is not a bad time to make a few changes. For those who have been meaning to get their finances in shape, here are 28 steps to follow – the idea is that you can do one a day for the next four weeks or take it slower. Some will need follow-up actions but as making a start can often be the hardest part, we have included them.

1 ) Take any “free” pension contributions your company offers

It may sound dull but it could be the best move you make this year. Many workers have the option to top up their pension pot by making additional voluntary contributions from their pre-taxed income. The best bit is that lots of companies will match at least some of what you pay in, with the best putting in up to 50p for each £1 you invest – a free pension top-up.

For higher rate, 40%-band taxpayers, it means you effectively pay in 60p (£1 minus the tax relief) and get £1.50 paid into your retirement fund. Once it is set up you can usually stop, restart or change the monthly payments as you wish, so if you can afford the reduction in your salary now there is no reason to delay.

Get in touch with your workplace pension provider and start the ball rolling. It will usually ask you to fill in a form to send back. It is currently the most rewarding saving you can do.

2 ) Check you are getting the broadband speed you are paying for

Does iPlayer keep buffering? Are different family members struggling to use the internet at the same time? You may not be getting the broadband speed you are paying for. Broadbandspeedchecker.co.uk will give you an accurate reading – it is worth running a few tests at different times of the day – and you can compare your scores with what you were promised when you signed your broadband contract. If you were told to expect download speeds of about 34Mbps but you are only getting 4Mbps, then complain to your provider. If the company is unable to get the speed up to something close to what it promised, you have the right to leave penalty-free, although be aware that it is worth spending some time trying to resolve the problem if you are on the BT Openreach network, as things won’t necessarily be better if you switch supplier. Broadbandchoices.co.uk has some good advice on how to proceed and contact details.

3 ) Unpackage your bank account

If you are one of the millions of people who has a paid-for bank account, take an hour to work out whether you are getting your money’s worth. Some accounts, such as Lloyds Platinum, cost £21 a month and typically offer world travel insurance, mobile phone and car breakdown cover – all of which can be bought separately for less than £252 a year.

That’s if you even need the policies at the moment. A foreign holiday may be the last thing on your mind, and your lease car might come with breakdown cover included. Are you really going to claim on your mobile insurance if you have to send the phone away for repair, or pay a £100 excess? Downgrading to a free bank account is as easy as a phone call.

4 ) Unsubscribe from emails selling you things

Often signing up to a retailer’s email list will get you a discount on your first purchase but after that you will just be getting messages designed to lure you back to spend more money. Go through your inbox and get rid of temptation by clicking unsubscribe. As well as saving you money, it will mean you are more likely to spot the genuinely important messages that arrive.

5 ) Watch a Citizens Advice TikTok video on credit scores

Find out what a credit score is and why it matters in only 34 seconds on Citizens Advice’s TikTok channel .

6 ) Switch gas and electricity supplier

If you are on your supplier’s default, standard tariff you could soon be paying £1,277 a year (average usage) after Ofgem increased the price cap. Plenty of households will be able to save at least £200 a year by switching and it takes about 20 minutes. Go to Energyhelpline.com or Uswitch.com , and input your existing supplier and household details. Click on filters, and tick the “show me all the plans available” option and choose one. We would opt for a fixed price plan – Green Energy’s tariffs are currently good. Then it’s just a case of heading to the website and inputting a few details. On the day of the switch – usually a couple of weeks later – you take your meter readings, if required, and that’s it. Just don’t forget to keep a copy of your final readings, and to chase your old supplier for any balance you are owed.

7 ) Improve your data deal

If you regularly go over your mobile phone contract’s data allowance, you are chucking money away each month unnecessarily as the excess charges can really add up. Moving to the right data plan could easily save you £100-£200 a year depending on how wayward you are currently being. In most cases, it’s a call to your existing supplier to add a pre-bought bundle for a few pounds each month. If you are still paying more than £8 for up to 15GB of data a month you are generally overpaying, and it may be worth switching to a new contract .

Equally, if you are still on pay as you go and your charges have risen in recent months, you will almost certainly better off buying a monthly bundle or a sim-only contract.

8 ) Check subscriptions , direct debits and standing orders

It may sound trite but an amazing number of people rarely, if ever, check what is leaving their accounts. The Consumer Champions inbox regularly contains letters from readers who have suddenly found that they had two Netflix accounts or were paying to insure a boiler or to subscribe to gym, a theatre membership or music streaming service – payments they thought had been cancelled months, and in some cases years, previously.

If you genuinely did cancel and the overpayments are the company’s fault, the direct debit guarantee can be used, and there is no time limit. Beware recurring bank card payments so beloved of firms that take annual subscription payments.

9 ) Switch one of your savings accounts to a better rate

Savings rates at the moment are pretty terrible, and if you take a look at the interest rate on your bank-account-linked savings account, you may well find you are getting a paltry 0.01%.

However, it is still possible to get more than 1% with a bit of searching around. The Savingschampion.co.uk website is your new best friend, listing most of the UK’s best buy savings accounts. It currently lists a host of providers paying about 1.3% for one-year fixed-rate savings bonds – with Tandem the top payer at 1.41%.

If you prefer an easy access account, you can currently get 0.65%, again with Tandem, or you can earn between 0.86% and 1% with a notice account.

10 ) Dig out unspent gift cards

Instead of thinking you might save them for a treat one day, round them up and spend them – you could buy something that you need and put the value aside in cash to buy something fun with no restriction of where you get it.

Several websites exist that let you sell cards, or you can do so on eBay or local marketplaces. So if you really can’t spend one you could at least raise some cash with it. Alternatively, give them to a worthy cause to raffle or ask a local food bank or charity if it can make use of them.

11 ) Arrange to write – or update – your will

This is one of those jobs that is easy to find reasons to put off but, ultimately, is not as painful as it sounds. You can do it yourself or you can get help – the latter is generally better if your finances or family set-upare at all complicated. Solicitors are regulated and you can find one via the Law Society’s website – look for “private clients – wills” or ask friends for recommendations.

Some charities offer free will-writing services to encourage people to consider them as beneficiaries. Cancer Research, for instance, offers a free service with a solicitor or online. If you are a member of a union, check if it offers a free or reduced price deal. Make the appointment today and you are over the first hurdle.

12 ) Find out what your pension invests in

Few of us probably know exactly where the money in our workplace pension or personal pension is invested.

If you are in a company scheme, your pension contributions will be going into an underlying fund. Log into your employer’s intranet or go online and it shouldn’t be hard to find the most recent fund factsheet or investment report for your fund.

This will typically give details of how much of your money is in shares, bonds, property and so on (often called the asset allocation) and the top 10 holdings. The last can sometimes be an eye-opener if you find it stuffed with companies you would rather not have your money invested in, such as oil and mining firms and tobacco giants.

13 ) Look into making it greener

Many schemes offer an ethical or sustainable fund option and will allow employees to allocate some or all of their money to that.

If you are unhappy with what’s on offer, contact the trustees of your workplace scheme to ask how much of your money is invested in – for example – fossil fuels, if there is a divestment option (where money is moved out of things such as oil, coal and gas companies) and, if not, one can be set up.

14 ) Read: Ten Pence Story by Simon Armitage

Have a day off from financial admin, and enjoy this by the poet laureate . It’s a reminder of how physical money has lots of roles in our lives – and how quickly that has been changing. Phone boxes are now a thing of the past but pre-match coin tosses have not gone cashless … yet.

15 ) Rationalise your Isas and other accounts

Are you one of those people who chased the best tax-free rates and now have multiple accounts from different tax years with different banks and building societies? There’s a lot to be said to said for having the money in one account for ease of management. Switching is as easy as filling in a few forms. However, it is essential that you arrange your transfer through your new provider – the company behind the account you want the money moved to. If you simply withdraw the money yourself and seek to reinvest it, your savings could lose their tax-free status as a result.

Not all Isa accounts allow transfers in but most will, and it will be stated prominently in the marketing materials. If you want to invest some of the money in shares, there is no limit on the amount you can transfer from a cash Isa to a stocks and shares Isa.

Do the same with your other accounts: close those with tiny sums and move money to the one with the best interest rate. At the same time have a clear-out of ancient payees you have set up on your main account. We’ve heard stories of scammers defrauding people by transferring money to existing payees . If your list of payees includes people who you haven’t transferred money to for years, delete them, and limit the chance of them being used in a scam to get your cash.

16 ) Make your passwords stronger

Take some time changing any passwords you have had for years and think could be on the weak side (if you have any on the National Cyber Security Centre’s list of most-hacked passwords make them a priority).

“A good rule of thumb is that a password should be at least three (random) words long , to fully protect against the chance of a ‘brute force’ attack,” says Alex Hern, the Guardian’s UK technology editor. This has superseded advice about using capital letters, etc because that produced passwords that people couldn’t remember, which meant they reused them. Not all banks have caught up, though, so you may still be asked for something in that format.

“Even more important than making passwords stronger is not reusing them,” Hern says. “Use the password manager built into your browser, like Chrome or Safari, or download a third-party one like 1Password or LastPass, and make sure that every password you use is unique. Otherwise, if one site gets hacked, you can lose stuff from unrelated sites.”

17 ) Reclaim credit from your electricity and gas bills

If you pay your energy bills by direct debit you may have a tidy sum sitting on account with your gas and electricity provider(s) – in 2018 the energy regulator, Ofgem, found £1.4bn of surplus payments was being held, the equivalent of £65 a household. The money is typically built up in the summer months when your direct debit remains the same as during the winter but you use less fuel. Ofgem has plans to force energy companies to automatically return the cash, which could come into effect next year. But in the meantime you can request a repayment. Bear in mind that you may want to keep some with the provider if you think you will need it to cover winter bills. But if a large sum has accrued, get it back.

18 ) Switch credit cards

Had the same credit card for years? It may be possible to get a better deal on your borrowing.

If you pay off your balance each month, look out for a card offering cashback or other rewards. According to Andrew Hagger of Moneycomms, the best deals are the store specific credit cards such as Sainsbury’s Nectar, Tesco Bank, M&S (Shopping Plus) and the John Lewis Partnership card. He gives the example of the rewards possible with the John Lewis Partnership card, which offers 1.25% back in vouchers when you spend in its shops. Say you are planning to buy furniture there and you spend £2,500, then do your main shopping in Waitrose and spend £300 a month all year, after 12 months you’ll have earned £76.25 in rewards vouchers.

Hagger says if you are struggling to clear your balance these days, switching it to a card offering 0% interest “is a savvy move”. When you transfer existing borrowing to one of these cards, it stops accruing interest for a set period. This means you can stop your debt growing and make bigger inroads with your monthly repayments. You can currently get up to 29 months interest-free with Sainsbury’s Bank and M&S Bank – charging one-off balance transfer fees of 2% and 2.75% respectively, while NatWest has an 18-month 0% deal with no balance transfer fee.

All of the big comparison sites offer search tools.

19 ) Listen to: Wake Up to Money

The BBC’s daily finance show is a great way to get up to speed on the events, big and small, that may have an impact on your wallet. You can listen live from 5am on Radio 5 or catch up with the podcast version .

20 ) Check your tax code

Having the wrong tax code will result in you paying either too much or too little to HMRC. You should get a paper coding notice each year, and you can log in to the government website at any time to check it . Or grab your payslip, P60 or pension advice slip and check the row of numbers followed by a letter. The most common tax code is currently 1257L, which means you get the standard personal allowance of £12,570 before you start paying tax, but your code may have been adjusted to take into account allowances such as gift aid on regular charitable donations or deductions to cover perks such as medical insurance. The coding notice will show you how it is worked out. If there are mistakes, or your circumstances have changed, you should notify HMRC online or by phone.

21 ) Put your loyalty cards on your phone

Reduce the bulk of your wallet without missing out on earning points by putting your loyalty cards on your phone. Most of the big retailers, including Boots , Tesco and Sainsbury’s, have apps you can download and use to collect and spend with their schemes. Nectar says its cardholders can earn up to three times more points using its app than by carrying around the plastic version.

22 ) Make your charitable giving more tax-efficient

Donating via gift aid means the charities you support can claim an extra 25p for every £1 you give without it costing you any extra. You need to make a gift aid declaration for the charity to claim – some charities have an online form you can fill in, some have one on their website to download and send off, but you may need to call any smaller ones to request a form.

If you are a higher-rate taxpayer, you can claim the difference between the basic rate and the rate you pay via your tax return – if you donate £100 to a charity and it claims gift aid to make your donation £125, you can claim back £25 (20% of £125). Keep a note of your donations and, when you have a moment, go through your emails and paperwork to check you have a record of ones that you’ve made in the past.

23 ) Go over your insurance policy details

Grab the documents that go with your policies for your car, house and so on, and check the details on them are correct and you have the cover you think you are paying for. If you have simply renewed a policy for several years you may find your circumstances have changed and you are paying for cover you no longer want or need to update your insurer about a career switch or change in how you use your home or car. Some of these things may lead to more expensive premiums but there may be ways to cut cover and costs – and by making sure the facts on the policy are correct, you can remove the chance of a claim being invalidated in future.

24 ) Get a pension forecast

Find out if you are on track to get the full state pension – and, if not, what you can do about it – on the government’s website . You will need to have or create a Government Gateway or Verify account but once you have logged in you will get a forecast of how much you will receive each week (at current pension rates) and information on whether you can increase the figure and how.

25 ) Check your credit score

The three main UK credit reference agencies are Experian , Equifax and TransUnion . They don’t decide whether you get credit – that’s up to lenders – but the data they hold will have a major impact on how you are viewed and the deals you’ll be offered when you apply for any kind of borrowing.

The agencies typically offer several ways, free and paid-for, to check your credit record or score. You can go on to each agency’s website and request a free copy of your “statutory credit report”.

This won’t give you your credit score but the good news is that it is obtainable for free. MoneySavingExpert’s Credit Club lets you access your Experian score. Meanwhile, sign up to a site called ClearScore and it will give you a score based on information provided by Equifax. And subscribing to Credit Karma lets you see your TransUnion score.

26 ) Check when your burgundy passport expires

Not financial, but it will prevent you losing money on a trip you can’t take. Since the start of the year, UK travellers to Europe have been treated like other non-EU visitors and need to have a passport that is less than 10 years old when they travel. This means that if the expiry date isn’t the same as the 10th anniversary of the date that the passport was issued – and this can easily be the case if you renewed your last one in good time – you could get into difficulties. To travel to most EU countries you also need at least three months in hand, too. So if, for example, your passport was issued in December 2011 but says it expires in February 2022 you will need to get a new one for any trip after September.

“It’s crucial that you check whether your passport is valid for travel ahead of departure as meeting country entry requirements is the responsibility of the traveller, and if your passport is not valid you won’t be able to board the plane or claim a refund,” says the editor of Which? Travel, Rory Boland.

27 ) Find out if you could be claiming any benefits

If you have recently wed, or have been married for some time but one of you has retired or seen a drop in income in recent months, you may have become entitled to the government’s marriage allowance, worth up to £252 this tax year. Or maybe you are claiming the state pension but now need help around your home – this is something attendance allowance might cover. The website Entitledto.co.uk will show you what benefits you might be able to claim – you just need to answer questions about your circumstances. Charities such as Citizens Advice or Turn2us can offer you help through a claim if you need it.

28 ) Draw up a budget

Sorry, but we couldn’t leave this out. Even if you don’t need to keep a close eye on your spending, it pays to know what’s coming in and going out each month – it makes it easier to spot an untoward change in your bank balance or missed payment, and is a good starting point if you are thinking of buying any kind of insurance to protect your income or life. A simple spreadsheet with an income and bills column might be enough or there are apps you can link to your bank accounts to provide an analysis of where your money is being spent and use to set savings targets. Bring together your statements and bills to draw up the former or try an app such as Money Dashboard or Emma, which have free budgeting services.

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• Copy URL https://www.pbs.org/newshour/economy/kerry-hannons-advice-women-keep-financially-fit-50s

6 ways women over 50 can achieve financial fitness before retirement

Keeping physically fit is always important, but as we age, it becomes even more imperative to maintaining quality of life. According to personal finance expert and Next Avenue contributor Kerry Hannon, the same is true for financial fitness.

Hannon stresses the importance of “financial fitness” for women, and especially for female members of the baby boomer generation, who are now entering their fifties and beyond. “Women have been part of the workforce more in this generation than before,” Hannon says, they are also likely to stay in the workforce longer. The full retirement age for Social Security has risen from 65 to 67, and, according to Transamerica Center for Retirement Studies’ “ Fifteen Facts About Women’s Retirement Outlook ,” 57 percent of women plan to retire after age 65 or not at all.

Research suggests the average American woman does not believe she is up to the challenge. A Fidelity study released in February found that 82 percent of women were confident in their ability to budget and manage their daily finances, but only 37 percent of women felt confident planning for their retirement. Hannon offers the following financial fitness regimen for women in their 50s who are seeking to increase their financial know-how.

Start with the basics.

On the first day of a new fitness plan, it is inadvisable to bench press 100 lbs or run 10 miles. A better path is to start small, lifting 10 lbs or running 1 mile, and build up to bigger things. Likewise, Hannon recommends wading slowly into the retirement planning waters.

“Pencil out a budget,” she advises. Having a solid understanding of how much you are spending now will help you estimate how much you will need later in life. If you are working, Hannon suggests not only taking advantage of your employer’s 401(k) or equivalent plan, but investing enough to receive a full company match if possible. “Consider that free money,” she says.

Hannon also recommends setting up an emergency fund outside of work if you have the resources, preferably an index fund or similar account where you can withdraw money in a pinch without paying a penalty.

For women seeking to further their financial education, Hannon points to a wealth of resources in print and online, including “ The Charles Schwab Guide to Finances After 50 ” by Carrie Schwab-Pomerantz, “ Women’s Worth: Finding Your Financial Confidence ” by certified financial planner Eleanor Blayney, as well as smartaboutmoney.org , a program of the National Endowment for Financial Education and wiserwomen.org , the website of the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement. Women over 50 can also find retirement and financial planning advice on Next Avenue’s website . Those who have the time and funds could also enroll in a personal finance course at their local community college or consider hiring a financial adviser.

Do not fear the financial adviser.

Less than half of the women surveyed in the above mentioned Fidelity study felt confident talking to a professional financial adviser about money and investments. “It’s not like you need gobs of money to get someone to work with you,” says Hannon, who thinks a financial adviser or certified financial planner can be a valuable resource, especially for older women, who may not be as comfortable navigating financial planning resources online. Hannon recommends connecting with a professional through the databases of the National Association of Personal Financial Advisors , the Financial Planning Association or the Certified Financial Planner Board of Standards .

Take care of yourself first. “Women often do put other people’s needs in front of their own,” argues Hannon, who observes that many women play the role of caregiver either to children or aging parents. But she emphasizes that taking care of your own needs is an integral part of financial fitness.

“If you have a choice between your kid’s college fund and your retirement fund, do your retirement fund,” she says. While many feel obligated to pay for their children’s education, Hannon stresses that this is not a requirement. There are many options out there for children to pay their own way through school, and they will have many more years to pay off their debt than you will to rebuild your nest egg. Also, if you do not have adequate funds saved for your retirement, the burden is ultimately shifted to your children, when they must care for you later in life. Along those lines, Hannon views estate planning as part of retirement planning, and recommends investing in long-term care insurance . (But not all experts agree on the benefits of long-term care insurance .)

Talk it out.

“Women are more comfortable talking about sex than salary,” according to Hannon, who believes failing to talk about your finances with your spouse or significant other “shows a lack of trust in the underpinnings of a relationship.”

“Build your (investment) portfolios as a team,” she advises, “it is kind of fun when you have a partner to do stuff with,” and that way both parties share in the weight of major financial decisions.

Hannon also encourages women not to keep the discussion of financial matters between themselves and their romantic partners. She suggests starting a book club with friends to read and discuss books about investing and managing money.

Lastly, Hannon urges mothers to talk to their daughters about financial planning. “Sit down with your daughters and do this together,” she says. “Women in their 20s tend to spend, men tend to save, as we age this seems to reverse.” Books like, “ Prince Charming Isn’t Coming: How Women Get Smart About Money ” by Barbara Stanny and “ Get a Financial Life: Personal Finance in Your Twenties and Thirties ” by Beth Kobliner can help give your daughter a head start.

Advice for divorcées:

“Rarely should you choose the house over retirement assets,” Hannon tells recent divorcées, “The best scenario, according to the experts I have talked to, is to sell the house and split the proceeds … I would negotiate hard for retirement assets over alimony if possible because alimony is taxable and that is just a short-term plan.”

Wondering if you have a claim to your ex’s Social Security benefit ? You do if you are age 62 or older, were married for more than 10 years and have not remarried. Collecting this benefit will not impact what your ex-spouse receives, Hannon says. For more information on maximizing your social security benefits after divorce or otherwise, check out our weekly “ Ask Larry ,” columns.

Advice for getting back into the workforce:

“Get over yourself and don’t expect that the doors are going to swing wide open for you,” Hannon warns women seeking to re-enter the workforce. “You’re not necessarily going to pick up where you left off.” Hannon recommends attending alumni events and becoming active on social media to “pump up your network,” and let those around you know you are looking to re-enter the workforce.

“You may need to add skills to get back to the salary you were making,” advises Hannon, who cautions that “ age discrimination is alive and well in the workplace.” In spite of this, she tells women not give up. If you are unable to find a full-time position right away, consider freelancing, contract work or even volunteering. These opportunities will allow you to learn new skills and grow your network, and may turn into something full-time or permanent. Our “ Ask the Headhunter ” column is a valuable resource for job seekers.

Along side a 401(k), independent savings and Social Security benefit, a part-time job is part of many women’s retirement plans — 49 percent of women plan to work after retirement, a recent survey found. Hannon views these four factors as “the four pillars of retirement.” These pillars provide the basis for women’s financial fitness in their 50s and beyond.

Have more questions about financial planning for women in their 50s? Check out Next Avenue’s full series on this topic. And join us on Twitter this Thursday, April 9, from 1-2 p.m. EDT for a chat with Hannon ( @KerryHannon ), assistant managing editor for Next Avenue Richard Eisenberg ( @richeis315 ) and president of the Women’s Institute for a Secure Retirement (WISER) Cindy Hounsell ( @WISERwomen ). Follow along and chime in using #NewsHourChats .

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Essay on Financial Literacy for Students and Children

Importance of financial literacy, an introduction to financial literacy.

We go to schools, colleges, universities to complete our educated and start earning our livelihood. We take up jobs, practise professions or start our own businesses so that we can earn money to make our living. But which of these institutions make us capable of managing our own hard-earned money? Probably a very few of them. 

Our ability to effectively manage our money by drawing systematic budgets, paying off our debts, making buying and selling decisions and ultimately becoming financially self-sustainable is known as financial literacy. 

Financial literacy is knowing the basic financial management principles and applying them in our day-to-day life. 

Financial Literacy – What does it Involve? 

From simple practices like keeping a track of our expenses and understanding the need to spend money if we like a product to striking a balance between the value of time saved and money lost, paying our taxes and filing of tax returns, finalizing the property deals, etc – everything becomes a part of financial literacy. 

Get the huge list of 500+ Essay Topics here

As human beings, we are not expected to know the nitty-gritty of financial management. But managing our own money in a way that it does not affect us and our family in a negative way is important. We certainly do not want to end up having a day with no money at hand and hunger in our stomach. 

Why is Financial Literacy so Important?

Financial literacy can enable an individual to build up a budgetary guide to distinguish what he buys, what he spends, and what he owes. This subject additionally influences entrepreneurs, who incredibly add to financial development and strength of our economy. 

Financial literacy helps people in becoming independent and self-sufficient. It empowers you with basic knowledge of investment options, financial markets, capital budgeting, etc.

Understanding your money mitigates the danger of facing a fraud-like situation. A few strategies are anything but difficult to accept, particularly when they’re originating from somebody who is by all accounts learned and planned. Basic knowledge of financial literacy will help people with foreseeing the risks and argue/justify with anyone learned and well-informed.

What should you read on / get informed about in Financial Literacy?

• Budgeting and techniques of budgeting
• Direct and indirect taxation system
• Direct tax slabs
• Income and expense tracking 
• Loans and debt – EMI management 
• Interest rate systems: fixed versus floating
• Business and organisational transaction studies
• Elementary Book-keeping and Accountancy
• Cash in-flow and out-flow Statements
• Investment & personal finance management
• Asset management:
• Business negotiation skills and techniques
• Make or buy decision-making
• Financial markets 
• Capital structure – owner’s funds and borrowed funds
• Fundamentals of Risk Management
• Microeconomics and Macroeconomics fundamentals

While there are various media to learn about financial literacy, we recommend that you join a short-term, weekend programme which helps you get financially literate.

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Financial Fitness

Greater Austin

Financial Fitness Greater Austin (FFGA) is an education and awareness initiative in the Greater Austin area.

 During FFGA week, April 9-18, 2022, everyone in Greater Austin can learn good money handling skills to help them reach their dreams.

FFGA gives people in Greater Austin the basic financial skills and knowledge to help them build strong financial futures.  FFGA is put on by th e  Alliance for Economic Inclusion.

Our Goals: 

Promote financial literacy, and

Provide money management tools needed to manage finances effectively

Financial literacy means:

Helping people understand financial choices and make wise decisions

Helping people build a positive credit score

Showing people ways to reduce debt

FFGA classes are April 9-21, 2022. Everyone in Greater Austin can learn  good money handling skills to help  reach their dreams. Join us for Money Smart webinars where you will learn from community experts how to manage money successfully. Classes are intended for people of all ages!

                    At least 1 class is required for participation in essay contest. 

View Class Rules 

Youth & Adult Essay Contest 2022

Applications open april 6, 2022 &  deadline to submit may 6, 2022 by 5:00 pm (ct) .

IMPORTANT: All participants in classes, interviews, and award session MUST be on camera. Please check your settings prior to the class, interview, or award session and advise if you experience a problem at least 24 hours in advance of the event. 

Youth Financial Fitness Contests The FFGA Youth Essay Contest is aimed at helping students develop financial knowledge using concepts (i.e., how to save wisely, understand how to create and follow a  youth spending plan, recognize the importance of paying for your college education) and becoming better prepared for future roles as college students, consumers, savers and investors, and future leaders. In support of Financial Literacy Month, the Financial Fitness Greater Austin (FFGA) Essay Contest encourages middle school and high school students in the Greater Austin area to answer this year’s Youth Essay question.

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• Boredom Makes Us Human

I n a recent article in the Financial Times, Markham Heid shares with us a peculiar life crisis. At 41, he has built what many would regard as the good life: he has a family; he is healthy, productive, and creative; he has time to travel, read, exercise, and see friends. Yet, he feels that “something is off.” He gives this state a variety of names, including mid-life melancholy, ennui, and despair. He also diagnoses it in others all around him. To fight against it, some of his friends have turned to ayahuasca retreats, others to fitness. What renders Heid’s malaise somewhat strange is that it does not seem to arise from anything specific. If Heid had lost his job, had no time for himself, or was struggling in his marriage, some of these feelings would seem less puzzling. 

In the history of philosophy, there have been many attempts to understand such powerful but objectless feelings. Boredom , anxiety , and despair are some of the descriptions these moods have received. In the novel Nausea , the French existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre describes someone who mysteriously experiences that feeling whenever they are confronted with ordinary objects, like a pebble on the beach. The German philosopher Martin Heidegger describes an uncanny unease we may feel when we are bored and searching desperately for distractions. The Danish philosopher Søren Kierkegaard speaks of a silent despair in the background of our lives, a sense of discord or dread of an unknown something that can grab us momentarily.

Sadly, the philosophical descriptions of such moods have often been misunderstood as sombre or romantic moments of existential reflection where we recognize our mortality or the meaninglessness of life. Pictured in this way, these moments are bound to stay isolated from the anxiety, despair, and melancholy that we face in our ordinary life and seek help for. But if we look beyond the existentialist clichés, the philosophical ideas on such moods can offer a new way forward. What could Heid have learnt from the philosophers?

Moods of nothing

Despite Heid’s references to Heidegger, we do not read anything about the philosopher’s own ruminations of a very similar experience of flatness: a feeling that all things (and we ourselves) sink into indifference; a sense that things around us slip away or we slip away from ourselves; a malaise related to a vacant stillness. What is remarkable, for Heidegger, is that such intense affects arise despite the fact that nothing may have changed in our lives: one is still surrounded by the same people, events, and activities, but these do not engage us as they used to. It is this feature that makes him describe what he calls “anxiety” as a mood generated by nothing in particular.

This makes such feelings doubly unwelcome. Most of us can tolerate negative emotions if we see them as instrumental to something desirable—we do not run to a therapist to treat a fear if we think that it holds us back from doing something obviously risky. But unlike fear, what Heidegger calls anxiety and what Heid’s article describes do not protect us from anything specific. No wonder why Sigmund Freud called anxiety a “ riddle .”

But this view is too simplistic for Heidegger. It risks concealing both the value and meaning of the feelings he describes. First, the human emotional life is much more complex than a simple battle between positive and negative feelings, or useful and useless emotions. Second, objectless moods can teach us something significant not about specific risks or problems in our lives but about the fact that we have a life to live at all. Learning from them can allow us to find what Heidegger describes as a sense of peace and joy within the malaise.

What’s missing?

Heid says that “some essential aspect of life is missing or not sufficiently represented.” He ends up attributing his melancholy to the lack of new experiences. Kierkegaard calls this the illusion of “crop rotation,” the idea that changing the soil frequently can save us from boredom and despair. 

But what really drives such moods is not the need for new experiences. It is not even the particulars of our individual lives or the culture we belong to, but that we have been given a life to live in the first place, the taste of possibility that comes with being alive. The kinds of questions that arise are not questions like “have I married the right person?” “will parenthood enrich my life?” or “do I have enough hobbies?” It is the more fundamental questions like “what does it mean to be human?” “what am I supposed to do with the fact that I was given a life?” and “what kind of life is possible for me?” that best explain our human tendency for anxiety, despair, or boredom .

This is why such moods are likely to appear as a mid-life crisis. With many of our life goals fulfilled, we start to wonder what life is for, what is possible for human existence, and what we are doing for it. Humans are inherently ambivalent toward possibility, attracted but also repelled by it. On one hand, we can experience it as a radical openness, an appreciation of our life as a gift. On the other, the open-endedness of possibility, the sense that one could always be doing more with their life, can create a great sense of agony about who we are and how we should go on. 

Throwing us out of our everyday lives, such moods make us ponder existence itself. They are cases where who we are and what we are for becomes an issue for each one of us. These questions never assume a final answer. Hovering over our lives, they can always leave us with a sense of unease. Recognizing that these questions are there, and that they matter, can at least allow us to know what may be missing, even when all is good.

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Not-so-endless shrimp: Red Lobster is closing dozens of locations across the country

Not even a Beyoncé shoutout can save this struggling seafood chain.

On May 13, Neal Sherman, founder and CEO of liquidation firm TAGeX Brands, announced on LinkedIn that his company was auctioning off the contents of several Red Lobster locations around the country.

The open auctions plan to dissolve the contents of multiple restaurant locations that span several states, including furniture, fixtures and equipment.

“People have heard about the closure of select Red Lobsters. TAGeX Brands is proud to launch the largest restaurant liquidation EVER through its online auction marketplace,” Sherman wrote. 

Sherman added that the company is handling these closures differently than it has in the past by awarding one winner of each auction the entirety of the location’s listed items. “WINNER TAKES ALL,” he wrote.

A dedicated auction site on the TAGeX website has been live since May 13, noting that it was "auctioning off 50+ locations" and that the sales would close on Thursday, May 16.

The company also notes that the winners of these auctions must pick up their winnings — meaning everything contained within the restaurants — the following day, lest their order be “forfeited without a refund.”

At this time, the website lists approximately four dozen open auctions across 21 states, including New York, California, Texas, Florida, Illinois, Virginia and more. The auctions include “high-performance ovens, upright refrigerators and freezers, cooking and warming solutions, and comprehensive bar and dining setups,” per the auction verbiage.

Representatives for Red Lobster did not immediately respond to TODAY.com’s request for comment on whether or not these closed locations plan on reopening.

Red Lobster has been open since 1968 and is currently America’s largest seafood chain. While the restaurant contents on the auction block represent a fraction of Red Lobster’s over 700 locations around the world, according to its website, it has faced more than a few financial setbacks in recent times.

In November 2023, Red Lobster increased the price of its "Ultimate Endless Shrimp" deal to $25, noting that unprecedented demand for the low-cost unlimited deal actually ended up hurting the company’s profits.

Then in January, Red Lobster investor Thai Union announced it was seeking to exit its investment in the company, reporting a loss of $19 million in the first nine months of 2023 from Red Lobster that it attributed to the “Covid-19 pandemic, sustained industry headwinds, higher interest rates and rising material and labor costs.”

“After detailed analysis, we have determined that Red Lobster’s ongoing financial requirements no longer align with our capital allocation priorities and therefore are pursuing an exit of our minority investment,” said Thiraphong Chansiri, Thai Union Group’s CEO, in a press release.

In April, CNBC reported that Red Lobster considered filing for bankruptcy to help it restructure its debt and get out of a number of expensive and long-term leases. According to sources who spoke with CNBC, the company then sought a buyer to avoid filing altogether.

Fans on social media are already reacting to the news of Red Lobster closing locations, particularly on X, by sharing pictures of printed notes informing patrons that spots are closing, making endless shrimp-related jokes , crying over Cheddar Bay Biscuits and other lamentations .

“This red lobster situation got me in my feelings,” wrote one saddened fan, adding a couple of weary-face emoji for emphasis.

Washington, D.C. native Joseph Lamour is a lover of food: its past, its present and the science behind it. With food, you can bring opposites together to form a truly marvelous combination, and he strives to take that sentiment to heart in all that he does.

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Close Friends, Competing for Coveted Olympic Spots. Who Would Make It?

Conner Mantz and Clayton Young had run side by side for more than 10,000 miles. Both vied for a place in the marathon at the Paris Games.

Credit... Russel Daniels for The New York Times

Supported by

By Talya Minsberg

Talya Minsberg reported from Provo, Utah, and interviewed the Young and Mantz families, coaches and teammates.

• Published May 8, 2024 Updated May 15, 2024, 2:02 p.m. ET

Conner Mantz’s arms were shaking as he warmed up for the Olympic marathon trials in Orlando in February.

Mr. Mantz, 27, of Provo, Utah, looked over to his close friend, Clayton Young, who was stretching next to him. The two men had run more than 10,000 miles together. They had raced for the same prize money, fought for the same spots on the podium — and formed a bond so strong that other runners said they wished they could replicate it. They had supported each other through season-ending injuries, and pushed each other through grueling training sessions.

Listen to this article with reporter commentary

Their friendship has lifted both runners to the peak of their professional careers. Both believed they had gotten the other to the starting line that day. Now, they hoped to get each other to the marathon at the Olympic Games in Paris. They had a real shot: Mr. Mantz was a favorite to qualify, and Mr. Young was a strong contender.

If they made the team, their years of grinding out monotonous miles would be rewarded with the opportunity to represent their country, and an even better chance at financial security for their families.

But so much could go wrong in the two-plus hours it would take to complete the race, and Mr. Mantz and Mr. Young had daunting competition, including the four-time Olympian Galen Rupp and a score of other competitors who might surprise them.

By the time the runners approached the starting line, it was 61 degrees with 65 percent humidity — the kind of warm and muggy weather that makes a 26.2-mile race even more of a test. Mr. Young held a bag of ice in his hands in an attempt to stay cool. He and Mr. Mantz, both wearing white hats and black sunglasses, shook their limbs nervously as the countdown began.

About 200 men stood twitching at the starting line. It was likely that only two would get places on the U.S. Olympic team.

The horn blared. The two friends bumped fists and started running.

A Parallel Path to Elite Running

By the time Mr. Mantz and Mr. Young met at Brigham Young University in 2017, both had established themselves as rising stars in distance running.

Mr. Young, now 30, started running in fifth grade thanks to a program called the Mileage Club. Every lap he ran around the soccer field during Friday recess put him closer to earning prizes, like a keychain with a tiny foot. It was also a chance for Mr. Young to race against one of his childhood friends, named Alex. Even then, he loved the competition, and the back-and-forth between friends that motivated them to log more miles.

Mr. Mantz decided at age 12 that he wanted to run a half marathon after watching his older brother and father do the same. When his father started to run marathons, Mr. Mantz announced that he wanted to run the full 26.2 miles, too. (After consulting his doctors, his parents pumped the brakes — but they did let him join the cross-country team.)

Both Mr. Mantz and Mr. Young found joy in the sport. By the time they joined their high school track and cross-country teams, their potential was clear. College coaches soon started calling.

Mr. Young chose B.Y.U. in part because it favored the team over star athletes. Two years later, Mr. Mantz arrived, drawn partly by coach Ed Eyestone, who had run two Olympic marathons himself. The university is supported by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, of which both runners are members.

Mr. Mantz and Mr. Young said their faith puts their running in perspective: Like all athletes, they have faced injuries and setbacks, and can get sucked into the cutthroat nature of competition, even with each other. But, as Mr. Mantz put it, “we are very focused on the eternal.”

Mr. Eyestone can’t recall the moment when he saw something click between the runners, but their connection quickly became clear. While there is a natural competitiveness among elite runners, Mr. Mantz and Mr. Young were “comfortable enough with one another that the ego does not get in the way of workouts,” Mr. Eyestone said. Mr. Mantz liked to lead the pack and set the pace, and Mr. Young could follow without turning practice into a competition.

That doesn’t mean that race days were as cordial as practice. “He doesn’t want to get beat, and I want to beat him,” Mr. Young said. He is the more analytical of the two: Mr. Young pores over his training data, and closely follows the research on human performance to help the pair improve.

“He’s always trying to find the next best thing — what can we do better?” Mr. Mantz said.

When Mr. Young graduated with a degree in mechanical engineering in 2018, he had a decision to make — sign a professional contract that would require him to move out of state, or stay in Utah, where Mr. Mantz still had two years left in school.

He chose to stay, in part so he and his partner could continue to train together, with the idea that Mr. Mantz might stay after graduation, too. A running contract with the shoe company Asics made it financially possible for Mr. Young.

The two spoke of these choices delicately. “It was his decision he had to reach by himself, and he did,” Mr. Young said. But they shared the same belief: “If we went our separate ways, I just don’t think we’d be as good as we are now,” Mr. Young said.

‘Where’s Clayton?’

There was never a guarantee that the United States would have a men’s marathoner at the Paris Games. To secure even one spot , at least one American man would have to finish a marathon, somewhere, in under 2 hours, 8 minutes and 10 seconds. That was the threshold for having a team at all.

There was a twist, detailed in the 24 dense pages of U.S.A. Track & Field’s athlete selection rules: Achieving that time wouldn’t necessarily secure a place on the team for the person who ran it. It would simply create a spot that someone could then win by performing well at the marathon trials in Orlando.

And no matter how many American runners beat that time, the United States would send no more than three men’s marathoners to Paris — the cap set for each country.

As the 2024 Olympic year approached, Mr. Mantz and Mr. Young focused on running the qualifying time. No one had achieved it by October 2023, when they lined up for the Chicago Marathon. The course is flat and fast, giving the field a better shot at beating the time.

Their wives, Ashley Young and Kylie Mantz, crisscrossed the Chicago course, trying to glimpse their husbands as often as possible along the winding route. They were comforted to see them sticking together. “There’s no better person I’d like to have next to Conner,” Ms. Mantz said of Mr. Young.

As they cheered, they kept one eye anxiously on the time. They share the same nerves on race day: Both women know how hard their husbands have worked, the results they want, how their race times and finishes can affect their livelihoods. They understand how unpredictable and brutal a marathon can be — and on race day, they have little interest in talking to anyone who doesn’t.

During the final stretch of the Chicago race, they were leaning over barricades, necks craned, looking for their husbands flying by at a pace close to 4 minutes and 53 seconds per mile.

When Mr. Mantz passed them at Mile 23, every breath powering him toward the finish, he used his precious energy to shout one thing: “Where’s Clayton?” Mr. Young was close behind him.

When Mr. Mantz finished in 2:07:47, he turned around to see Mr. Young cross the finish line just 13 seconds later. They clocked the fifth and seventh fastest marathon times ever for Americans and were the only Americans who achieved the threshold time for Paris. But they still had to win their places on the team.

‘Just Stay Together’

Over the years, the two runners’ families have become close. As soon as Mr. and Ms. Mantz stepped into the Youngs’ house on a recent afternoon, Ms. Young asked whether they were hungry, opening the fridge to grab fruit and yogurt before they’d had a chance to answer. As Mr. Young and Mr. Mantz went outside to stretch, the Youngs’ daughters, Lucy and Jenna, tagged along. They adore Mr. Mantz, whom they call “diddum.”

But after the Chicago race, like most others, Mr. Mantz and Mr. Young didn’t contact each other for a few days. It went unsaid, as it always did, that they needed time to themselves.

At times, Mr. Young and Mr. Mantz sound less like competitors and more like an old married couple. They know how to compromise. (Mr. Young likes to run later in the morning, while Mr. Mantz is an earlier riser. They meet in the middle, at 7 a.m.) They can press each other’s buttons — like when Mr. Mantz pushes the pace during a workout, at times to Mr. Young’s frustration — but they also know when to lay off.

“We have to dance around each other sometimes and work through our emotions and feelings,” Mr. Young said.

They were soon back together to begin a training cycle for the Orlando trials.

There were still only two guaranteed spots available on the Olympic team — the two they had created in Chicago. Technically, another runner could still unlock a third spot. But if they didn’t, both Mr. Mantz and Mr. Young would have to finish first and second to make the team.

For much of the race, they followed a runner named Zach Panning, letting him do the work of leading and setting the pace. By the time they reached Mile 18, they knew they were in the position to qualify for Paris. The anxiety that had Mr. Mantz’s arms shaking at the start of the race had given way to a loose, controlled show of excitement. Mr. Mantz reached back to high-five Mr. Young.

In the last two miles, though, Mr. Mantz started struggling. He had stumbled at the end of races before, his muscles and lungs pushed to the brink. He feared he wouldn’t finish.

He asked Mr. Young to step ahead of him, to block the headwind that makes the final miles even harder. Mr. Young shifted his position. “Just run behind me,” he told Mr. Mantz. “Just stay together.”

The pair was stride for stride, as they have so often been, as they approached the finish line in first and second place. In the final steps, Mr. Young signaled Mr. Mantz to take the win , even though that meant giving him the extra $15,000 in prize money that came with first place.

They looked awe-struck as they broke the tape, making them the only two American men to qualify for the Paris Olympics.

“When I think of the reason I stuck by Conner in the Olympic trials, it’s because I knew I would be better in Paris with Conner by my side,” Mr. Young said, as Mr. Mantz nodded. “Not just in the Olympics, but in training.”

This time around, they didn’t have much of a break. They were quickly swept up in the excitement of qualifying for the Olympics: a trip to the Utah State Capitol and a string of media appearances and sponsor meetings.

And they already had another race on the calendar: the New York City Half Marathon in March. A few days before that race, Mr. Mantz had to drop out because of an injury. He couldn’t be too careful before the Olympic training cycle began.

That left Mr. Young to train without his partner. As he tied his shoes at home in Provo before a solo run one recent morning, he looked around, as if he were missing something.

Read by Talya Minsberg

Audio produced by Patricia Sulbarán .

Talya Minsberg is a reporter covering fitness and wellness for The Times. More about Talya Minsberg

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