Hopes, Dreams, and Goals
What are your hopes, dreams, and goals? You may already have or be thinking about getting a part-time job, owning your first car (don’t forget the insurance!), furthering your education beyond high school, getting your first full-time job, starting a business, and investing for the future. Therefore, it is extremely important that you: stop, think, get what you want out of life, start saving today, spend wisely, make credit work for you, plan ahead, protect yourself from loss, and find a credit union near you to help you manage your money. Is your high school or youth group teaching you the financial knowledge and skills you need to be financially successful in life?
A Program About Managing Money That Turns Learning into Action!
Do you know that there is an outstanding, FREE program that your school and community organizations can use to teach you about managing money. The National Endowment for Financial Education® High School Financial Planning Program® (NEFE® HSFPP) will show you how to manage your hard-earned money by creating a budget, a financial plan, a savings plan and an investment plan. The NEFE® HSFPP personalizes learning so you can immediately begin to apply learned skills in your own life. If your school or youth group is not using this program, please be sure to read the Getting a Program Started section below.
In the NEFE® HSFPP, carefully designed exercises and activities move you step-by-step toward each of the program’s seven core competencies:
- Creating your own financial plan.
What do you want to achieve in life? People who “have it all” didn’t get there by accident. They made a financial plan and followed it. In this unit you will learn to create your own personal financial plan to help you identify the end result you want, figure out how to get there, and stay on track to achieve it.
- Creating your own budget.
It’s all too easy to earn a paycheck and then before you get your next check, wonder where all your money went. The best way to gain control of your money is to start by answering the question—where should my money go? In this unit you will learn to create a personal budget, a tool to help you better channel your money toward goals you established in your financial plan.
- Proposing a personal saving and investing plan.
You may have heard the saying, “It takes money to make money.” By investing some of you money now, you can actually earn additional money for the future. In this unit you will learn about two very powerful tools—savings and investing. You do not need a lot of money to begin investing, and now is the time to begin!
- Selecting strategies to use in handling credit and managing your debt.
Many people use credit (borrow money) to help purchase a car, pay for college and for many other reasons. Credit can be helpful and good at times, but unwise use of credit can be very dangerous. In this unit you will learn about the cost of using credit and how to use credit wisely to help achieve your goals.
- Demonstrating how to use various financial services.
There are many financial service providers (e.g., credit unions, banks) that can help you manage, save and spend your money. In this unit you will learn about the various financial service providers and how to choose a provider to best meet your needs and goals. You will also learn how checking and savings accounts work, and how debit and credit cards work. Additionally, you will learn that there are deceptive people that want to take you money through various fraudulent practices, such as identity theft.
- Creating a personal insurance plan.
When you are young and healthy the chance of something bad happening seems remote. As you go through life, however, there are many risks involved—illness, disability, theft, accidents, and death. Risk management is a means of dealing with potential personal and financial loss. In this unit you will learn about various forms of insurance that can help protect you and your family from large financial losses.
- Examining how your choice of career and lifestyle will affect your financial plan.
For most of us, a career is the way we earn most of our income. Career choices definitely affect your future earnings potential, but you should realize that a career provides satisfaction beyond money. In this unit you will learn about career choices and income potential, the value and costs of career preparation, and to predict how your career options may impact your long-term financial goals and future budget planning. You will also identify specific intermediate- and long-term goals related to preparing for your desired career.
Getting a Program Started
Not every school or civic organization knows about the HSFPP. Be sure to tell your school, teacher, or community group about this website and the free HSFPP. To assist you in doing this, NEFE® can send you information kits about the program so that you can share the material with your school principal, teachers or community group leaders. Each kit includes a full student guide, sample pages of the instructor's manual, brochure, bookmark, and other information.
Click here to order an Information Kit.
You also can contact one or both of the following HSFPP representatives:
To find your county’s Cooperative Extension Service, click here.
To find a Credit Union near you, visit www.creditunionsforyou.com.
