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I wonder if the best way to teach #2 is abstractly or hands-on. Abstractly, people's eyes glaze over on a spreadsheet. Hands-on exposes kids to the vast inequ

I wonder if the best way to teach #2 is abstractly or hands-on. Abstractly, people's eyes glaze over on a spreadsheet. Hands-on exposes kids to the vast inequalities out there, and that sounds terrifying without the right societal contextualization. What if the doctor's kid analyzes daddy's W2 and the other kid can only analyze their parent's 1099 uber returns. Or, a kid grasping the mathematics of compound interest doesn't necessarily mean that mean they can understand why their friends' parents have a 16% auto loan while theirs is only 4%. Not saying we should protect The Children from the messy realities of the world -- our current approach of "they'll figure taxes out on their own" is about as effective as the "don't even mention sex" philosophy used until the mid 1900's -- I'm just saying to really understand these financial concepts requires guiding kids through a whole lot more ugliness of the world, and I'm not sure many schools know how to do that kind of integrated life learning. Hell, even most adults don't know how to think about such things. I dunno... maybe the easiest thing here is to just go live in income-segregated neighborhoods so we never need to ask such difficult questions with our neighbor-friends.

rawgabbit 2y ago
Like most folks I learned consumer finance the hard way. I learned for example, the best way to purchase a car is to arrange a loan with your own bank or credit union...email a bunch of car dealers until you get the price you want... when you come into the dealership to get your car just say "no" to everything and be prepared for the hard sell for hours until they agree to the deal they agreed to. My parent's way of dealing with car salesmen were a lot of shouting and anger. I guess what I am saying is there is always a textbook/spreadsheet component of consumer finance. How else can you explain the effects of interest compounding on your credit card if you never pay off the balance? But you can also try to role place scenarios to show why you want to know this stuff. e.g., if you are low income but working there is a good chance that when you file your tax return you will get cash back due to the earned income tax credit.

rawgabbit 2y ago

Like most folks I learned consumer finance the hard way. I learned for example, the best way to purchase a car is to arrange a loan with your own bank or credit union...email a bunch of car dealers until you get the price you want... when you come into the dealership to get your car just say "no" to everything and be prepared for the hard sell for hours until they agree to the deal they agreed to. My parent's way of dealing with car salesmen were a lot of shouting and anger. I guess what I am saying is there is always a textbook/spreadsheet component of consumer finance. How else can you explain the effects of interest compounding on your credit card if you never pay off the balance? But you can also try to role place scenarios to show why you want to know this stuff. e.g., if you are low income but working there is a good chance that when you file your tax return you will get cash back due to the earned income tax credit.