Visa USA𠏋 Back-to-School Budget Calculator Helps Students
Become Sharp Money Managers
New Tips, Interactive Calculator on 𩡗ractical
Money Skills� Site
San Francisco - August 11, 2003 - Visa
USA today announced the addition of a useful new resource to its
award-winning financial education site, www.practicalmoneyskills.com.
The Back-to-School
Budget Calculator is designed to help families create a financial
plan for back-to-school shopping. This free resource uses an interactive
worksheet to help anticipate the many school supplies students
of all ages will need before they head back to class this fall.
孏he calculator transforms back-to-school shopping
into a valuable budgeting lesson that requires careful planning
and educated purchase decisions,� said Rosetta Jones, director,
Visa USA. 𨯗t Visa, we believe that reinforcing the basics of
money management, at school and at home, is the best way to teach
youth -- and there is no better teacher than experience.
㜁hether preparing to send your kindergartner to
his or her first day of school, or your teen away to college,
the calculator will help parents financially prepare themselves
and their children to better manage their back-to-school expenses,�
added Jones.
The calculator equips families with a smart budget
by ensuring they consider all of their back-to-school expenses,
and allows for any needed adjustments. In addition, parents and
students will find ten helpful tips for a more educational back-to-school
shopping experience:
TEN 颷ACK-TO-SCHOOL� BUDGETING TIPS:
- Children and parents should set a realistic back-to-school
budget together with the help of the Back-to-School Budget
Calculator.
- Use back-to-school shopping as a budgeting lesson and have
kids prepare a budget with you.
- Encourage kids to consider ways to manage cash flow, like
clipping coupons, looking for sales early, or buying supplies
quarterly or by semester.
- Encourage children to follow the budget spending limit.
Stress that getting one more expensive item might mean sacrificing
something else.
- Take a printed copy of your estimated budget with you when
shopping and have your child enter in all of the actual expenses.
- Teach your kids to comparison shop to avoid impulse buying
or paying for overpriced items. Deter them from buying something
on the first visit to the store, but rather have them shop
around and take time to consider the purchase.
- Differentiate between "needs" and "wants." Encourage children
to contribute their own money to fill the gap between what
they "need" and what they "want.�
- Develop a savings account or piggy bank, and tell kids that
if they are under the budget limit, what they save now can
be put into the savings account for a new toy or CD later.
- Continue the back-to-school budgeting lesson by starting
kids with a monthly budget saved on their computer or in a
notebook.
- If your kids have a checking account, encourage them to
keep up all cash, card, or check deductions in their checkbook
register. Also remind them to balance the register when the
statement arrives.
Practical Money Skills for Life is an online curriculum (www.practicalmoneyskills.com),
sponsored by Visa and is free to consumers. It features lesson
plans, interactive calculators, and activities for parents, teachers,
students, and consumers of all ages.
Additional components of Visa𠏋 ongoing campaign to enhance personal
financial literacy:
- In an effort to increase the financial literacy of America𠏋
youth, Visa is sponsoring the second annual Practical Money
Skills for Life Educator Challenge. This contest will award
teachers who creatively incorporate money management education
in the classroom. Registration begins this summer for the
2003-04 school year, and last year winners are posted on www.practicalmoneyskills.com.
- Visa𠏋 Practical Money Skills for Life program (www.practicalmoneyskills.com)
was developed by teachers for teachers. Working with our partners:
Jump$tart Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy, the National
Consumers League, Lightspan.com, U.S. News and World Report
Classroom Program, U.S. Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, and
the National Association of Consumer Agency Administrators,
this cutting-edge Internet-based personal finance curriculum
reaches more than 100,000 schools and 37 million students.
These financial literacy tools are available in English and
Spanish.
- In addition to providing a free personal finance curriculum,
Visa USA continues its efforts to bridge the digital divide
by donating computer equipment to schools in need and providing
training for teachers. During 2003, Visa will continue this
program by donating computer labs to 10 high schools across
the United States. To date, Visa has donated nearly 40 computer
labs nationwide.
- Beyond a focus on educating high school students to be smart
money managers, Visa USA has also partnered with the Reserve
Officers Association to make available Practical Money Skills
for Life resources to military families at installations across
the United States.
For more information on the Back-to-School Budget
Calculator or the award-winning Practical Money Skills for Life
curriculum, please go to www.practicalmoneyskills.com.
About Practical Money Skills for Life
The Practical Money Skills for Life curriculum is teacher
tested and teacher approved. At the 2001 National Education Association
Expo, the program was put before teachers to evaluate and grade.
Nearly 100 percent of teachers who reviewed the site said they
approve of the Practical Money Skills for Life program; 98 percent
said they would recommend the site to other educators, and 94
percent gave the program a "B" or better. The curriculum currently
reaches 2.5 million teachers, 37 million students, and 100,000
schools. Additionally, this program won the National Association
of Consumer Agency Administrators 2002 Achievement in Consumer
Education Award (ACE) for the best innovative program for the
private sector and was named an 鐈onorable Mention� by the Jump$tart
Coalition for Personal Financial Literacy𠏋 2002 Soaring$tar Award.
About Visa
Visa is the world𠏋 leading payment brand and largest consumer
payment system, enabling banks to provide their consumer and merchant
customers with a wide variety of payment alternatives. Nearly
21,000 financial institutions worldwide rely on Visa𠏋 processing
system, VisaNet, to facilitate $2.5 trillion in annual transaction
volume with virtually 100 percent reliability. Consumers in more
than 150 countries carry more than one billion Visa-branded cards,
accepted at millions of locations worldwide. Within the U.S.,
nearly 14,000 financial institutions issue 396 million Visa cards,
accounting for more than $1 trillion in annual transaction volume.
Visa offers a trusted, reliable and convenient way to access and
mobilize financial resources - anytime, anywhere, anyway. For
more information about Visa, please visit www.visa.com.
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