Personal Finance Online: Goal Setting With Students

Students come with a wide variety hopes, dreams and needs. While many of them share the same goal – getting an education – very few of them are prepared for this critical stage in their life when it comes to money. While they all practically live online and are permanently glued to smartphones, only the very smartest conduct their personal finance online.Goal setting with students is relatively easy to explain because they completely understand the concepts of choosing what they want and implementing a plan to achieve it, but while they are encouraged by educators who provide them with a goal setting template by way of lectures and seminar timetables, they each have to take responsibility to create their very own goal setting worksheet, timetable, study plan, and pin it to their wall.So why don’t people take the skills they learned while goal setting with students, and apply them to the world of personal finance? After all they ‘live’ online so why not train, learn and plan their personal finance online too? The answer comes in the tools available and knowing what to do with them.There are four areas where personal finance online can be enhanced with students, and goal setting is only one part of a process which touches all four areas.Earning Money As A Student First jobs are character building for students. They get to find out what they enjoy doing, and what they hate doing. Earning money as a student allows strong developments in skills such as influencing people, task management, reading situations, and making judgments.The best earnings goals though, are the ones which enhance entrepreneurial flair, independent choices, and return financial rewards. So many students ignore this, thinking a job equals money equals spending. The smartest thing to do when teaching goal setting with students, is to give them the skills of personal finance, knowing the value of their earning, and the ability to make money not take money.Saving Money As A StudentIndependent money is a thrill like no other for a student, and the impulse to use it to the fullest extent normally extends to living life large, in the moment.Yet remembering the famous marshmallow test by Professor Walter Mischel, one of the core principals of sharing goal setting with students is that of delayed gratification – the skill to wait until later to enjoy the money.Saving money as a student therefore is a pillar of personal finance online because when a student understands the concept of “Pay Yourself First” they will save. Tools which track and coach personal finance online help in this financial goal setting because it allows the student to see where their money goes, see what are expenses versus expenditure, and minimise the waste that can only come from the typical hedonistic student lifestyle.Spending Money As A StudentStudents need no help to spend money, it’s programmed into them long before concepts like personal finance online are ever introduced to them – but spending within a structured thought process is a central tenet of financial goal setting with students. Informed and considered thought before splashing out the money does not have to make a students life boring, and it can avoid a lot of pain later.Since there is a lot of shopping online as a student, it is easy to adopt these four questions when considering personal finance matters online. This as true in London England as it is in any other place with students.Do I need it?
Why Do I want it?
Will it impact the rest of my Month?
Does it affect my Debt?Investing Money As A StudentStudents are not known for their wealth,but considering the power of financial goal setting with students as described above, the principles of adopting personal finance online would not be complete without investing.Even a small about of money invested while a student will grow massively due to the magical impact of interest compounding. The rewards for students who invest significantly outweigh the risks, since rather than save, they are actually giving every penny a purpose when following the principals of personal finance online because it can be seen, tracked, followed, and enjoyed all through their core activity – being glued to the internet.Budgeting in personal finance is not the shiniest activity, but a concentration on this subject can be exponentially rewarding. Done effectively, it can become the core skill in money management and is a must-have objective while educating on goal setting with students. This way they can avoid or minimise debt, pay it back faster, live within their means and not beyond their means.

Shoe Repairs And Several Other Things When I Was 7

Shoe Repairs And Several Other Things When I Was 7
My Dad repaired most of our shoes believe it or not, I can hardly believe it myself now. With 7 pairs of shoes always needing repairs I think he was quite clever to learn how to “Keep us in shoe Leather” to coin a phrase!

He bought several different sizes of cast iron cobbler’s “lasts”. Last, the old English “Laest” meaning footprint. Lasts were holding devices shaped like a human foot. I have no idea where he would have bought the shoe leather. Only that it was a beautiful creamy, shiny colour and the smell was lovely.

But I do remember our shoes turned upside down on and fitted into these lasts, my Dad cutting the leather around the shape of the shoe, and then hammering nails, into the leather shape. Sometimes we’d feel one or 2 of those nails poking through the insides of our shoes, but our dad always fixed it.

Hiking and Swimming Galas
Dad was a very outdoorsy type, unlike my mother, who was probably too busy indoors. She also enjoyed the peace and quiet when he took us off for the day!

Anyway, he often took us hiking in the mountains where we’d have a picnic of sandwiches and flasks of tea. And more often than not we went by steam train.

We loved poking our heads out of the window until our eyes hurt like mad from a blast of soot blowing back from the engine. But sore, bloodshot eyes never dampened our enthusiasm.

Dad was an avid swimmer and water polo player, and he used to take us to swimming galas, as they were called back then. He often took part in these galas. And again we always travelled by steam train.

Rowing Over To Ireland’s Eye
That’s what we did back then, we had to go by rowboat, the only way to get to Ireland’s eye, which is 15 minutes from mainland Howth. From there we could see Malahide, Lambay Island and Howth Head of course. These days you can take a Round Trip Cruise on a small cruise ship!

But we thoroughly enjoyed rowing and once there we couldn’t wait to climb the rocks, and have a swim. We picnicked and watched the friendly seals doing their thing and showing off.

Not to mention all kinds of birdlife including the Puffin.The Martello Tower was also interesting but a bit dangerous to attempt entering. I’m getting lost in the past as I write, and have to drag myself back to the present.

Fun Outings with The camera Club
Dad was also a very keen amateur photographer, and was a member of a camera Club. There were many Sunday photography outings and along with us came other kids of the members of the club.

And we always had great fun while the adults busied themselves taking photos of everything and anything, it seemed to us. Dad was so serious about his photography that he set up a dark room where he developed and printed his photographs.

All black and white at the time. He and his camera club entered many of their favourites in exhibitions throughout Europe. I’m quite proud to say that many cups and medals were won by Dad. They have been shared amongst all his grandchildren which I find quite special.

He liked taking portraits of us kids too, mostly when we were in a state of untidiness, usually during play. Dad always preferred the natural look of messy hair and clothes in the photos of his children.

What Are The Greatest Changes In Shopping In Your Lifetime

What are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime? So asked my 9 year old grandson.

As I thought of the question the local Green Grocer came to mind. Because that is what the greatest change in shopping in my lifetime is.

That was the first place to start with the question of what are the greatest changes in shopping in your lifetime.

Our local green grocer was the most important change in shopping in my lifetime. Beside him was our butcher, a hairdresser and a chemist.

Looking back, we were well catered for as we had quite a few in our suburb. And yes, the greatest changes in shopping in my lifetime were with the small family owned businesses.

Entertainment While Shopping Has Changed
Buying butter was an entertainment in itself.
My sister and I often had to go to a favourite family grocer close by. We were always polite as we asked for a pound or two of butter and other small items.

Out came a big block of wet butter wrapped in grease-proof paper. Brought from the back of the shop, placed on a huge counter top and included two grooved pates.

That was a big change in our shopping in my lifetime… you don’t come across butter bashing nowadays.

Our old friendly Mr. Mahon with the moustache, would cut a square of butter. Lift it to another piece of greaseproof paper with his pates. On it went to the weighing scales, a bit sliced off or added here and there.

Our old grocer would then bash it with gusto, turning it over and over. Upside down and sideways it went, so that it had grooves from the pates, splashes going everywhere, including our faces.

My sister and I thought this was great fun and it always cracked us up. We loved it, as we loved Mahon’s, on the corner, our very favourite grocery shop.

Grocery Shopping
Further afield, we often had to go to another of my mother’s favourite, not so local, green grocer’s. Mr. McKessie, ( spelt phonetically) would take our list, gather the groceries and put them all in a big cardboard box.

And because we were good customers he always delivered them to our house free of charge. But he wasn’t nearly as much fun as old Mr. Mahon. Even so, he was a nice man.

All Things Fresh
So there were very many common services such as home deliveries like:

• Farm eggs

• Fresh vegetables

• Cow’s milk

• Freshly baked bread

• Coal for our open fires

Delivery Services
A man used to come to our house a couple of times a week with farm fresh eggs.

Another used to come every day with fresh vegetables, although my father loved growing his own.

Our milk, topped with beautiful cream, was delivered to our doorstep every single morning.

Unbelievably, come think of it now, our bread came to us in a huge van driven by our “bread-man” named Jerry who became a family friend.

My parents always invited Jerry and his wife to their parties, and there were many during the summer months. Kids and adults all thoroughly enjoyed these times. Alcohol was never included, my parents were teetotallers. Lemonade was a treat, with home made sandwiches and cakes.

The coal-man was another who delivered bags of coal for our open fires. I can still see his sooty face under his tweed cap but I can’t remember his name. We knew them all by name but most of them escape me now.

Mr. Higgins, a service man from the Hoover Company always came to our house to replace our old vacuum cleaner with an updated model.

Our insurance company even sent a man to collect the weekly premium.

People then only paid for their shopping with cash. This in itself has been a huge change in shopping in my lifetime.

In some department stores there was a system whereby the money from the cash registers was transported in a small cylinder on a moving wire track to the central office.

Some Of The Bigger Changes
Some of the bigger changes in shopping were the opening of supermarkets.

• Supermarkets replaced many individual smaller grocery shops. Cash and bank cheques have given way to credit and key cards.

• Internet shopping… the latest trend, but in many minds, doing more harm, to book shops.

• Not many written shopping lists, because mobile phones have taken over.

On a more optimistic note, I hear that book shops are popular again after a decline.

Personal Service Has Most Definitely Changed
So, no one really has to leave home, to purchase almost anything, technology makes it so easy to do online.
And we have a much bigger range of products now, to choose from, and credit cards have given us the greatest ease of payment.

We have longer shopping hours, and weekend shopping. But we have lost the personal service that we oldies had taken for granted and also appreciated.

Because of their frenetic lifestyles, I have heard people say they find shopping very stressful, that is grocery shopping. I’m sure it is when you have to dash home and cook dinner after a days work. I often think there has to be a better, less stressful way.

My mother had the best of both worlds, in the services she had at her disposal. With a full time job looking after 9 people, 7 children plus her and my dad, she was very lucky. Lucky too that she did not have 2 jobs.