If the purpose of education is to equip children to be successful adults, and if most adults spend most of their time dealing with money, then it seems obvious that instruction in Practical Economics is an essential component of any curriculum. In response to clients' frequent lament, "Why didn't they teach us this in school?" Making End$ Meet now offers a one-year course of instruction to students in both homeschooling and conventional circles mature enough to care and pay attention, and their families.
BENEFITS. Designed from a Christian perspective, the course embraces and applies values like sobriety, honesty, stewardship, industry, thrift, generosity, contentment, wisdom, patience, and faith. At minimum, upon completion each student will gain:
1. A thorough inventory of long-term financial goals like buying, furnishing, and maintaining a home; bearing, raising, and educating children; starting and running a business; buying, maintaining, and replacing automobiles; caring for the aged and the infirm; affording vacations, sabbaticals, retirement, amusements, and unexpected setbacks; and avoiding and eliminating debt.
2. A customized plan for attaining these goals that, taking into account inflation and the time value of money, informs the student what must be earned and saved over the student's lifetime to afford them.
3. Detailed annual budgets, designed to support the plan that include routine living expenses: needs, wants, taxes, and tithes.
4. Customized accounting records for comparing actual results with the budget, and individualized instruction in their use.
5. A survey of the most profitable investments.
6. Tools, techniques, skills, and habits that can perpetually benefit them and their posterity.
Students and parents may also elect to undertake additional projects like micro- and macro-economic research, reports on economics publications of particular interest, career studies, or the planning and launch of small businesses.
TEXTS. No particular textbook will be used. This is an experiential course based on the instructor's extensive research of a wide variety of texts and practical experience in private practice helping households, businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies plan and accomplish their financial goals. Students may use a healthy variety of texts of their own choosing, as well as on-line and community resources, with instructor consultation.
LOCATION. Because parents have asked to take this course with their children, sessions will be held on evenings or weekends in students' homes in a format similar to small-group Bible studies, times and places to be determined by the class' concensus. The benefit to a student hosting a class in their home is that since much of the demonstration and instruction happens on their computer, they will have less homework and fewer notes to take. Between sessions, generous remote support is provided via telephone, e-mail, and a dedicated e-group (see below).
SCHEDULE. Class meetings will not follow a traditional linear schedule. Instead, there will be five introductory weekly sessions to inventory goals, create plans, write budgets, set up accounting records, and declare electives. After these will be seven sessions for following up progress, sharing results, and final recapitulation and evaluation: four monthly, and the last three on alternate months. Between sessions all students will be provided with unlimited phone, fax, and e-mail support. As in the "real world", the emphasis of this course will be results-oriented, hands-on, and dependent upon student initiative and desire.
TUITION. Tuition varies inversely with group size. Tuition arrangements are available to fit any budget.
REPORT CARD. Most adults will tell you that once they graduated from school, no one ever asked to see their report card. The report cards that really matter in adult life are your financial statements. Therefore they will be the focus of this course.
BENEFITS. Designed from a Christian perspective, the course embraces and applies values like sobriety, honesty, stewardship, industry, thrift, generosity, contentment, wisdom, patience, and faith. At minimum, upon completion each student will gain:
1. A thorough inventory of long-term financial goals like buying, furnishing, and maintaining a home; bearing, raising, and educating children; starting and running a business; buying, maintaining, and replacing automobiles; caring for the aged and the infirm; affording vacations, sabbaticals, retirement, amusements, and unexpected setbacks; and avoiding and eliminating debt.
2. A customized plan for attaining these goals that, taking into account inflation and the time value of money, informs the student what must be earned and saved over the student's lifetime to afford them.
3. Detailed annual budgets, designed to support the plan that include routine living expenses: needs, wants, taxes, and tithes.
4. Customized accounting records for comparing actual results with the budget, and individualized instruction in their use.
5. A survey of the most profitable investments.
6. Tools, techniques, skills, and habits that can perpetually benefit them and their posterity.
Students and parents may also elect to undertake additional projects like micro- and macro-economic research, reports on economics publications of particular interest, career studies, or the planning and launch of small businesses.
TEXTS. No particular textbook will be used. This is an experiential course based on the instructor's extensive research of a wide variety of texts and practical experience in private practice helping households, businesses, nonprofits, and government agencies plan and accomplish their financial goals. Students may use a healthy variety of texts of their own choosing, as well as on-line and community resources, with instructor consultation.
LOCATION. Because parents have asked to take this course with their children, sessions will be held on evenings or weekends in students' homes in a format similar to small-group Bible studies, times and places to be determined by the class' concensus. The benefit to a student hosting a class in their home is that since much of the demonstration and instruction happens on their computer, they will have less homework and fewer notes to take. Between sessions, generous remote support is provided via telephone, e-mail, and a dedicated e-group (see below).
SCHEDULE. Class meetings will not follow a traditional linear schedule. Instead, there will be five introductory weekly sessions to inventory goals, create plans, write budgets, set up accounting records, and declare electives. After these will be seven sessions for following up progress, sharing results, and final recapitulation and evaluation: four monthly, and the last three on alternate months. Between sessions all students will be provided with unlimited phone, fax, and e-mail support. As in the "real world", the emphasis of this course will be results-oriented, hands-on, and dependent upon student initiative and desire.
TUITION. Tuition varies inversely with group size. Tuition arrangements are available to fit any budget.
REPORT CARD. Most adults will tell you that once they graduated from school, no one ever asked to see their report card. The report cards that really matter in adult life are your financial statements. Therefore they will be the focus of this course.
Learning Objectives
- Survey the timeline of the United States Government's income, expenses, surpluses or deficits, and debt. In an essay, relate surpluses and deficits to coinciding historic events and discuss their relationships. In your own words, explain what caused surpluses and deficits at various times in our nation's history, and opine how the nation is currently doing and what ought to be done in the future.
- Do likewise for your state government.
- Define the Consumer Price Index. Tell when it began, and what it has averaged annually since inception.
- Discuss debt. Decide whether it is necessary and if so, under what circumstances. Explain your decision.
- Discuss "The Chart." Explain the principle it demonstrates, and what you personally conclude from it about how you will manage your own life.
- With your instructor's assistance, compile your personal Lifetime Savings Plan.
- Write annual budgets designed to accomplish your Lifetime Savings Plan for the next three years. In so doing, determine the income necessary to afford your plan. Be sure to include premia for necessary insurance policies, taxes, and a 10% tithe of gross income in your budget. Decide how you intend to earn the required income, and explain your decision.
- Show how federal income and self-employment taxes are calculated. Compute your effective tax rate.
- For one year, set up and use an accounting system to track progress against your budget. Be complete and accurate. Demonstrate the ability to reconcile cash accounts to the penny.
- Demonstrate and explain the relationship between the Budget Report and the Change in Net Worth Report. Show which report measures causes and which report measures effects.
- Define "mutual fund" and "diversification." Give examples of top-performing mutual funds. Assess their risks and costs. Compare them with other investment alternatives like real estate, stocks, bonds, precious metals, cash value insurance policies and annuities, Certificates of Deposit, savings accounts, privately held businesses, and/or art collections. Decide where you want to put your savings and explain your decision.
- Discuss real estate, both as a home and as an investment. Explain what happens when real estate values rise: both the advantages, and the disadvantages.
- Explain the Social Security system. Describe the current privatization controversy. Decide where you stand, and explain your decision.
- With your instructor's advice and support, undertake a research project of your own choosing in an area of Economics that interests you. It may be about Economics publications; career studies; planning and launch of small businesses; interviews of local employers, legislators, and/or business owners; religious, ethical, and/or environmental studies; etc. Share results with the class.
- Define "Will." Explain what a Will can and can not do. Discuss the various forms of life insurance, what they're for, and how they relate to a Will.
- Explain in detail the economic consequences of both virtue and vice. Give examples.
- Discuss the relationship between religion and Economics. Decide whether personal financial planning presumes to usurp God's sovereignty. Explain your decision.
