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The one big lesson we should all learn from this financial crisis is that we should be educating our new generations how to personally manage their own money.

Seriously, this is a no-brainer. Are we that stupid to not start teaching our kids how to manage their own finances?

I graduated high school in the year 2000 and not once was I ever offered a personal finance class. This should be a mandatory class for every single student in the United States.

No more letting the credit card companies continue to make money off of others. Just pay off the balance each month. Save as much as you can. Open a Roth IRA. Don't waste money on interest. We should be teaching kids these simple principles.

Who will make the curriculum? Anyone?

CANADA is even starting to require the course. When will we?

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Every two weeks I see a portion of my paycheck going to a social security fund. I'll also receive a letter in the mail every now and then showing me how much I have contributed each year to Social Security.

I didn't sign up for this and I don't want to contribute. There are more beneficial ways to save for my own retirement such as 401k's and Roth IRA's.

Instead of the government taking my money and bailing out those that make bad business decisions, I should have the option of contributing to Social Security programs or not.

We all know that the younger generations will not have these funds available to them in the future. US Government: please let me opt-out of Social Security contributions. Even the house in the logo has a big crack in it.

It certainly came as a shock when I received a letter in the mail from Capital One. An increase from 11% to 29% APR is no small amount. I always pay off my balance in full each month, but this increase will still hurt many in the long run.

Capital One was very explicit about opting out too. They said if you want to opt-out just call customer service and cancel your account.

I'd like to cancel my account, but is it better for your credit score to have longer credit history?

I like Capital One less and less every day for a few reasons. One reason is the really high APR. Another reason, which doesn't happen to me very often, is that if you hit your credit limit they slap your account with a $40 overage fee instead of simply declining the charge.

It's all just a money making scheme. Large companies making money off of other people's inability to manage their own money.

I logged into my Yodlee account last friday and was greeted by a message saying there were new features to my service. One of the features is called Financial Calendar. It simply displays all your debits/credits on a 30 day calendar. It even shows you what days future bills are due.

You can then visualize to see which days you are spending more money on than others. For me, I saw that I do quite a lot of spending on Fridays. Eating out, going out with friends, all potential threats to saving money. But hey, you gotta have fun on fridays!

This is an awesome new way to view your spending and put things into perspective. I feel that it gives you a much better way to look at your money rather than just seeing a list of debits when logging into your online bank account.

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I know how disheartening it can be when you log into your 401k account and see how much money you have lost in these hard times. One of my accounts has lost almost 40%. I try to console myself with the thought that I'm in it for the long haul, however it still hurts to look at it.

So when times are rough, it's a good time to think of dollar cost averaging to help assuage the negative thoughts of loss. Keep investing in your 401k no matter what. When stocks and funds take a dive, you can essentially buy more shares for your dollar. You'll see a greater payoff in the future because of this.

I actually upped my 401k contribution by 2 percentage points to take advantage of the low cost of investing right now.

Just see, it'll pay off in the future.

Dollar Cost Averaging [wikipedia]

My father has always taught and given me advice when it comes to investing and saving for your retirement. Everyone knows that us millennials will not be able to depend on the government's social security plan when we are ready to retire. We must take matters into our own hands.

First off, I'll always increase my 401k contribution to the point where I can max out what free money my employer will match me.

Second, every time I receive a raise, I'll always increase my contribution by a percentage point or two. This way, I'll never notice the increase being taken out of my paycheck. I'll have more money for the future without too much of a sacrifice now.

If you've used Bank of America or Wachovia, you've probably had some experience with a service called Yodlee. It's basically a front-end that allows total management of all your assets and liabilities.

One of the fundamentals of personal finance is tracking your spending. This app allows you to categorize all your spending so you can know where your money is going. You can track your saving vs spending over time and see your total wealth.

The best part is that it aggregates all of your logins into one place. It will periodically grab data from all your banking or savings accounts and display in one easy to use interface. Yes, there are probably some security concerns with having all your data stored in one place. However, everything is encrypted with 128 bit SSL and runs through layers of firewalls. Here is a good article about the security for Yodlee: The Tao of Moneymaking

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