LibGuides: Financial Fitness: Personal Finance

What is personal finance?

Personal finance includes all of the money-related decisions and activies of an individual, including budgeting, savings, investing, leases, loans and credit cards. It is important to balance short-term and long-term needs.

If you have been relying on someone else, like your parents, to manage your financial life, it can be scary to take control yourself, but it is an important part of making it on your own, whether during or after college. The information linked to in this guide can help you get informed and make good financial decisions.

Websites

Practical Money Skills for Life
This site does a great job of briefly covering almost every aspect of personal finance. Information about credit cards, saving, buying a car, paying for college and much more. A great place to start!
What's My Score
Includes the helpful guides Headed for College, Renting an Apartment, Buying a Car, and Welcome to the Real World.
For Young Adults and Teens: Quick Tips for Managing Your Money
Simple strategies and practical guidance for borrowing, saving, banking and avoiding scams from the FDIC. Includes tips about auto loans, credit cards, debt management, credit ratings, and banking.
Hands On Banking (Auto plays)
This multimedia tutorial from Wells Fargo covers a wide range of issues surrounding credit cards and loans for young adults, including credit scores, evaluating loans, and dealing with debt.
Center for Student Credit Card Evaluation
This detailed tutorial introduces students to all aspects of credit cards, including fixed vs. variable interest rates, late fees, penalties, and how to evaluate special promotional offers.
40 Money Management Tricks Every College Student Should Know
Great tips from the National Endowment for Financial Education
Your Spending Your Savings Your Future
Covers spending, bankruptcy, debt recovery, savings instruments, and financial planning.

Magazines

Kiplinger's personal finance
Information on savings and investments, taxes, money management, home ownership and other personal finance topics.
Money
In addition to investment advice, Money magazine also helps readers take control of all of their finances. Articles on taxes, credit cards, and saving strategies keep you in the loop regarding current issues in personal finance as well as help you plan for long-term financial needs.

Books

Personal finance : a lifetime responsibility by Grady Kimbrell, Nathan Dungan
Call Number: Curriculum Center Ts.821 EMC Grade 9-12 2009
ISBN: 9780821942543
Publication Date: 2009
Personal Finance is designed to prepare high school students to make wise financial decisions in personal situations. The program helps students realize that they are already making financial decisions and shows them how their decisions affect their future. High-interest features, an engaging visual program, and easy-to-read content make the program timely and useful for all types of learners.
The Personal Finance Calculator by Esme Faerber
Call Number: Ebook
ISBN: 9780071429061
Publication Date: 2003
The Personal Finance Calculator provides noncomplex tools and calculations for assessing current personal wealth, determining how much debt is too much debt, understanding credit card interest rates, and more.
Organize Your Personal Finances --in No Time by Debbie Stanley
Call Number: Ebook
ISBN: 9781423717638
Publication Date: 2005
Written in a unique step-by-step, to-do list approach, you will master skills such as tracking income and expenses, bill paying, creating a file system and shopping with efficiency. Then, learn to take all of your new skills and apply them to creating a savings plan, a budget and graphs to illustrate spending habits and debt details.
Don't Spend Your Raise by Dara Duguay
Call Number: Ebook
ISBN: 9780071415804
Publication Date: 2003
Don't Spend Your Raise offers young people in college or just starting out in the real world practical "money rules" to help them handle their money more wisely and dramatically increase their personal wealth, such as never have more than two credit cards, never buy a new car, and don't fly first class for the free cocktails, which, if followed, will guarantee fewer money mistakes and more money successes.
Financial Planning for Your First Job by Matthew Brandeburg
Call Number: Main Stacks HG179.B73 2009
ISBN: 1439262195
Publication Date: 2011
An in-depth look into the lives of first-time employees and the financial decisions they face every day. Trying to decide between paying off student loans and saving for retirement? Wondering whether you should buy or rent your first home? Having trouble building your first investment portfolio? This book answers all your questions and provides the tools you need to put your financial plan in motion.
Gener@Tion Debt by Carmen Wong Ulrich
Call Number: Main Stacks HG179.U42 2006
ISBN: 9780446695435
Publication Date: 2006
Offers a step-by-step guide on how to budget your monthly expenses, make judicious use of credit cards while avoiding the pitfalls of high interest rates, and find the best way to pay off those student loans. Later sections cover situations like choosing whether to rent or buy a home, getting a car and saving for retirement.

Research Guides

Financial Fitness: Personal Finance

What is personal finance?

Websites

Magazines

Books