MoneyMarci's Guide to Financial LIteracy

By Marci Grossman

Own your money! You make money decisions on a daily basis. Read this book to better understand and improve your relationship with money.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Marci Grossman
• Release date: Dec 16, 2021
• ISBN: 9798215579305

Marci Grossman

Marci S. Grossman is a 2nd generation Certified Public Accountant with a passion for helping people to understand the secrets behind the numbers. A CPA with over 30 years of experience, she finds tremendous personal satisfaction in educating people about their money and financial options. This resulted in the MoneyMarci videos, the website, and now this book. Who knows, one day there might even be a musical…

Book preview

CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

1 - Budgeting

2 - Tax returns

3 - Debt

4 - Credit cards vs debit cards

5 - Don’t despair, don’t compare

6 - Credit score/credit report

7 - Reconciling your accounts

8 - Savings vs investing

9 - It’s not what you know, it’s who you know (and trust!)

10 - What’s the deal with all these insurance types?

11 - Communicate with your partner

12 - What are these investments of which you speak?

13 - Will your assets go where you want them to?

14 - How much do I need for retirement?

15 - What financial literacy? I don’t have any money.

16 - Who pays for the free lunch?

17 - What’s in a name?

18 - Employer Benefits

19 - Which health insurance plan should you choose?

20 - Grants, Scholarships, and Loans, Oh My!

21 – Relationships and Celebrations

22 - Being on sale doesn’t mean you save money

23 - Checking or savings account?

24 - What’s with all this employment paperwork?

25 - What’s on my W-2?

26 - Benefits cliff

27 - Lease/Buy/Rent

28 - Don’t go...yet

Dictionary

About The Author

INTRODUCTION

When you are not sure how to begin a difficult conversation, start with a story. This story, generously shared with me, is a relatively common situation and illustrates the reason that I wrote this book.

My family was what a Ted Talk speaker once coined the lost middle class. Essentially, it's when you make just enough to skip over the poverty line but not enough to really do anything in life without some struggles. Both my parents worked, have been married for 40 years, and provided an excellent example of work ethic and love. But they had financial issues. It was one of the few things they really fought about. 

Despite my grandmother being a banker, I have to say my financial education was a bit dismal. So by the time I turned 18, I pretty much made every mistake you could think of. I had been working since 13 and even though I knew how to work and collect a paycheck, I had a problem. I loved to spend. I loved to shop. And once those shiny new credit cards start showing up on your doorstep, I'd be willing to bet most of us never knew how to read the fine print.

I wished I knew about the credit process, things like debt to credit ratio, interest, annual fees, fees for cash advance and really, everything that goes into the credit system like scores and reporting. Within a few years I had racked up several thousand dollars of debt that was going nowhere. I barely made above minimum wage and was lucky to even pay the minimum balance on my cards.

It got really bad when I went to work for Victoria's Secret. You're in a mall, surrounded by temptation and surprise - for VS, you have to look a certain way to work there. Suits, black shoes, makeup, and of course some VS lingerie. I pretty much blew up my credit card account and broke even with my paychecks by just dressing to work there, again making just above minimum wage. 

Once I started my career in massage therapy, I made more money, but nowhere near enough to pay off my surmounting credit card debt, and on top of that, my student loans. Almost everything went into deferment and I had to write letters to the creditors, and was also sued for non payment.

It hit an all time low when I lost my job due to state policy changes in regards to insurance, which affected where I was working. My car got repossessed and my engagement broke off so I had to move out. I was scraping by but finally hit that poverty line to get my state assisted food stamps. Which honestly was a Godsend. Once I found new employment for my trade, my paycheck began escalating quickly and I started paying down things one bill at a time, the snowball approach they call it. You pay the smallest bill first and work your way up to the largest one and I refused to talk to a collection agency ever again. My identity was stolen multiple times from collection agencies and to this day, I will only pay the original creditor. In 9 years I've paid off over 50k in debt and my business that I opened a year and a half ago is currently debt free. 

I didn't learn anything about finance until I was significantly older. Nor do I have a mind to understand it. I think high schools should mandate finance classes for high schoolers because not everyone is coming from a successful background, in fact, most of us are just trying to survive.

I think teens need to learn all about credit scoring, credit cards, investments, savings accounts, budgeting, interest rates, and timing. I certainly wish I did.

At the lowest, my credit score was in the 300s, now I'm sitting around 735.

Financial literacy is about understanding money, how it affects you, and having access to the knowledge that will allow you to make good financial decisions. It has nothing to do with whether you have a lot of money or a little money, how smart you are, or how educated you are. Financial literacy is only about how much you understand your financial situation, options, and opportunities.

When I first started to write this book, my initial thoughts were that it would be aimed toward young adults and/or people in tight financial situations. The more I talked to friends both in and out of the professional accounting sphere, I realized that a lack of financial understanding was not limited to any age, income, education, or social group.

My intention was to write a book that would get people started on the right path to a better understanding of how to manage their own financial situation. While it may not have the answers you are looking for, hopefully it will help you figure out what are the questions you need to research or what to ask someone more informed in regards to your particular situation. The book needed to be accessible, coherent, concise, and not overwhelming to the reader.

One of the most challenging aspects of writing