Ask Liz Weston

Get smart with your money

Bankrate

What you–and your kids–really need to know about money

By

Zemanta Related Posts ThumbnailIn case you haven’t noticed, efforts to teach financial literacy in schools and elsewhere are a pretty big failure.

As a nation we’re not getting much better at managing our money. Efforts to change that by teaching money skills in schools haven’t done much to improve the situation. Follow-up studies on people who took financial literacy courses in school typically show the education has little effect. So the debate rages on about whether we should still try.

You won’t be surprised, given what I do, that I think it’s essential people educate themselves and their kids about money. So I’m looking forward to tomorrow’s Google Hangout with CFP Neal Frankle, who runs the Wealth Pilgrim site, where we’ll talk about financial literacy, including ways to get it and give it. The event is sponsored by Bankrate and AOL DailyFinance.

If you’d like to join us, our chat will stream live starting at 2 p.m. Eastern, 11 a.m. Pacific. Hope to see you there!

Update: If you missed the event, the link to our conversation can be found here, on the DailyFinance site.

 

 

 

Weak bank? Maybe it’s time to move your money

By

Dear Liz: I have all my money (less than $150,000) in one small bank. I love my bank, but Bankrate.com’s Safe and Sound report shows the bank having only a single star. I asked someone at the bank about it, and this person said the rating wasn’t important. Is it?

Answer: Of course it is. Your deposits are under the $250,000 limit protected by the FDIC, but a weak bank can fail, which can be disruptive to depositors. The bank that takes over typically doesn’t have to abide by the policies or interest rates promised by the failed bank. If regulators can’t find another bank willing to take over, you may have limited access to your money for a few days until your deposits are refunded to you.

A bank with “very questionable asset quality, well below standard capitalization and lower than normal liquidity” — phrases Bankrate.com uses to describe your institution — probably isn’t the best place to have your money.