J-Term Personal Finance 2021

This J-Term was very impactful but it could be a little overwhelming sometimes. I came into this course wanting to just learn the basics since I had very little awareness about finances and no knowledge about investing so everything was new to me. Even though I might not remember all the information that was coming towards me all at once, I still have access to all the resources that were introduced so now there's a starting point for me to continue exploring where to invest, the different types of taxes, loans, mortgages and everything else. I really got much more than I expected with a thorough and informative course.  One resource that I appreciate having is the books. Even though I might not be able to apply everything that I learned from them into my life now, I will have them on hand when I become more financially independent. Dr. Ott is also a great resource since she has experience with both teaching and using her financial knowledge in life. All the stories about her perso

We started out our day by logging onto Investopedia to look at our stocks. Dr. Ott talked to us about what to look for in a company before buying their stocks. One thing quality of a high value stock is their dividend, if they pay good dividends, or any at all, for investing in their company then it's worth looking into. We also learned about insider trading in dark markets which is where top sellers go to trade. Usually they are insurance companies, investment groups and dowagers who buy thousands or even millions of shares. While other traders don't have access to insider trading, these trades largely affect the general markets but some traders can look at the trends to determine where they should invest next.  For seminar, we discussed Chapter 3 of Your Money or Your Life called Where Is It All Going? We talked about budgeting and how to create personalized categories for your budget based on your circumstances. The book also elaborated on applying what we learned about co

    Although this class was only two weeks long, I feel as if I've learned much more than I normally would in that amount of time. Because of this class, I feel significantly more financially literate than I did beforehand. In all honesty, I wasn't what I expected with this class, and at first, it freaked me out. The idea of planning out stuff for far in the future is scary, and I'm glad I've done it. I feel a lot more confident knowing that I have the tools that I will need to succeed in the future. 

 I am going to be honest. Personal finance was not my first choice. I didn't even really consider personal finance as anything I would take right now. I always saw it as a J Term that I would take in my senior year to make sure that I understood how to live on my own in college. When I was faced with the options for J terms I could take when I was no longer able to attend golf, I took personal finance because Alex was in it. I was aware that the course had gotten praise from those who have taken it, but what I was not prepared for was that I would enjoy it. What I saw originally as a course that I did not want to take yet spiraled into an enjoyable, if not exciting J Term. This course made finance fun! It is entertaining enough that you stay interested and challenging enough that the work is fun. The setup of the course is great too. Our speakers related very strongly to what we were learning. For example, when we were learning about stocks, our speaker was Ilan, a member of the 20

  Personal Finance J-Term     The first time I read a J-Term Choice List back in my freshman year, Personal Finance was something that had made more of an impact on me out of all the other options. I was afraid that if I did it then, I would have forgotten all the information and it would've all been for nothing. I decided that I would probably do it for my Sophomore year, but the choices then were so good that I ended up leaving it as my third or second choice, something like that. Behold, that year my choices form wasn't submitted thanks to some sort of error and I had to choose a J-Term that still had spots available. So when my Junior year came I just told myself I was going to do Personal Finance no matter what, so I did. Before going into Personal Finance I had at least some outline of knowledge including investments, mortgage, net worth, college stuff, budgeting, etc etc. But like I said, it was only an outline of knowledge. When we started off with the stock market, I h

 This is my second year taking this course and I definitely believe that I have taken in more information than I did in my previous year in the J-term. This two week course has certainly redirected my entire life path. I have also learned to be much more of a precocious person when it comes to my spending habits and to be more attentive with the money I have now. Although I have already read the two main texts, Your Money or Your Life and Why Didn't They Teach Me This in School , reading them again and fully absorbing the information provided by the books has changed my view on money, what to do/not to do with it, and how to live while saving it. Since it was my second year in the J-term, I was allowed to focus on my own text of my choice. I chose to learn about index funds. The book taught me what the best one to get into was and also how it has an impact on your savings. Because of this book ( The Little Book of Common Sense Investing ), it has had changed a view on how I should

      One of the main draws of the Personal Finance J-Term are the student reviews; the most common one, year after year, is "I've never learned so much in two weeks." As someone who new nothing about balancing a budget, watching my spending, or investing--and as someone who was about to go to college and inevitably be cash tight--I felt like I needed this course. Two weeks later, I'm proud to report that I was right! Through Personal Finance I learned the basics of budgeting, investing, and mindful spending.       Personal Finance is a course of two parts, exemplified by our two readings, Your Money Or Your Life  by Vicki Robin, and Why Didn't They Teach Me This In School? by Cary Siegel.  Your Money Or Your Life , for me, was really the highlight of the course. As one of the original texts of the FIRE movement (Financial Independence; Retire Early), I was initially a little skeptical about what it had to say. The FIRE movement has a reputation of being overwhelm

 This course taught me many valuable skills such as how to manage a credit card and when it is smart to invest in things such as stocks, a house, and a credit card. I also learned and probably my biggest take away is that when I first get my credit card I need to miss one payment so I can get a credit score. I also know some ways that I can get income without working a lot of work goes into that, the best way I learned to do that is through real estate and renting out units to people. I also learned how to manage money and how to pay off debt faster and what kind of loans to get. This was the best course I have ever taken it informed me so much about finance. 

 On the last day of the personal finance class, I reflected on the material that I had come to learn over the length of the course. We started out with relatively mundane subjects such as federal and state taxes, home ownership, and insurance types. This quickly turned into advanced lessons on a multitude of financial subjects, and I found myself learning about stock trading, asset diversification and management, and entrepreneurial strategies. I gained a sense of how truly complicated the financial world really was, and the information I learned throughout this course will have properly prepared me for the actual real world I will most likely face in just a couple years. One excerpt from the information I found on my topic of asset allocation I found very interesting, as it gives a good understanding of the type of material found in the course; "The most common usage of the term "asset manager" refers to investment management, the sector of the financial services indust

Today was yet another information packed day. I was really happy to get on the zoom call because our topic of the day was investing and options. Ilan came in and had a presentation ready for us. I learned a lot about what to do when it comes to putting your money on the line when buying stocks. The key to staying organized is creating a spreadsheet and keeping a log of every single investment you have made. It is proven that seeing what you've done right and wrong all on one page is extremely helpful. Then, we got into options, which I had little to no idea what they were before, and now I am ready to practice buying and selling. An option is basically a bet were you say that a stock is either going to go up or down.  A call  option  gives the holder the right to buy a stock and a put  option  gives the holder the right to sell a stock. Options are a major risk but a great way to improve your portfolio and get money fast. Somethings that Ilan ensured we do when we buy and sell stoc

 January 13th was quite interesting in personal finance. On this day we had all just finished Why Didn't they Teach us this in School , and we had a discussion on some the "quick tips" that were listed at the end of the book. What I thought was rather interesting was that when the book mentioned to "Drive your car until it drops" Dr. Ott mentioned that we shouldn't literally do this, but instead once the car's repairs cost more than the car itself we should get a new car. We also had a seminar on chapter 8 of  Your Money or Your Life , and we talked about the crossover point, how we're able to reach this point, and what to do once you reach this point. After the seminar we all took a break from our hard work and we watched a movie called Trading Places . It was a comedic movie, but it mainly informed us of buying into commodities. Later in the day we shortly had a discussion on how we felt about the total net worth percentage we currently have in our

    On the second to last day of Personal Finance, it was finally time to discuss real estate. By now we had already learned about other forms of asset allocation, and what we had read in Why Didn't They Teach Me This In School and Your Money Or Your Life had discussed how real estate could be one of the best ways to grow your net worth and passive income. To expand on that idea, my cousin Connor McGill came to talk to us. Connor is a young entrepreneur who, using some of the profits from his businesses, is investing in real estate to supplement his active income. Connor talked about the pros and cons of buying duplexes, 4-plexes, and flipping homes. He told us about his successes, struggles, and what he has learned after making three deals. We discussed when the best time was to fairly raise rent, if you need to at all, and what to watch out for when buying real estate. There are often closing costs, repair costs, and advertising costs that go overlooked when you are buying a pr

 Today was another really productive day, and we got a lot done. We started out the day with the presentations we hadn't finished yesterday. The presentations were on mortgages, which was presented by Alex, and on federal taxes, which was presented by me. Both presentations were very informative, and I feel like I have a lot more knowledge about both topics. Dr. Ott also helped some of the more nuanced concepts we were unable to present on, such as the different tax schedule forms.  Once we finished the presentations, we watched the film The Big Short to learn a bit more about the markets and Wall Street. The film is about a group of investors discovering that the US mortgage market is a bubble and the subsequent crash of that market which caused the 2008 financial crisis. There were a lot of financial terms that I didn't understand, but it definitely helped and allowed me to gain a better understanding of what happened to the market at that time.  After the movie and a break f

 Yesterday was... definitely a day. In between being glued to our television screens, We learned multiple things, such as our personal values and how to use Investopedia. Additionally, we discussed the books that we had read. With personal values, Dr. Ott had us create a list of qualities that were most important to us. Once you had your personal values, you would give a name for them, such as compassionate warrior. Investopedia is a website which mimics the stock market. It uses real figures, but you are not spending real cash. We are using this as a tool to learn about the stock market and different functions within it, such as short-selling. As this is the one of the first blogs of this J-Term, I will give some extra information on the books. We are reading "Your Money Or Your Life" by Vicki Robin and Joe Dominguez, as well as " Why Didn't They Teach Me This In School?" by Cary Siegel. These two books relate to, as you likely guessed, personal finance. They t