Financial education speaker and author Shay Olivarria with WHS teacher and SCE representative after a day of workshops at Western High School in Las Vegas, NV for SCE Credit Union.

How  awesome is it to be able to do something that you love and get paid for it? Friday, May 10th Financial Education Speaker & Author Shay Olivarria was in Las Vegas speaking to more than 200 Seniors at Western High School about personal finance for SCE Credit Union Foundation.

High school students in Nevada are required to receive financial education and most take part in an online course, however there is no substitute for the interaction and feedbackloop of working with a live person.

Financial Education Speaker & Author Shay Olivarria talking about compound interest to Seniors at Western High School in Las Vegas, NV for SCE Credit Union.

During each hour long workshop students learned about the difference between credit unions and banks, the need to pay yourself first, what compound interest is and how it works, the parts of a credit score and credit cards, specifically the CARD Act and why paying the minimum payment on your credit card debt is problematic.

If you’d like to hire Shay to speak with your group, call (323) 596-1843.

Shay Olivarria is the most dynamic financial education speaker working today. She speaks at high schools, colleges, and companies across the country. She has written three books on personal finance, including Amazon Best Seller “Money Matters: The Get It Done in 1 Minute Workbook”. Shay has been quoted on Bankrate.com, FoxBusiness.com, NBC Latino and The Credit Union Times, among others. To schedule Shay to speak at your event visit www.BiggerThanYourBlock.com

CERT participant Towanda Birmingham-Adams practices light medical care on Corey Nobles.

The first weekend in April the San Jacinto Community Center experienced multiple small fires, multiple people experiencing multiple injuries and two large pieces of concrete that had to be cribbed to be moved. Luckily, this was all a part of the latest Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) training in Riverside County.

The 20 hours of CERT training over Friday, Saturday and Sunday was sponsored by the City of San Jacinto and CALFIRE/Riverside County Fire. Over the weekend participants received a backpack filled with tools that they learned how to use in emergency situations when traditional first-responders might be hours or days away. Participants learned that, “That there are things that we can accomplish in an emergency situation before calling the authorities that can save lives and time”, says Corey Nobles. Several modules including search and rescue, triage, light first-aid and terrorism were covered. Participants were given multiple opportunities to try out their new skills before the simulation. CERT participant Towanda Birmingham-Adams learned, “Preparedness starts at home. I cannot help anyone else if I cannot help myself”.

On day three, participants were given a fake situation and were expected to use their new skills to get the situation under control. Everything seems easy until you enter a dark room filled with smoke, loud music playing and people moaning in pain and screaming out to you to help them. The participants were able to assess the outside damage to the building, put out the small fires, turn off the gas line to the building, triage all of the victims in multiple rooms in the building, carry out multiple live victims and apply light medical attention. These skills might not seem necessary for the average family, but Birmingham-Adams thinks they are very relevant, “Many blacks live in large urban areas that could have a large need for help in a large-scale emergency. Unfortunately still in the case of an emergency our neighborhoods usually are the last ones to get help. Therefore, we need to be able to help each other and not worry about others trying to help us.” Nobles agrees, “Black people should know more about this stuff because no one is going to care more about the black community than its residents”.

The goal of CERT training is to learn to help yourself, your family and your neighbors. “Katrina though should be a prime example to blacks that, we must be able to help ourselves instead of depending on others” says Birmingham-Adams. To find out about CERT in your area visit http://www.citizencorps.gov/cc/CertIndex.do?submitByState.

Anyone may attend the San Jacinto CERT training course. The next course will be offered in October.

Financial Education Speaker & Author Shay Olivarria is slated to speak at the Adelante Mujer Latina Conference in Los Angeles.

Guess what?

The most dynamic financial education speaker working today, Shay Olivarria, is slated to speak at the Adelante Mujer Latina Conference 2013 in Los Angeles, CA! Whoo hoo!

In case you haven’t heard about Adelante Mujer Latina 2013 here’s a tidbit about the conference:

Adelante Mujer Latina (AML) Conference is designed to inform, encourage and inspire young girls to take school seriously, work hard, make smart choices, think big, plan and prepare for the future, and take advantage of every opportunity so that they may achieve their career goals and have a positive impact in their lives, their families and communities.

If you’ll be attending, feel free to shoot Shay a message on Facebook ot Twitter.

Find out more about Shay’s financial education workshops

Find out more about Shay’s books

Valentine’s Day, the day to “prove” your love by buying things you can’t afford and wasting money in the same old ways that you do every other day. This year, why not switch things up by showing your partner that you really love them while building a solid financial future and making them feel special?

Don’t Follow the Crowd

Every year from January to February 14th I hear tons of ads for chocolates, red roses. flowers and stuffed animals. Demand is ridiculous. According to Visual Economics (see images below) people will end up spending anywhere from $80 to $150, on average. And those Valentine’s Day chocolates? “Valentine’s Days increase the sale of heart-shaped boxes of chocolate to more than 35 million.”Instead of doing what everyone else does, why not do something your partner will really appreciate? Make them dinner. Give them a massage. Create a bath-for-two with mood lighting and soft music. Write them a thank you note for all the amazing things they do for you. My partner still has a note I wrote to them years ago. It reminds them of why they love me.

Many people are in relationships hoping to one day be married. Some are already married. We know that about 50% of marriages end in divorce, but did you know that many of those relationships break up due to money issues? Want to save your romantic situation? Use your money wisely. Imagine what couples could do with that money if they chose to instead invest that money in their relationship instead of giving more money to companies.

Think About the Future

Let’s say that there is a heterosexual couple and each person in the couple spends the national average on gifts this year (see image below).  Visual Economics tells us that the age range that spends the most is between 25 and 34 years old, so let’s assume that the couple we’re talking about is 27 years old. The couple will spend about $254. If that couple instead had a night in, shared how they really feel about each other and enjoyed each other’s company (all free) instead of spending that money, they could choose to put that money in a money market account. Making that one decision not to spend money on Valentine’s Day could end up saving that couple $10,160 in principle alone over 40 years of marriage. Tack on about another $2,500 in interest (free money) and that couple could save about $12k by making one different decision on one day of the year. You know I like to say, “Find small opportunities that make a big difference” but I won’t say it this time! *wink*

Don’t forget, “There’s nothing your partner wants more than to be seen, acknowledged, loved, and appreciated on Valentine’s Day” says Colin Drake on Money Management Tips for Couples. Make the extra effort that will enhance your relationship and invest a few more dollars into your relationship coffer.

A few images from Visual Economics:

For a heterosexual couple, that’s a little more $250!

My hypothosis (are you ready for this?) is that the 25  to 34 category spends more because these are people that are in serious relationships (leading to marriage or married) and want to show their love with big, showy flower arrangements, expensive dinners and lavish gifts.

Click to go to the calculators.

FINRA has a new retirement calculator to help you understand:

• The max you can invest.
• If you’re investing the max.

There are only 4 inputs so go on over to the FINRA website and see where you;re at.

February is National Teen Dating Violence Awareness Month. To get the word out about this very serious subject, the domestic violence help center, A Better Way in Victorville, CA, is hosting it’s second annual poster contest!

The Black Voice News says:

The poster contest is open to all high school students. The theme is “Teen Dating Violence”. The Grand Prize is $300, 2nd place is $200 and 3rd place is $100. All entries must be received by January 31, 2013.

All of the contest forms and guidelines are available online. For more information call A Better Way at (760) 955-8010.

A bit about teen dating violence from A Better Way:

ONE OF FIVE TEENS IN A SERIOUS RELATIONSHIP REPORTS HAVING BEEN HIT, SLAPPED, OR PUSHED BY A PARTNER

YOUNG WOMEN, AGES 16-24, EXPERIENCE THE HIGHEST RATES OF RELATIONSHIP VIOLENCE

ROUGHLY ONE IN 10 (9%) OF TEENS HAS BEEN VERBALLY OR PHYSICALLY ABUSED BY A BOYFRIEND OR GIRLFRIEND WHO WAS DRUNK OR HIGH

FOURTEEN PERCENT OF TEENS REPORT HAVING BEEN THREATENED WITH PHYSICAL HARM–EITHER TO THEM ORSELF-INFLICTED BY THEIR PARTNER TO AVOID A BREAKUP

Financial Education Speaker & Author Shay Olivarria is quoted in this book!

Financial Education Speaker & Author Shay Olivarria has been quoted in a new personal finance book by Laura Vanderkam, All The Money In The World: What The Happiest People Know About Getting and Spending. Have you read it yet?

Check out the quote heard ’round the world …. ’round the bookshelves?

Use TV as a teachable moment. “TV has some of the best teachable moments ever,” says Shay Olivarria, a financial education speaker and author. If kids are watching shows they shouldn’t be watching (like MTV’s Cribs), then “at least get something good out of it,” she says. Why do the characters think that a flashy house or car indicates success? Talk about why a lower interest rate on a mortgage matters in terms of monthly payments, and if you’re working extra hours to afford a particular vacation or to get out of debt, make sure they see the connection.

Keep in mind that in a cashless age, kids may have a harder time grasping what money really is. “A lot of children don’t understand how ATM cards work,” says Olivarria. “They think it’s magic. They don’t understand that money has to go in the bank for you to pull money out of the bank.” They may think that when you want something, you just swipe a card and get it, without understanding that a bank balance is debited somewhere, or that you’ll have to pay a credit card bill later. So it may be worth using cash on occasion to help them understand what’s going on.

Also, feel free to let them fail. Olivarria enjoys taking her nephews, nieces and cousins to the amusement parks near her California home. She gives them a set amount of cash (say, $20) and says they have to use it for food and any other desires. Inevitably, the first time a child has cash in hand, he blows it on a plush toy in the first 5 minutes, and then has to suffer through a long day of watching his siblings eat hamburgers and ice cream and buy other souvenirs with their carefully stewarded $20 allowances. “That is an awesome lesson,” says Olivarria. “I’d rather let an 8-year-old go hungry at Disneyland because he blew his money on a plush Mickey than have a 30-year-old blow money on something and now his kids are homeless.”

Tough love, right? Do you agree? Disagree? Check out the book and share your thoughts.

Did you know that there are 28 financial institutions owned by Black people? How about that there are 33 owned by Latinos? 86 owned by Asians and 19 owned by Native Americans? If you want to use your funds to grow your community then using a financial institution owned by communities of color might be right up your alley.

Check out the whole list here.

I know you’ve been thinking about ordering copies of 10 Things College Students Need to Know About Money for your children, grandchildren, cousins, neices and nephews but you wanted to read it first, right? You wanted to make sure that it was a good read with real information about personal finance. Well, here’s your chance! 10 Things College Students Need to Know About Money is now available on Kindle for only $3.50 per download!

Download yours on Amazon.com now.

Click the image to read more about Shay speaking at Cal State Long Beach.

Shay Olivarria is the most dynamic financial education speaker working today. She speaks at high schools, colleges, and companies across the country. She has written three books on personal finance, including Amazon Best Seller “Money Matters: The Get It Done in 1 Minute Workbook”. Shay has been quoted on Bankrate.com, FoxBusiness.com, NBC Latino and The Credit Union Times, among others. To schedule Shay to speak at your event visit www.BiggerThanYourBlock.com

My latest article on Mamiverse.com talks about the new rule that says that each person that has a 401k must get a statement that can actually be read! Lol Read to find out where the fees are going, the types of fees involved and why it matters. Find the complete article online at Mamiverse.com.

Employees that invest in their company’s 401(k) plan should be able to understand their statements. A new rule from the Labor Department will, for the first time, enable many investors to understand how much of their investment dollars are going up in fees. “I know it’s there and that there’s money involved for me, but other than that I really don’t know how to access how much I have etc.,” says Lupe Zuniga of Waco, Texas. Each person that has money in a 401(k) should have received a statement by August 30 detailing how much money they have invested in which funds and how much they pay for that privilege.

Read the whole article here.

Shay Olivarria is the most dynamic financial education speaker working today. She speaks at high schools, colleges, and companies across the country. She has written three books on personal finance, including Amazon Best Seller “Money Matters: The Get It Done in 1 Minute Workbook”. Shay has been quoted on Bankrate.com, FoxBusiness.com, NBC Latino and The Credit Union Times, among others. To schedule Shay to speak at your event visit www.BiggerThanYourBlock.com