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Better Money Management
~ a guide for school leavers
Handling money is one of the most
important issues that everyone has to face and today it is causing misery in
millions of households. This is why Credit Action, the Christian national money
education charity, has produced a new guide in its range of money manuals for
school leavers.
Credit Action
Credit Action has a range of guides for
families, single parents, young people etc. Some are specifically written for
Christians but many other guides are written as outreach for use in the
community. Guides are also written specifically for organizations like the Armed
Forces, Civil Service, Housing Associations and Local Authorities. Keith
Tondeur, the National Director of the charity, is also widely used as a
commentator in the media and regularly speaks at both secular and Christian
conferences.
Reasons for
producing the school leavers guide
Keith Tondeur said “Whether you are
leaving school to go to university or to start your first job, handling money
will be one of the hardest issues young people will have to face. Many of them
will not have been taught about how to budget or spend wisely and at just the
time when they are under pressure to spend considerable sums of money, they will
be bombarded with offers of credit – some of which may be very expensive.
The book, which has been described by Ed
Mayo the Chief Executive of the National Consumer Council as “invaluable”, has
already attracted considerable interest with one Local Authority, Cheshire,
ordering a copy for the 16,000 pupils in their area who are leaving school this
summer. The guide has a foreword in it by Charles Clarke MP, Secretary of State
for Education and Skills, and has been awarded the Plain English Crystal Mark.
Free debt
counseling help included
Included in the guide is the free-phone
help-line of the Consumer Credit Counseling Service to ensure that if any young
people find that they are slipping into debt they can get totally free,
confidential and independent advice.
Contents
Initially the book looks at the various
pressures on young people and the strong likelihood that the potential for
spending will far outweigh the amounts of money available to spend! So it helps
distinguish between wants and needs. It also looks at the sense of
trying to save something however small and warns of the dangers of getting
sucked into desperate moves when money is tight by gambling and buying lottery
tickets.
When it comes to work, the guide
looks at ways of finding work as well as explaining what pay slips look like. It
explains about tax and National Insurance as well as focusing on jobs for
students. The book also looks briefly at the Benefit system and how this applies
to young people.
One of the main areas of concentration
is to do with managing the money that a school leaver might obtain. So there is
simple yet detailed explanation as to how to budget and why this is so
important. In addition, the guide helps show how a bank account works and gives
tips as to the best way of using one. In this section there is also a very
helpful “jargon buster” that explains what many of the previously
mystifying financial descriptions mean.
Despite the fact the book is aimed at
young people, Credit Action believe that they need to have a grasp of the
subjects of insurance and pensions so these too are touched on in the guide.
However, probably the largest section of
the guide is given over to the subject that so often causes young people to
struggle and eventually end up in debt – and that is handling credit. So
the book looks at where you can get credit, how it works and how APR’s work. It
then gives young people questions that they should consider before taking out
any new form of borrowing and it explains how spending on catalogues and
borrowing from money lenders can cause problems. The genuineness of Interest
free offers and nothing to pay for a certain period are looked at as are
consolidated loans. Importantly, the guide also helps you understand what to do
if you can’t get credit and how to check your credit rating.
Moving on the guide is also very helpful
in giving advice when it comes to making the first bigger commitments. So it
looks at buying that first car or motorbike and has useful check
points in it for looking over a used car before deciding on buying it.
Similarly, whether the young person is thinking of moving in with others or
renting a bed-sit on their own the guide again has numerous questions to ask
that will help the right decision be made.
Then there is a large section advising
all the young people who will be heading off to university, including how
the student loan system works and where you can go at college for extra
financial help.
Lastly, there is a section for those
young people who find themselves in some sort of money mess. They are given
advice on money saving ideas but also what to do if debt rears its ugly head. A
list of organizations that can be contacted for further help is also
provided.
Keith Tondeur,
National Director
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