Wednesday, May 5, 2021
$ Let’s Talk About Money, Baby: A Candid Discussion About Personal Finances $
Welcome to Education Wednesdays! This is my third blog post explaining what I will be authoring each day to pass on my words of wisdom or my B.R.E.A.T.H.S. from the seven areas I love the most: beauty, reading, education (financial), art, travel, health, and self care. Each day of the week starting with Mondays I will post a blog on the assigned topic.
This is my first Wednesday education post, I will explain why this topic is so important for me to share. Education is my specialty, I have taught K-12 and university students, private schools and public school students, at brick-and-mortar/hybrid/online schools, Sunday school at different churches, and now I have started my own educational nonprofit (not a school) called, Global Alternative Learning Systems (GALS). My goal is to create an educational platform where teachers, students, and communities can be a part of building their own learning system that works best for families. In the process of starting this business from nothing, I am working on a book that will detail steps on how a single person can help restore their community education system. My nonprofit will be plugged in the back of the book as a support system for anyone willing to try. This blog on education will follow my journey as I document how this process will unfold. My goal is to inspire others to go for their dreams no matter how big they think they are. I know in my heart you can do it!
On a second note, as I reflect back on my education journey, I felt there was something lacking, something that I never really quite learned or grasped but was extremely important to know for my everyday living, and that is financial education. I went to school for well over 20 years, I taught school for about 20 years, I have an abundance of knowledge in several topics, and I have loads of school debt and money blocks to add (OMG, did I just admit that). Nobody ever taught me about money and I never thought to ask.
Growing up, my family never talked about money, my mom really only complained about it, and me and my brothers just took the knowledge we gained from school in our personal finance course (maybe a half a semester in high school). At the age of 35, I had someone visit my school during lunch and offer to talk about annuities and IUL’s, I really had no idea what they were talking about, but something in my head told me I should probably start saving for my retirement, so I did (such a smart move and I am very proud of myself for doing that).
A few more years go by and at 40, a substitute teacher friend asked me about my finances. At first, I was a little taken aback, how can someone just come out and ask something so personal. She went on to explain that personal finances should be discussed openly, especially with family, because less than 50% (only 21 states) of the USA high schools even require it to be taught leaving the majority of the nation in the dark about money. A light went on in my head and I knew my next educational lesson was going to be beefing up my financial literacy and spreading the news wherever I can.
I joined a financial nonprofit and have been helping families since 2018. Now, I have made space for that here, where I can offer FREE family financial planning tips, at home money lessons, opening lines of communication around money, discussing how to pay yourself first (Suze Orman), setting up an emergency fund (we all know we could have used that last year), how to pay off debt in increments, removing money blocks (Denise Duffield-Thomas), where to put your money for the future, and lots of other inspirational money making strategies from some of my favorite authors and financial giants.
For education Wednesday’s, I will offer some great news on the progress of my nonprofit GALS, and offer some family financial literacy building tips. My future goal is to start TikTok or YouTube videos to have more content to share with the blog posts. Thank you for reading and following along for more. Please feel free to leave comments on some financial literacy topics you would like to see me cover in this blog.
Looking forward to connecting with you and building a healthy conversation around money,
Thank you for reading this,
Dr. Jaime Brainerd, Ed.D.
You make a great point about teaching kids about finances – it doesn’t happen all that much these days. I look forward to reading your posts about finances.
Dr. Jaime, I nodded by head in agreement as I continued reading each word. So much applies to my career, education, and finances. Thank you or being a part of the solution. I will be back to read more
My parents never discussed finances either, I sorta learned on my own when hubby and I bought our first home. We didn’t get into until we were way older than we should have. I’ll be interested in your Educational Wednesdays!