ECONOMIC AND FINANCIAL LITERACY - AN OVERVIEW

Asset and wealth building is the key element in moving families from poverty to self-sufficiency. Understanding economic and financial literacy is key. For the past twelve (12) years, BVF has been providing economic and financial literacy through its "Fundamental of Household Budgeting" workshops with support from of FirstBank, VI (Chase Manhattan; JP Morgan) and in collaboration with government agencies and nonprofit organizations.

FUNDAMENTALS OF HOUSEHOLD BUDGETING

The Fundamentals of Household Budgeting is a two-hour workshop grassroots approach to budgeting and deals with the mindset of how people spend their money. It includes a MS PowerPoint Presentation, a hands-on simplified spreadsheet and a amortization schedule that explains the costs of borrowing. The workshop assists household members to critically think and in some many cases, “discover” their true monthly and annual income and expenses. At the end of each session held, every participant was able to map out their monthly budget and identify that nearly each of them spent more money than they were earning. The expenses appear on a visual pie chart color-coded to the spreadsheet to assist participants to see by percentages their expenses by basic, elected and luxury expense categories.