The Budget Smart Girl Gets a Financial Education
I can’t remember when I first heard about the MoneyClub, www.moneyclubs.com but I do know that I bookmarked the site and signed up for their newsletter. MoneyClubs is all about sharing your goals with new friends, achieving your money dreams, meeting your saving goals, and reducing your debt. Some topics we all need help with these days.
MoneyClubs also has a sister site, www.wife.org, which is a non-profit organization and stands for the Women’s Institute of Financial Education and helps us ladies take control of our own finances. Candace Bahr is one of the founders of both sites and is also an investment manager. She very kindly took time to answer some questions for Budget Smart Girl and here’s what she had to say.
How did the idea for the MoneyClub get started?
We started MoneyClubs 7 years ago in response to women who wanted more than just information. They began learning about finances from our non-profit outreach at www.Wife.org and wanted to take the next step. (Our non-profit outreach at Wife.org began 20 years ago and went to the web about 10 years ago—at Wife.org we’ve created world of information that your readers can explore. The main areas of interest are in the left column of the home page, and they can click on any of the topics to take them to a myriad of articles about their chosen subject.)
But we found women wanted to do more than just learn about money, they wanted to learn how to use the information. That’s where Money Clubs come in. We give women the framework to get together to discuss the financial topics that are important to them and help each other reach their goals.
What do you think are the biggest benefits of starting or joining a MoneyClub?
Money Clubs, is a free resource of the non-profit Women’s Institute for Financial Education and (WIFE.org), are an incredibly successful way for women to achieve their money dreams and support each other on their journey to prosperity.
The Small Step section of the MoneyClub gives three Small Steps you can do, in 15 minutes or less, to improve your financial situation. We say “Small Steps lead to big success”, and the Small Steps on the page change each day, so day after day your readers can rack up continuing success on their journey toward financial freedom. Here is a link to the Small Steps for someone who would like to save more www.moneyclubs.com/smallstep-boost-your-savings.htm
When visitors first stop by the Web site, what should they check out first?
A great way to start is to get some insight into your feelings about money by completing the Money Truths and Dreams questionnaire http://www.moneyclubs.com/moneyclub.moneytruthdreamsworksheet.htm
My Web site is all about ways to save money. Do you have any financial tips that can help women save more money?
We have Money Makeovers, 21-day programs to help them get out of debt and boost their savings. Once they sign up, we will send them an email each day to give them a Small Step to do that day. The steps are cumulative, and at the end of 21 days they will have made significant progress toward their goal, and formed a habit of taking a positive step each day.
Here’s the link.
http://www.moneyclubs.com/moneyzones/moneyzones-makeover.htm
If your readers want to go through the Money Club curriculum on their own, they could work on one of the 33 different Money Zones of interest each day.
Here’s the link.http://www.moneyclubs.com/moneyzones/moneyzones-overview.htm
Are there any books or other Web sites that you can recommend for further advice about money management etc?
Here are books and pamphlets we have written: http://www.wife.org/bookstore.wifeauthors.htm
What are some of the biggest mistakes women make about money and investments? What can they do to correct these mistakes?
Here is an article we wrote that gives people tips on how to avoid the mistakes: http://www.wife.org/heard/investmenttips.htm