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HSFPP Weekly Update #131 What’s Your Shopping IQ

Message from Bob: I hope everyone is having a good summer. We want to remind all of you to order teacher’s guides and student workbooks for the upcoming school year, if you haven’t already. Order forms to send to NEFE can be found on the Kentucky HSFPP home page.

I also want to inform you about an exciting new opportunity to develop an in-school and after-school investment club, beginning in 2006. A grant is pending (we still need to sign the final agreement) to set up Future 4-H Millionaire Clubs for teenagers who participated in either the HSFPP, 4-H Consumer Savvy, or Financial Champion education program. If you are interested in joining the pilot group beginning in January, please contact your county Extension agent for more information. Or you can contact me at (859) 257–7758 or rflashma@uky.edu.

Message from Chris : For those who are new to the Kentucky High School Financial Planning Program listserv, I’m a senior in communications at UK. For the last three years, I’ve worked for Dr. Flashman, selecting topics of interest and writing discussion questions and lesson activities for the weekly updates. This summer, I’ve been updating the HSFPP Web site. See changes listed below.

When I first started here, I began to wish I’d had a financial education class in high school; but working with Dr. Flashman has provided me the financial education that I’d wished for. What I’ve learned here has helped me in buying a car without getting taken, as well as saving and investing for the future. Your students also can benefit greatly by participating in this program.

Note to Educators: We have made several changes to the Web site (http://www.ca.uky.edu/fcs/hsfp/). You can find all of the recent changes by clicking on the “What’s New” button on our homepage.

• On the home page, we changed the “KERA” link page to Kentucky “Core Concepts,” which explains how each unit of the HSFPP applies to core concepts.

• On the home page, we add a link to the Order Form to make it easier to order HSFPP student workbooks.

• In the links section of our Web site, we’ve added new links and updated and deleted some old ones. Be sure to check the General Links, as these are most important. We added NEFE’s HSFPP Web site (http://www.nefe.org/hsfppportal/index.html), which includes all material in the student workbook. We’ve also added NEFE’s Teen Resource Bureau Web site (http://www.ntrbonline.org), which teenagers will find a great site to visit for information.

• The training section now includes a link to NEFE’s Web-based HSFPP training (http://www.nefe.org/hsfppportal/includes/main/webtraining.asp). It also includes a description of my summer class to improve your financial knowledge.

• We have completed our index of all past weekly updates by topic, but we’re still waiting for the media sources used in our updates to give us permission to archive them that way. When we have received permission from all sources, we will post the index under “What’s New.

• One other change has been delayed slightly: “Resources available for loan or to buy” will be completely updated shortly.

 

To New Subscribers: We design our updates so you can copy and paste the article, student activity, and questions into a word-processing file to use with teenagers. If you have trouble doing this from the e-mail, you can always go to our Web site. All updates are available at http://www.ca.uky.edu/fcs/hsfp/UPDATE.HTM. As long as proper credit is given, feel free to copy and paste material from any of these.

As part of our welcoming e-mail, I thought I would include an article In the New$..., related to Unit #1, which comes from an international media source: Guardian Unlimited, a British newspaper. As usual, you will receive the next weekly update the second Monday of September.

 

In the New$.... What’s Your Shopping IQ?

“The words shopping and intelligence may not very often go hand in hand, but research out today claims we each have a ‘shopping IQ’ which can be measured with a simple formula.

“And, according to the evidence, shopping intelligence reaches its peak among those in their 20s.

“Research by card provider Visa and the Future Foundation, a consultancy and thinktank specializing in consumer behaviour, suggests that how good you are at shopping can be determined by the formula sIQ=7(t+s+o+c+p), where the letters relate to a series of statements about spending.

“The statements include: ‘I always try to spend as little as possible’ and ‘I often go from shop to shop comparing items before I make a final purchase’.

“People were asked to say to what extent they agreed with these sentiments and their scores were added up and multiplied by seven to calculate their ‘IQ’.

“Taking the view that a good shopper is someone who knows a bargain when they see one, but doesn't buy things simply because they are on offer, the researchers claim to have calculated the average shopping IQ of the UK to be 100.

“They say that shopping IQs peaked among those aged between 24 and 29, and were higher among women of all ages than among men. The average shopping IQ among females questioned was 101.2 while men scored an average of 98.7.

“Those earning £50,000 [British Pounds, equal to $84,746 US Dollars, as of 8/12/05; currency rates fluctuate daily] or more a year were deemed to be the least savvy shoppers, recording an average shopping IQ of 93.2.

“‘Between the ages of 24 and 29, the conditions are in place to excel in all areas of life,’ said Paul Flatters, chief executive of the Future Foundation.

“‘People of this age group are likely to be making strides in their careers, earning more money and are more settled in their home lives, so it's not surprising that it is also a great age for shopping.

“‘It is perhaps surprising that income-rich, time-poor people with demanding jobs have lower shopping IQs, possibly as they rely on others to shop for them. As such, they don't have the opportunity to develop the same 'shopping skill-set' as those with more time at their disposal.’”

Source: “Shopping IQ formula revealed,” by Hilary Osborne. Guardian Unlimited [ Great Britain], 7/28/05. http://money.guardian.co.uk/news_/story/0,1456,1537929,00.html

Lesson Activity:

Take the quiz at http://money.guardian.co.uk/quiz/questions/0,8672,1537905,00.html . Print out your answers and score and bring it to class for discussion. Also be prepared to discuss the following questions.

 

Discussion Questions:

1.) In what areas do you need to improve your shopping IQ? Do you shop within your budget? Do you compare prices on items? Do you buy on impulse?

2.) How is your shopping IQ related to credit?

3.) In what ways do you think teens have the most problems with shopping?

 

Kentucky High School Financial Planning Program

http://www.ca.uky.edu/fcs/hsfp

The purpose of this Web site is to assist county extension agents, credit union educators, and high school teachers in improving the economic well-being of our constituency, beginning with today’s students; and also, to assist teachers in Kentucky in meeting KERA’s goal that all students become technologically literate. Weekly Updates are provided by the University of Kentucky Cooperative Extension Service, and are free to all educators.