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About 300 participants learn about credit, debt and more
By Betty Lin-Fisher
Beacon Journal business writer
Published on Sunday, Aug 17, 2008
The women were in a session about credit and debt at the Ohio treasurer's office's Women & Money conference held at Copley High School. The event drew an audience of about 300 to learn about such other subjects as budgeting, entrepreneurship, investing, estate planning, and children and money.
These were the high-response answers for a few questions in a real-time, interactive survey, where the women inputted their anonymous answers into an electronic keypad, which then calculated the results within seconds:
• 32 percent had three to five credit cards.
• There was a tie when asked the estimated balance on all of the cards — 27 percent said they carried balances of less than $2,000 a month and another 27 percent had $8,000 or more.
Those numbers mirror survey results of more than 500 respondents at several of the 11 Women & Money conferences that have been held statewide throughout the summer.
In statewide results taken during budgeting sessions, here are some other interesting numbers:
• 33 percent had less than $1,000 in a savings account, not including retirement savings. (A bright spot: 20 percent said they had more than $10,000 in current savings.)
• 29 percent set aside nothing monthly for a savings account. (On the other end, 9 percent said they put more than $500 a month away.)
• 29 percent said being ''scared for the future'' has made them take action to start saving money.
• 36 percent said they used their economic stimulus rebate to pay debt. Only 9 percent said they spent it on ''nonessentials.''
The state seminars are in their ninth year and continue to get large numbers of participants, officials said.
Ohio Treasurer Richard Cordray said while he inherited the workshops when he entered office, he believes in the seminars and also has made a concerted effort to push financial education for all Ohioans this year, launching a financial education Web site, http://www.yourmoneynowonline.org.
While men are not discouraged from attending, women are targeted because ''unfortunately, in our society, women make less than men — earning 83 cents on the dollar,'' said Cordray, who attended the Copley session on Friday. Women also tend to live longer and statistics show they make the purchasing decisions for their families, he said. That's not to say that women are less educated about finances, he said.
''Every Ohioan could stand to know more,'' Cordray said. ''All the women here have made the first step, to set aside a day and show up.''
A co-worker told Tandra Knaff of Akron about Friday's seminar.
Knaff, 39, said the seminars would be helpful for her as she tried to make some changes in her life.
Among the things Knaff said she needed to do was learning how to budget monthly since she usually spends and crosses her fingers to hope that she can pay the bills when they come due.
Finances can be an intimidating subject, so it's good to be able to have a place to come and learn about it, Cordray said. Seminar participants received a thick workbook loaded with information about all of the subjects. The same information is available on the Web site, too.
Cordray also praised the Beacon Journal's Reclaim the Dream financial savings series in educating readers. Akron has recently been named as one of four national pilot ''Savings Communities'' through the America Saves organization and the U.S. Conference of Mayors.
''It's a perfect match for the things we're doing,'' he said. ''There are hundreds of people here, but there are 11.5 million Ohioans. That's an intimidating task for us to reach out to all Ohioans.''
Betty Lin-Fisher can be reached at 330-996-3724 or blinfisher@thebeaconjournal.com.
The women were in a session about credit and debt at the Ohio treasurer's office's Women & Money conference held at Copley High School. The event drew an audience of about 300 to learn about such other subjects as budgeting, entrepreneurship, investing, estate planning, and children and money.
Get the full article here.
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