Jump Into Summer Finances

Summer 2022 - Newsletter

Thank You for 2021 - 2022 School Year

We wanted to thank all of you for all the hard work you have done over the past school year. We know it has been a struggle as we continue to manage another year of the pandemic with dealing with restrictions of teaching in the classroom as well as online.

As part of the newsletter, we are excited to share some wonderful news as we enter the summer months and prepare for another school year.

We are excited to share that the State of Michigan is following suit of many other states in the country in taking Financial Education seriously. The State has passed Senate Bill HB5190 in the Senate but still needs to pass it in the House of Representatives. This will require 0.5 credit of Personal Finance for high school graduation! If you want to see this class added to your school, please reach out to your representative to let them know you want them to this legislation. You can search here by putting in your address to find your representative.

With this new potential requirement, we will continue to share the different resources that you can use in and out of your classroom. Below you will find different professional development opportunities that can help you learn during the summer months. We want to hear from your on the resources that you are using that you find helpful by contacting us so we can share with our community. You can follow us and share with us on social media.

We hope all of you enjoy the summer and we look forward connecting with you with any ideas you have that can help us improve your personal finances and money story.

Scholarship Winners Are...

We wanted to thank all of you for applying for the annual student scholarship this year. We had almost 250 unique submissions this year that came from all over the State of Michigan. Responses came from across the State from the Upper Peninsula to the Thumb area. The responses were phenomenal. The stories shared of how the pandemic has shaped how you value and interact with money has been life changing. Seeing how resilient how all of you have been able to learn the value of money by earning, saving, and budgeting the money you made through starting a job or starting your own business. The actions you have been taking will be life long skills that you will continue to use and refine.

The winners are Zoie from Martin and Makaila from Ruth. Sharing your experience during the pandemic and how you have taken such an active role with your personal finances by budgeting, paying your own bills, and starting your own business.

It was hard to narrow this down since we had so many great responses. We wanted to share additional resources to help you pay for your college and avoid student loans. Here are some resources that can help you save on paying for your college costs:

Michigan Education Trust: They are celebrating their 35th anniversary and are doing a $1.5 million giveaway. They are offering 100 lucky children a $15,000 prepaid tuition. You can enter to win here.
MI Student Aid: Learn more about the Tuition Incentive Program (TIPS) that are eligible to earn qualifying certificate, associate degree program, and some bachelor degree program. You can learn more from the fact sheet on those who qualify.
Scholarship System. Building a process so you can stand out with your scholarship applications will help you win more money for your education. This program can help you flex that muscle by learning from a teacher that was able to refine their process by paying for her education through scholarships and not going into student debt. You can sign up for her free webinar to learn more.

Resource Highlight: Plinqit

Reaching your savings goals has never been easier.

Plinqit’s automatic savings tool is a non-traditional, ‘cool’ tool that helps with the first step of the financial wellness journey: SAVING MONEY. Plinqit allows users to save for specific goals using an automated mobile experience that makes it fun, rewarding, and social. AND Plinqit is the only savings platform of its kind that pays users for learning about personal finances. Plinqit rewards users through their patented Build Skills program, which pays users to complete financial literacy lessons, deeping financial capability.

Plinqit features and benefits:

Save for specific goals using an automated mobile experience that makes it fun, rewarding and social
Pay to Learn through Build Skills
Out of sight, out of mind - making reaching your savings goal more successful
Fast, simple and fun

With Plinqit, you can safely and securely create up to five savings goals, and we will help you save - for your next vacation, build an emergency fund, pay off credit card debt, get a new furry friend, or whatever.

Start saving today and reach your savings goal before you know it! Free and automatic - sign up today

Jump$tart National Teacher Conference

We are excited to share the National Educator Conference that will be taking place November 4-6, 2022 in Atlanta. This is an all-scholarship event and we are excited to sponsor two teachers this year. All scholarships are available to teachers in the State of Michigan in PreK to 12th Grade. You can learn more about the conference here.

You can apply for one of the two scholarships at the following link.

We just had around 250 student from all across the State of Michigan apply for our student scholarship so please feel free to share this with your teachers that can bring this information back to your high school to teach in your personal finance classes.

We were able to send a Michigan teacher to last year conference, Jennifer Rubin. She shared her experience with us and you can learn more here.

Professional Development Opportunity

If you are looking for free, professional development opportunities over the summer months, you can learn more below on different sources.

Next Gen Personal Finance certification course. It's a 3-week, 9 hour course where you can learn about credit, psychology of money, behavioral economics, and cryptocurrency.

They have two cohort opportunities during the summer scheduled. You can sign up for either program by checking out the details here.

Cohort #23 runs between June 6 - 21, 2022
Cohort #24 runs between June 27 - July 13, 2022
Virtual Conference: Leading the Way to Financial Capabilities will take place virtually from 10AM ET to 5:30PM ET on Saturday, June 25th. You can register here. All teachers that attend a minimum of 2 hours will receive an e-gift card.

Michigan State University Extension has several webinars throughout it's Money Management programs. Some of the topics that will be covered over the summer include wealth building, building credit, protecting your identity, homeownership, and being an informed renter.

4-H Money Crunches Boot Camp is a FREE camp for youth entering 8th - 10th grade in the fall at various sites across Michigan on July 27 - 28 from 1-5 PM EST. It will be held in 10 counties - Allegan, Bay, Delta, Grand Traverse, Jackson, Luce, Macomb, Marquette, Shiawassee, & Van Buren. You can exercise your money smarts and get financially fit. You can cross-train with financial fitness coaches to learn more about banking, saving, investing, spending plans, fraud, taxes, goals, paying for secondary education, and more.