Smart Personal Finance Series

The South Alabama Center for Business Analytics, Real Estate, and Economic Development, in collaboration with the Mitchell College of Business, is introducing Smart Personal Finance Series to help people become better at making their personal finance decisions. The Series includes 45-60 minutes long seminars featuring practical personal finance topics. They are intended for on-campus education for USA students and employees, as well as for off-campus education for community and corporate audience. 

Thus far, the following topics have been presented to USA, Spring Hill College and University of Mobile students during the two introductory seminars:

1) Staying Money-Wise During College - Keeping your student loans and college-life spending in check. 

This seminar is geared towards younger students. It touches on real numbers about how much money it actually takes to get an undergraduate degree at USA, including tuition, books, and various student life expenses,how to pay for all of it, the realities of how student loans work and tips for reducing student loan interest. 

2) Managing Your Money After Graduation - The car, the house, the ring? Making responsible money decisions with your first paycheck. 

This seminar is geared towards students who are expecting to graduate in the near future. It addresses what to expect when students start earning salaries after graduation, including what net earnings to expect from gross earnings, how to allocate budget items for monthly expenses, and the importance of understanding the time value of money and the earnings potential of starting an investment plan early.

Each topic can be customized for various types of audience and we use interactive tools during each seminar to keep the audience engaged. Dr. Reid Cummings, Assistant Professor of Finance and Real Estate at the Mitchell College of Business leads the seminars. The Center plans to offer additional seminars in the future. Potential topics include:

• Should I buy or rent?
• How to assess cost of living when moving for a job to another city?
• How to buy a house?
• How to save for retirement and why start now?
• How to buy a car?
• How to decide on mortgage?
• Should I refinance my mortgage and how?
• How to build my credit?
• What life documents to have in place in case of family emergency? 

The Center welcomes suggestions on additional topics of interest and we are open to taking the seminars off-campus for community education and corporate training. Please direct your questions and inquires to Jana Stupavsky at (215) 460-6702 or at jstupavsky@southalabama.edu.