The Financial Literacy Initiative at Dartmouth College
Investing in Savings and Bonds
According to the FDIC, 8.2% of households did not have a savings or checking account in 2011. In some subpopulations rates were much higher than this: 21.7% for African American households and 19.3% for Hispanic households. Such households rely on check cashing services such as those offered at WalMart for cashing their paycheck or other needs.
Most people, however, choose to use banks to save money and earn modest interest on it. This module explores how money grows over time in a savings account, and extends the discussion to savings bonds and treasury bills, which are also conservative mechanisms for growing wealth.
We suggest that instructors open the instructor notes for this module, save them as a PDF file, and print them for reference.
This module also includes assessment tools (pre and post test) and a case study for deeper investigation of this topic. These resources are available by contacting Audrey Brown .
Contributors:
Eric Gaze, Bowdoin College,
Dorothy Wallace, Dartmouth College, Kim Rheinlander, Dartmouth College, Caren Diefenderfer, Hollins University