Website makes money talks easier

An interactive website from the Investment Education Fund (IEF) is garnering attention for helping improve financial literacy among students.
Through a website called Get Smart About Money, IEF – which is established by the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), and not affiliated with other financial institutions – provides free financial advice in an easy-to-understand manner, and offers online links and tools to help manage finances.
According to University of Toronto grad student and student blogger Stacey Bowman, what distinguishes this financial website from countless others is that it targets a very specific demographic – young adults.
“The topics range from everything, like making a written budget […] to understanding exactly how student loans and interest rates work, to credit card literacy,” said Bowman, noting that writing for the website has become a learning experience for her as well. “It sort of illuminates this gap in financial literacy that I think exists in our generation.”
In a section titled “School of Savings,” Bowman writes about her experiences as a grad student and how she manages her finances.
The website’s content and design is based on studies of effective learning, and showcases what people look for in a financial help website.
“It’s not enough to just put the information out there,” said Perry Quinton, vp marketing at IEF. “You really have to engage people.”
Lina Abdosh, a second-year student at York, thinks a website like this would help her better manage her finances.
“I don’t really don’t use [financial help websites] too much because they take you to one link, and then another link […] it’s just too time consuming, so usually I just go straight to the registrar’s office,” she said “If there was a website that broke those things down for you step by step, I would definitely take advantage of that.”
You can visit the website at www.getsmartaboutmoney.ca.
Tamara Khandaker
Correction
The March 16 news article “Website makes money talks easier” noted the name of the website was “Get Smart About Money,” and listed getsmartaboutmoney.ca as the web ad- dress. In fact, the correct name of the site is “Get Smarter About Money” and the correct address is getsmarteraboutmoney.ca