In 2006, recent Harvard grad Alexa von Tobel was headed for a job at Morgan Stanley. But though she would soon be managing the bank’s investments, she realized she didn’t know the first thing about her own finances. Most financial guides seemed to be written for middle-aged readers with millions in assets, rather than recent college grads. "I was reading every book I could find, but none of them spoke to me," she says. So she came up with the idea for LearnVest, an online personal-finance resource for young women like her, and ended up writing an 80-page business plan.
After two years at Morgan Stanley, von Tobel entered Harvard Business School in 2008. But upon winning a business plan competition held by Astia, a non-profit that supports women entrepreneurs, she took a five-year leave of absence and invested $75,000 of her Wall Street earnings to start LearnVest in November. She quickly enlisted advisors, including Betsy Morgan, the former CEO of the Huffington Post, and Catherine Levene, the former COO of DailyCandy, to help develop the site’s content and technology. In January 2009, she secured $1.1 million in seed funding from executives at Goldman Sachs.
LearnVest’s site launched a year later and has since signed up more than 100,000 members. It offers online budgeting calculators, video chats with certified financial planners on the company’s staff, and free e-mail tutorials on topics such as opening an IRA. The company earns revenue from advertising and by referring its users to companies such as TD Ameritrade. In April, after just four weeks of fundraising, von Tobel closed a $4.5 million investment round led by Accel Partners, which has also invested in Facebook and Etsy. (Incidentally, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg lived in the same dorm as von Tobel at Harvard.)
Von Tobel likens LearnVest to an online version of The Suze Orman Show, but with the goal of reinforcing positive finance habits early on. “Suze Orman helps 45-year-old women get out of debt,” she says. “Why not reach 20-year-olds to keep them from getting into debt?”
What a fantastic basic concept.
Hitler lost the second world war because he attacked Russia too soon. udervise ve vood all be speeking Deutsch now.
We employed the alternative massively effective budgetting tool.
Be a self employed Engineer for 15 years with take home pay of £50K a year and spend it all (and more besides, because ‘I want one of those NOW’) because ‘my jobs safe’.
Watch as the banks destroy the worlds finances.
Suddenly realise that over 90% of British industry is ultimately owned by Japanese investment banks, who suddenly have no money to fulfill their legal obligations to complete legislation driven improvment projects.
Watch as my £50K a year take home falls to ZERO.
Start a brand new business with Kleeneze (sorry not available in the USA) Which although it’s building really well is , after all, a business and needs time.
Suddenly HAVE to live on £18K a year GROSS.
Best Motivation for re-inventing your budget that anyone can have LOL.
We used to spend about £1,000 a month on groceries, now we spend around £300 a month, AND we eat more healthily.
Fortunately the finance on my car ended a month after our income disappeared saving us £375 a month.
We’ve sold my wifes’ car (THAT hurt) it was a really nice car, but it was costing us £489 a month in finance.
We’ve moved to a cheaper house saving us £400 a month in rent.
We’ve cancelled everything that wasn’t absolutely essential - including SKY and the TV license (It’s true, you don’t die if you turn the telly off!)
We still have creditors who we’re negotiating reduced payments and frozen interest with, but basically we are starting again from scratch.
We won’t fall into the credit trap again
Certainly not in the next six years or more ‘cos no-one in their right mind will give us credit now anyway!!
The one thing that keeps coming back to me though is
WHY aren’t our schools teaching kids how to budget? It’s a thousand times more important than even the basics.
Who cares if you can’t spell budgit if you can make one and stick to it.
It CAN’T be one of the things that are left to parents because nobody ever taught us!
Back to subject,
Your article is brilliant and if it helps one person (which I’m sure it already has) to get out or stay out of debt then you’ve done a service to humanity.
Keep it up &
we’ll see you
OVER the top
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We all require money to live, and while learning about personal finance might not be the most interesting topic for many of us, it is essential. For those that want to get the most out of life learning and understanding personal finance skill is extremely important.
Learn to Save
Many of us are never taught in school how to save, but it is an extremely powerful tool. By saving now, you can plan for the future, live more comfortably, purchase large priced items or do the things that you always wanted. Saving requires discipline, as well as a strategy making it easier for you to sock away hundreds or even thousands of dollars per year.
Learn How to Budget Your Money
Creating a budget is also essential. It is extremely important that each of us knows where our money comes from and how it is spent. Believe it or not, millions have no idea how much money they spend each month or what they spend it on. Many of us are thousands of dollars a year off the mark. If you want to be successful at personal finance, you should learn about budgeting and understand how to effectively use it.
Learn How to Build Credit
Credit is essential in our society. Almost everything we do (buy a home, car, get a job, purchase insurance) all revolves whether we have good credit or bad credit. Credit can either help you or hurt you; building good credit can open up many doors and remove barriers in your life. While building credit can take time and require you to be disciplined and responsible, learning the facets of building good credit is priceless.
Learn How to Invest
Saving money isn't enough; you must understand how to make your savings work hard for you. The difference between saving 40K and $200K over 30 years is the difference between putting money in your mattress or investing money in the stock market. Learning how to invest is essential to achieving your personal finance goals.
For those looking to have a fulfilling life with the fiscal freedom to purchase the things that are needed, as well as the things that you always dreamed about, learning and understanding the above topics on personal finance is essential.
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