PET Newsletter Sample

Learning How To Budget!

Many of you may have started your first job this summer, or you are already seasoned employees familiar with the excitement and benefits of receiving hard-earned paychecks. Regardless of your working experiences, as we near the end of the summer, some of you may look at your bank account and wonder, “Where has all my money gone?”. While it can be very disappointing to realize that you probably spent too much money on that Harry Styles concert, online shopping, or takeout, don't let it get in the way of learning valuable budgeting skills. Budgeting is a great way to keep track of your income and spending habits and help you reach your financial goals throughout any stage of your life.

To begin budgeting, think about these critical questions:

• How much money can I reliably expect to receive weekly/biweekly/monthly?

• What are my necessities and fixed expenses?

  • Fixed expenses are payments you need to make from period to period that does not change in monetary value. For example, you are a student paying for a Spotify membership that charges $4.99 monthly. It’s a fixed expense because you enjoy listening and cannot imagine canceling your membership at any point in the near future, so it’s a bill you have to pay.

• What are my short-term and long-term financial goals?

  • The length of time for each goal can vary from person to person, so you need to define each one for yourself. For example, your short-term goal could be that you hope to save $1,000 for a new iPhone by the end of the year. Meanwhile, your long-term goal is to have enough money to buy a car within five years.

• How much money do I want to save weekly/biweekly/monthly?

  • If you’re starting out, saving money can be challenging. Do not stress; any amount counts, even if it’s just $5 weekly. That money will continue to grow consistently, and you will build good saving habits.

• How much money do I want to set aside as spending money?

  • This is money you can use to treat yourself at any time! Be free from the unnecessary money-spending guilt. By the time you think about setting money aside for spending, you would have already taken care of fixed expenses and savings.

• Are there any expenses that I can cut back on to reach my financial goals?

Remember, you can easily modify these questions to fit your financial budgets and goals. Once you have thoroughly reviewed these questions, you can then move forward and select the best budgeting tool for you. There are so many ways to keep track of your income and expenses. (Link to some resources) There are apps on your phone, and even spreadsheets and templates online. Use these tools to ensure all the answers to your questions are addressed. Select your preferred method, and start!

Honorable Mentions

Platinum Edge Tutoring wants to highlight Isaac Hertenstein! He is a sixteen-year-old student from Greencastle, passionate about teaching younger students the basics of financial literacy. Through his nonprofit, Students Teaching Finance, he has created programs for students in kindergarten to 8th grade that provide essential knowledge on spending and saving. Hertenstein hopes to build strong foundations of knowledge to help students make educated decisions in the future. He wants students to begin thinking about substantial financial investments like college and understand the process of committing to those investments.

Check out his story!

---

New School Year, New Me

The start of a new school year means new classes, new friends, new teachers, and much more exciting, but sometimes very stressful, events. Even if you are a student or parent that loves change and thrives in an active environment, at some point, it can get very overwhelming. When you get to that point, do not let it consume you. There are many activities and tools available to you that can help you prioritize your well-being and focus on your goals.

Here are three ways to improve your mental health:

• Journal, it can be fun sometimes…

  • Take the time out of your day to write down your thoughts. This is the perfect opportunity to learn more about yourself and what may be troubling you. Through this method, you’ll be able to express your thoughts freely and gain clarity about your environment, friends, family, and interests. Sometimes when your thoughts solely exist in your head, they can trick you into believing that you have solved your issues. Even worse, negative emotions and feelings associated with a specific problem can continue to resurface and impact the way you behave without realizing it. This can be avoided easily by writing about the issue, analyzing all the relevant factors, and creating a solution. Once you have figured out your next steps, you can approach the situation with a clear mind, hold yourself accountable to enact change, and track your personal growth through every journal entry.

• Exercise! (you might even end up liking it)

  • Incorporating an exercise routine about three to five times per week can improve your mood, release stress, and maintain your physical health. Whether it is weight training, boxing, riding a bike, or simply going on walks, make it an enjoyable time for yourself. Put on your headphones, listen to podcasts and music, or catch up on your favorite show.

• Hobbies

  • When looking for ways to remain calm, cool, and collected, focus on what you love to do. Set aside some time every week to work on your hobbies. Not only will it help you relax, but you will also develop interesting skills and improve on them the more consistent you are. Love to sing and dance? Join a club or take some lessons. Want to learn how to play the guitar or paint? Watch YouTube videos at home and teach yourself!

Honorable Mentions

Platinum Edge Tutoring’s Health & Wellness highlight of the month is the New York State Office of Mental Health (OMH). Only July 18, Mayor Eric Adams announced that OMH had invested 10.8 million dollars in New York City’s free mental health helpline, NYC Well. This program helps provide counseling, crisis intervention, and referrals to treatments for New Yorkers. Through additional funding, NYC Well will increase its capacity by 20%, and counselors will be able to offer up support for over 500,000 calls and texts over the next year. You can access NYC Well by calling 1-888-NYC-WELL, texting WELL to 65173, or going to their online chat.

Read More About It!

---

Crash Course on Career Technical Education

Career Technical Education programs provide students of all ages the opportunity to participate in work-based learning to develop highly sought-after skills. CTE helps students understand how their school learning will be applied in the real world. Whether students pursue higher education or enter the workforce, the knowledge they acquire from CTE programs will help them incorporate technical, academic, and employable skills needed to gain living-wage employment.

CTE programs offer:

• Specific career paths across 16 career clusters through specialized finance, marketing, human services programs, and more.

• Opportunities to earn industry-recognized certifications

• Access to career mentoring, internships, shadowing events

• Courses in Career and Financial Management that will help prepare students to manage their money

Honorable Mentions

This month, Platinum Edge tutoring wants to give a spotlight to Dawn Daniels for developing Maritime Careers of New York Harbor, an education program that introduces children to maritime culture and career opportunities. Students from P.S. 31 in St. George, Staten Island, were taken on a trip to visit the Atlantic Salt Company last month. The program was driven by Daniel’s realization that it could serve as a pipeline to local industry. She is motivated to connect children to work opportunities after discovering that about 15 percent of children under 18 in Staten Island live in poverty. This program is one of many career and technical education programs developed to offer students more than just the conventional career path.

Click to learn more!

The Unexpected Benefits of Online Learning

By William Denning

Tutor — Platinum Edge Tutoring

This year I had the opportunity to support one of our amazing CBO partners, Breakthrough New York (BTNY), and teach a year-long SSAT prep class to the current cohort of seventh graders. While I had previously taught classes in person, teaching online came with a whole new set of challenges and strategies.

Test preparation can be tedious enough — but how would I be able to both effectively teach content during sessions and inspire kids to practice on their own outside of classes? It seemed as if our lessons might easily get lost in the sea of windows and open tabs on the students’ computer screens.

I was initially focused on mitigating the potential drawbacks of moving to an online platform and it wasn’t until after a few months that I actually started to recognize some of the benefits. Test prep is a unique field, one that combines functional knowledge with a game-like strategy. The test will always be the same — there are no surprises or secret sections. Therefore, confidence and familiarity become the students’ most valuable tools. As it turns out, working alone without the background noise or furious scribbling of their classmates bolstered some of the students' confidence. Madison, a student from the Manhattan class, noted that she finds middle school classrooms loud and distracting, which affected her reading performance. She said, “I’ll just lower my volume. Then it's easier to focus and there's not as many distractions as opposed to in a school building.” I hadn’t thought of this, but working by themselves can give the students who often compare themselves to others a new sense of confidence. 

“Test prep is a unique field, one that combines functional knowledge with a game-like strategy … Therefore, confidence and familiarity become the students’ most valuable tools.”

That is not to say that working online didn’t have its own set of challenges, especially when it came to student feedback during class. Throughout the semester, our team developed new strategies for student responses such as polls, games, and shared documents. That way, students could have varied opportunities for contribution beyond simply just speaking in a session.

Homework, too, saw some adjustments. One of our most successful strategies was consistent vocabulary practice. The other tutors and I assigned the students weekly vocabulary words to learn and form sentences with. While, at the beginning, progress seemed slow as we were only adding 5 words per class, the pacing and spaced repetition was extremely successful with the students. I found my students remembering difficult words weeks and months after we had initially reviewed them.

A few of our BTNY scholars + Program Manager(s) and Tutor(s) :)

Another Manhattan student, Shaikh noted, “I would probably say vocabulary [is the easiest part of the SSAT] because math takes a bit more time to learn but vocabulary you could learn if you know the synonyms and roots of the words.” Some of my other students also noted their improved performance and confidence with our vocabulary building strategies.

For me, teaching test prep comes with the unique responsibility of not only teaching, but encouraging effective study skills and habits. I often used anecdotes about my own test prep or other students to help the BTNY kids to visualize their entire test prep process. After all, test prep should always have an ending point. Whether it is attaining a target score or building a subtle confidence, I encourage the students from the beginning to visualize their test day. Where are they taking the test? What is the first section? Furthermore, in which sections will they be pressed for time? In which sections can they relax? I found that this visualization exercise can be especially valuable for students who find themselves nervous and overwhelmed when the timer starts. 

A few more BTNY scholars + Program Manager(s) and Tutor(s) :)

This summer, I’d like to continue to bolster their confidence with a greater emphasis on timed practice. Working with time limits can be the most nerve-wracking part for many test takers, and weekly practice with a ticking timer makes students more comfortable working at a quick pace and moving on when necessary. I am excited to work with the students as the test approaches, and will encourage them to make their own individualized list of strategies and reminders to review before test day. With a little more practice, I am confident that the students will be performing better than they initially even thought possible!

Social-Emotional Learning: Balancing Emotions and Knowledge for Success

In the age of COVID and increasing academic pressure, it’s becoming more difficult to keep emotions in check and focus on the tasks at hand: homework, reading, extra-curricular activities, and nourishing social time with friends and loved ones. Social-Emotional Learning (SEL) is focused on how we acquire, process, and use knowledge while managing emotions, personal goals, and navigating the world through caring decisions. It’s an approach to growing well-rounded, community-engaged young adults for a more equitable future. Through SEL, students learn to balance emotional and social growth along with academic knowledge for a healthy and holistic future. 

What are the Components of SEL?

Social-Emotional Learning uses a systematic approach to establish equitable learning environments across classrooms, schools, families, and communities. SEL bases its core emphasis on five intersecting aspects of a student's life: self-awareness, self-management, social awareness, relationship skills, and responsible decision making. Here’s what you need to know about each of the five elements of the SEL framework:

• Self-awareness brings the ability to understand emotions, thoughts, and values and how they affect life. Through practices of self-awareness, students integrate personal and social identities, language assets, and emotions through understand how they connect to personal values and growth mindset. 

• Self-management focuses on managing emotions in balance with personal goals and aspirations with a focus on stress management strategies and organizational skills for personal and collective agency. 

• Responsible decision-making focuses on curiosity and open-mindedness and the process of discerning judgment in social situations. It recognizes how a student uses critical thinking skills beyond the classroom in developing their role as an interconnected part of their family and community. 

• Relationship skills focus on establishing and maintaining relationships that support all parties in the relationship. This practice involves effective communication, cultural competency, and collaborative problem-solving through teamwork. 

• Social awareness is the ability to understand other perspectives and demonstrate empathy across cultures and backgrounds. Like SEL, social awareness focuses on recognizing strengths in others as well as demonstrating compassion and expressing gratitude. 

Through addressing the five elements of SEL, students assess their personal strengths and limitations within each aspect and how they intersect. Once students have a greater understanding of their strengths and limitations, SEL can help families develop support systems and plan for equitable learning in a healthy and nourishing learning environment — at home, in school, and beyond. 

Why Use Social-Emotional Learning Strategies?

Social-Emotional Learning shifts a student’s life in both the short and long term. A support plan can immediately change a student’s attitude towards themselves, peers, and loved ones as well as their perception of the classroom or tutoring environment. This shift, in time, brings increased academic success and lowers emotional stress, which in turn may lower conduct problems and drug use. Over time, the balanced approach of SEL prepares students for college and careers, improves mental health, and can increase civic engagement. 

SEL provides students with tools beyond the classroom, encouraging students’ growth into more empathetic, grounded, and compassionate adults, not only driven to succeed academically but also inspired to participate in equitable social justice within their community and beyond. Through improved emotional health and attention comes improved academic success, passion, and drive to make each student’s dream a priority. 

For more questions on SEL practices, academic tutoring, and/ or classroom support, reach out today at info@platinumedgetutoring.com.

Investing – Is Middle School Too Early to Start?

Investing is simply the practice of allocating money or other resources into places it can grow in the future. The days of depending on the interest from a bank savings account have long been over as the average interest rate is under 1%.

Earning interest from a certificate of deposit (CD) or money market account doesn’t push the return much higher and, in the case of a CD, comes with restrictions on how much and how long money can be left in the account and the interest that can be accrued. Conversely, money market funds can be opened for as little as $1 with no monthly fees attached.

As a result of low returns from our “safer” investments, it’s important for younger students to broaden their perspectives to include what used to be considered risky investments such as equities (stock market). The key is learning the difference between investing and speculating, which is ultimately determined by your understanding of the world.

To understand some of the risks, historical context is required. One of the strongest indexes in today’s market is the Standard & Poor’s (S&P) 500, a group of the largest U.S. companies from the New York Stock Exchange and the technology-rich Nasdaq. Since its inception in 1926, the S&P 500 has produced an average annual return of about 10%. So, in other words, an investment of $5,000 would result in a yearly profit of $500 in the first year (and grow from there).

Some older investors (more so speculators) have been wary of the stock market because of its ups and downs. But the facts are that, in most years, stocks will rise rather than fall. That has been particularly true in the last 20 years. Only four times in the last 18 years has the S&P 500 declined in value with the worst year being 2008 during the last recession in the U.S.

It is important to draw the distinction here between investors and speculators. An investor generally believes in some underlying fundamental and is in it for the long-haul. Price fluctuations matter little for someone who views the world in this way.

And, investors are generally rewarded.

Take our example of the initial investment of $5k above that generates 10% annually. When we plug this into a compound interest calculator, we can see that in 10 years, your total invested funds swell to $12,968.71.

But the real magic happens when you mix the habit of saving with investing. Imagine now, that you were able to contribute $100 per month in addition to your initial investment.

If you were able to hold-out, delay gratification, and re-invest your profits, in 10 years, you’d have $32,093.62.

Can you save $150 per month? That gets you to $41,656.08.

Did you see that?

With just such a small change in a monthly habit (saving $50 extra), you were able to add nearly $10k to your future income.

The market (and life) rewards positive habits such as these.

Speculators, in general, have not developed some of the habits outlined above. They are in it for the “quick flip.” Some maybe skeptical and outright suspicious of the market.

Crashes and other unfortunate events generally mark the worst (if not the end) of such individuals, as they rush to pull out what little money they have left.

BUT, because they’ve just pulled out, compound interest and appreciation both stop, and they miss out on all the future gains that would have balanced out their returns.

Remember, that 10% figure above was an average rate of return. Some years might be lower, some higher. However, if you forget your strategy (your habit of investing a set amount of money weekly, monthly, or quarterly) and sell out due to fear, you automatically cut your future earnings.

Also remember an important quote: “It’s not ‘timing’ the market, but ‘time in’ the market. In other words, don’t try to “make a quick buck,” but stay the course, and let compounding do its thing.

It should also be noted that the level of risk can be lowered by balancing your portfolio with various types of index, mutual, and exchange traded funds (ETF’s) rather than buying individual company stocks. Some mutual funds invest partially in bonds which often go up when more aggressive growth stocks are down. Keeping your portfolio balanced is critical in achieving your investment goals.

There are plenty of financial institutions that have long excellent track records such as Vanguard, Fidelity, TD Ameritrade, Merrill Lynch and Charles Schwab, which provide customer service and many online tools to wisely manage your assets. In addition, some new kids on the block like Robinhood and Webull have become popular recently.

Even in Middle School, Students Should Learn To Budget For College

Being a middle-school student has always been complicated — from new relationships to solving for “x”.

What often falls through the cracks in the maturation process though is an education about money - particularly, saving, budgeting, and growing it. Both students who plan to attend college and those who don’t, should sit down and begin a series of thoughtful conversations with their parents, guardians, or other responsible adult as soon as possible to learn about the process.

As adept as students are on a computer these days, a program like Microsoft Excel or online tools like this Free Online Budget Planner or of course Mint.com, offer simple ways to calculate income and expenses.

A good exercise for a student is to make a simple spreadsheet of their parents’ monthly budget. It will teach them about how much running a household costs and the value of saving money and eliminating wasteful expenditures. After completing the spreadsheet, the student should suggest ways to allocate funds for college and items that could be trimmed or cut to create extra money.

One of the best ways for parents to save for college is by taking that extra money and establishing a college savings plan, or a 529. It’s a method to save for education in a tax-advantaged way. All the contributions are made in after-tax dollars, but the earnings are tax-deferred. The money is tax-free when used for qualified education expenses. Anyone of any age can open one with any amount of money no matter what their relationship to the beneficiary is. It’s a perfect birthday or Christmas present from aunts and uncles or grandparents. The beneficiary can even be changed or the money can be used for private K-12 schools.

Before a student is old enough to work, a weekly allowance might be considered by parents or other relatives and a local checking account should be opened. To be fair to the student, any school supplies or other monies required for school should be excluded from the allowance. Regardless of the weekly amount, it should be used as a source of savings or spending on entertainment such as video games, music, or movies. Learning how to set the balance between spending and savings is critical. If it can be done in middle school, it can be done in college or as an adult.

The key lesson that must be learned is to stay within your budget. If parents or other relatives bail out students when they overspend, it defeats the purpose of the exercise. It also provides them with the false illusion that a safety net is always there.

When a middle-school student is old enough to work part-time, they should do so in lieu of an allowance. Robert Johnson, senior financial consultant of New Century Investor Services in Cranbury, N.J., says, “Having a job, besides being a student, helps kids to learn about money very early.” Tracking your spending on a weekly and monthly basis is a good habit to get into, experts say.

However, it must be stressed that, just because a student has a job, it doesn’t mean they get to slack off in school. Balancing school, work, and play is a skill that will pay off for the rest of your life.

Learning how to be financially responsible is one of life’s most important lessons. There are plenty of adults who never learn it. But, with the costs of college (and most everything else…) so high today, it’s more crucial than ever that students, even as young as in middle school, try to understand at least the basics of good budgeting to save for college/ their future and reduce the amount of student loans or other debt they have to pay after they graduate.