Reflection

The things I feel went well:

•  The online forums - I feel I got the best response and I found them very useful and engaging
•  People's willingness to share personal experiences
• Their were some very strong opinions regarding lack of financial education

The things that didn't go so well:

• I needed to use engaging questions
• I found on Yahoo Answer you only really have one chance to ask a particular question
• On the questionnaire some of the answers were slighlty contradictory and I didn't get as many responses as I would have ideally liked

Reflection:

• Given more time I think I would have got more responses and I would have liked to posted on more financial forums

Success

Malcolm Gladwell believes that you have to put in 10,000 hours in order to be successful

(author of the Tipping Point).

I thought that this was an interesting quote from the author of The Tipping Point - Malcolm Gladwell, as I believe it is very relevant today even though the quote was made in 2000. Basically it is saying you 'can't have it all now' you have to put the time and effort in first and will then reap the rewards.

My Results Summary

Here are the main results that I found after ungoing my research:

• The lack of education around personal finace- I didn't know that so many people actually felt the same way in that they had little or no real knowledge of how to deal with their own finaces, and that everyone agreed that fiance should be taught at school
• That financial companies take advantage of little or no knowledge people have on fiance
• People feel pressured to have the latest gadgets and trends
• People also feel pressured to live beyond their means  

Overall Question Responses

' Do you think teenagers are educated enough on personal finance?' was the most answered question and the least answered question was ' What does the 'Buy it Now' culture mean to you? I personally believe the reason why teen finance was the most answered question was because everyone can relate to it in one way or another with either personal experience or knowing somebody i.e  a friend or family member. I also believe that possibly some people may not have completely understood what I meant by ' Buy It Now' culture or simply never thought about it and therefore hadn't really formed an opinion on it.

 

Questionnaire feedback

Here are my results from my online survey that I posted on the UEL facebook page and on the online forums I joined. From my results I found it interesting that more than half of the people that answered my survey didn't have a store or credit card but they did have an overdraft which in turn is more or less like have a card as your borrowing money that you do not have. Even though store cards obviously come with a high interest rate with them.
The overall responses:

What drives you to have a store/credit card? : Was ease of purchase and to get the discount when first opening an account for a store card

What lengths would you go to keep up with the latest trends? : To be honest the general response was that they wouldn't go to any length to keep up with the latest trends

What does the buy it now culture mean to you?: The main responses I recieve were that people want what they like now regardless of the cost, someone even described it as mindless spending , immediate purchase without considering your budget, another person said that people are very materialistic and not putting any thought into your purchase or considering it you actually need it or even want it

Do you think of the consequences of the debt when you purchase something on your card ?: More than half the respondents said they do think about the consequences of debt when purchasing goods on a card

Do your credit and store cards have an impact on your life? Basically all of the respondents apart from one said that credit and store cards have absolutely no impact on their life

The final question I asked was what is your opinion on societies morals regarding savings?
The general response was that there isn't much disposable income to save in the first place at the moment, another person said that there is always pressures to keep up with the latest trend and one person even replied that you only live once !!!!

'Want It Now' culture among students

I found another online article on the Times Higher Education but this angle was on students in reguards to students wanting the answers there and then. An instead of research properly and in depth relying on the internet for quick answers. The former vice-chancellor of the University of Kent Sir David Melville expressed his concern saying  "The use of these technologies does seem to lead to a tendency for very shallow searching for information and increases the desire for instant information."

Don't get me wrong the internet is a very useful tool that should be embraced ,but it seems to me that we are all so desperate to get what we want as quickly as we can, we have almost forgotten what hard work feels like.

http://www.timeshighereducation.co.uk/story.asp?storycode=406429