One nonprofit promoting April as Financial Literacy Month lists a separate tip for each day of the month. Gillian Anderson”™s nonprofit can cover all the bases in five sessions.
Anderson”™s local chapter of  Foundation for Personal Financial Education (FPFE) makes itself available for seminar series with organizations as sophisticated as GE Capital and the Financial Accounting Standards Board, bringing FPFE in to help employees with sticky questions on their personal finances. The seminars are open to all comers, but tend to attract women, according to FPFE chapter coordinator Anne Wilkins.
Women increasingly are placing a strong emphasis on self-reliance, according to a 40-page study published in mid-February by the Westport-based MetLife Mature Market Institute. MetLife MMA said that holds true as well for women”™s wishes to better provide for children and grandchildren, including in cases where those children suffer financial setbacks of no fault of their own, such as the loss of a job or a divorce.
“What”™s apparent from this study is that having a plan for independence is important for family financial security, especially for women as they age,” said Sandra Timmermann, director of the MetLife Mature Market Institute, in a statement released in conjunction with the study. “Many clearly don”™t want to rely on their families.”
In separate study released annually each March by the National Foundation for Credit Counseling, fully 73 percent of U.S. adults surveyed said they are concerned about their finances.
The financial literacy machine revs up at tax time each year, first with the “America Saves Week” in late February followed by Financial Literacy Month in April. In a 30-step program of sorts, FinancialLiteracyMonth.com lists committing to change as the first and most important step, followed by staying on track and relying on experts for advice.
Myriad local institutions also offer financial literacy workshops, from banks like First County Bank and Webster Bank to nonprofits like SCORE and the Women”™s Business Development Center; to schools like Western Connecticut State University in Danbury.
For its part, FPFE”™s volunteers can handle queries on some of the most sophisticated issues faced households with assets, but the workshops cater to all.
“You”™d be surprised,” Wilkins said. “At every crowd we get, there are people who are sophisticated, and there are those who are not.”
The workshops are made available for free ”“ and FPFE promises there is no sell-job attached from the professionals who deliver the sessions.
“If there is even one complaint, we get our charter yanked,” Wilkes said.
That has resonated even with companies with ample financial acumen within their walls like GE Capital, FASB and Xerox Corp., all based in Norwalk. The San Diego-based FPFE also has a Hartford-area chapter and one in New York City.
Wilkes day job is working in Anderson”™s Genworth affiliate Anderson Wealth Management in Westport. Other FPFE team members include:
Ӣ Rachel Faiga, founder of Fairfield-based Long Term Planning Associates L.L.C, whose specialty is long-term care insurance;
Ӣ Ann Fowler-Cruz, an attorney with the Danbury office of Cohen & Wolf P.C., who focuses on trusts and estates; and
Ӣ Patricia Rattay in the Stamford office of William Pitt SothebyӪs International Realty.
If there is still one person missing from the seminar team, it is a CPA or tax professional. After that, Wilkins thinks they”™ve got the bases covered between experts on personal finance, long-term care, estate planning and real estate.
“We”™d like to have 10 gigs a year,” Wilkins said. “We”™ve got it down to a science.”