Improve Your Finances with USU Extension Classes

Increase your personal finances through our series of financial literacy classes provided in partnership with Utah State University Extension-Empowering Financial Wellness. We’ll be hosting eight classes and a book club event in 2024. All of these classes are free to attend and may require registration. Below you’ll also find new personal finance books and online financial resources available for free with your library card.

USU’s Empowering Financial Wellness has a mission to empower women, limited income households, and community educators across Utah to make informed financial decisions to serve their own life goals and improve financial wellness through (1) developing innovative resources, (2) offering timely educational opportunities, and (3) increasing awareness of personal finance best-practices.

These events are free to attend. If fewer than 10 people register for a specific class, that class will be held virtually.

The Experts

Meet Kelan Combe and Vinceza Vicari-Bently are USU’s financial experts who will be teaching the below classes.

Vincenza Vicari-Bentley is an Accredited Financial Counselor and Program Coordinator for the Empowering Financial Wellness program with Utah State University-Extension, based in Salt Lake County. Vincenza is a proud military spouse, and she also earned her MBA with a focus on Marketing and Finance. Since 2015, she has been working with individuals and families providing financial counseling as well as teaching a variety of personal finance topics. She is passionate about helping others and empowering them to understand and improve their finances.

Kelan Combe is a Program Coordinator for the Empowering Financial Wellness Program, based in Salt Lake County. He has earned his BA in Family Sciences and Spanish from Brigham Young University and has been working in the financial industry helping people better manage their finances for 3 years. He is an experienced trainer and teacher in both English and Spanish and has a passion for helping others learn. He is also an avid enjoyer of Nintendo games, guitar, and the Great British Baking Show together with his wife and kids.

Upcoming Classes

April 24^th, 5pm: Book Club with Empowering Financial Wellness Team

Discuss concepts presented in The 30-day Money Cleanse: Take Control of Your Finances, Manage Your Spending, and De-stress Your Money for Good by Ashley Feinstein Gerstley. The author will be joining the conversation over Zoom!

Book synopsis:

Are you ready to break free from the stress and uncertainty of managing your money? With The 30-Day Money Cleanse, you’ll embark on a transformative journey that will empower you to regain control over your finances and create a more prosperous future.

This comprehensive book is packed with practical strategies and expert advice to help you navigate the complex world of personal finance. Ashley Feinstein Gerstley, a financial wellness expert, offers a step-by-step plan that will revolutionize the way you think about money.

By following her proven 30-day program, you’ll discover how to:

Assess your current financial situation and identify areas for improvement
Develop a realistic budget that aligns with your goals and values
Eliminate unnecessary expenses and make smarter purchasing decisions
Establish healthy money habits that will last a lifetime
Build an emergency fund and start saving for the future
Pay off debt strategically and efficiently
Invest wisely to grow your wealth and secure your financial future
Overcome mindset blocks and develop a positive relationship with money

May 22^nd, 6pm: How to Budget as a Family – Free Childcare Available

You want to teach your children about the value of saving and involve them in the family budget, so they can start practicing good financial management habits. But, oftentimes money is considered a taboo topic or just hard to talk about, especially with children or you may have grown up in a household where money matters weren’t discussed. Join us for some tips and tools to help you get the whole family involved in the money conversation, even the kids. And you don’t have to be a finance expert to be successful with these tips and tools!!

Join us to learn about:

Setting money goals as a family,
Ways kids can learn about money at different ages and stages of their education and,
Tips to get kids motivated to learn about money and budgeting.

June 13th, 6pm: Spanish Class – Prepare for the Future

You want to be able to live life on your own terms in retirement and build wealth so you can do so. Let our experts help you understand savings options that will help you save up and be able to afford the life you want to live in retirement.

Join us to learn about:

The power of compound interest
How to save for financial goals
Beginning a retirement account
Retirement savings options for non-working spouses

June 24^th, 4pm: Protect You Credit & Deter ID theft

Learn how to protect your credit and deter ID theft through these three steps:

Identity Theft red flags to look for on Credit reports
What to do if you are a victim of identity theft
Financial Best Practices for Identity Theft Protection in the Future (What to do and what not to do)

July 15th, 6pm: Maximize Your Income & Minimize Expenses

This class returns for a second appearance due to popular demand!

You have goals to achieve, and you want your budget to be a reflection of what matters most to you in life. But, if you’re like 64% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, working toward a financial goal can be daunting and even seem impossible, especially with the rising costs of the basic necessities.

Establishing reachable goals and developing new spending and saving habits can help you increase and maximize your income and minimize expenses to put even more money towards the things that matter most to you. The tools we discuss in this webinar will help you do just that!

Join us to learn practical strategies for:

Establishing attainable goals
Adjusting your daily spending
Increasing your income

August 26^th, 4pm: How to Organize Financial Records

Want all of your financial records collected and organized so you can stop feeling frustrated when you can’t find important documents? Worried that you might leave something important behind if you need to evacuate? Have you ever started this process and became immediately overwhelmed? Don’t have the time to figure it all out? Never know what to keep and what to toss? We hear you! We’ll help you create a system to get those documents organized for easy, secure access. The Household Information Records Organizer keeps all of your financial records organized and easily accessible.

Join us to learn:

How to organize financial documents for easy access.
How to create a secure storage system for your personal documents and
How to stay organized after you’ve created a system for all the paperwork in your life.

September 23^rd, 6pm -Saving for Your Future

You want to be able to live life on your own terms in retirement and build wealth so you can do so, right?? Let’s be real ladies, longevity is on our side, living at least 5 years longer than men, and 75% of women will take on the role of caregiver, which is great, but that means our retirement savings needs to last even longer. Let our experts help you understand savings options that will help you save up and be able to afford the life you want to live in retirement!

Join us to learn about:

why it’s important to pay yourself first,
the power of compound interest,
401Ks vs. IRAs and retirement savings options for non-working spouses.

November 18^th, 6pm: How to Build Credit and Increase Your Score

You want to (re)build credit and increase your credit score but you’re not sure where to begin. It can be confusing to understand how certain credit behaviors affect your score and why you may see your score go up and down like a teeter-totter. Let us teach you the tricks of the trade so that you can learn:

how to understand a credit score and your credit report.
hacks for increasing your credit score and what factors directly impact it
how to build and protect the credit of your kids and teens.

Recommended Books

The 30-Day Money Cleanse by Ashley Feinstein Gerstley

The perfect book on money management for young adults or those looking for an unintimidating guide to managing money. Readers who have tried the money cleanse have saved over $950!

Featuring journaling prompts, deep dives into the invisible aspects of the financial landscape, and interviews with money experts–Financial Feminist is the ultimate guide to making your money work harder for you.

This book asks you to examine your beliefs and experiences around money–blending extremely practical exercises with mindfulness, and includes illustrations and diagrams to make the concepts accessible (and even fun).

The Little Book of Zen Money by The Seven Dollar Millionaire

Perfect for anyone who doesn’t usually like books about money, this book proves that you don’t need to be an expert, professional, or mathematician to get great financial advice.

Online Library Resources

Consumer Reports

Consumer Reports provides ratings and reviews, recommendations, and buying advice for thousands of products including appliances, and more.

Linkedin Learning

Linkedin Learning provides an extensive library of training videos that include many personal finance courses.

Morningstar

Morningstar provides data on approximately 456,000 investment offerings, including stocks, mutual funds, and similar vehicles, and more. Learn more.

Value Line

Value Line offers access to publications covering stocks, mutual funds, options, and convertible securities, as well as special situation stocks.

Past Classes

February 26^th, 6pm: Maximize Your Income & Minimize Expenses

You have goals to achieve, and you want your budget to reflect what matters most to you in life. But, if you’re like 64% of Americans living paycheck to paycheck, working toward a financial goal can be daunting and even seem impossible, especially with the rising costs of basic necessities.