Financial Education Resources Available at Mountain America Credit Union

With today’s changing times, so many of us are experiencing heightened financial stress. Before the Coronavirus outbreak, a survey conducted by the National Endowment for Financial Education found that 79 percent of U.S. adults were stressed about money. Within that group, saving for money stressed out 54 percent of adults, and managing debt caused stress for 46 percent of adults. Whatever your financial situation is, Mountain America has educational resources to help you get through this time and continue achieving your financial dreams.
 

Seminars

Mountain America has always prioritized the importance of serving members and the public with high-quality financial education. Mountain America even has a specific team dedicated to providing free financial education to members and the public. In 2019 alone, Mountain America was able to offer free financial education to over 12,000 attendees between live events at schools, workplace seminars, and special events at places like the Loveland Living Planet Aquarium and the Mountain America Expo Center. With new social distancing measures in place, the financial education team has continued to provide workshops for audiences by offering live webinars and recorded sessions. These webinars are available by request and cover a variety of topics, including budgeting, credit scores, buying a home, retirement, and more.  To discuss educational opportunities for yourself or your business, email FinancialEd@macu.com.

Personal Financial Counseling

In response to the pandemic, the Financial Education team also started offering complimentary one-on-one financial counseling sessions to members by phone or virtual meeting. These are one-hour appointments where members can get a personalized analysis of their current situation and receive recommendations for how they can stay on track to achieve their goals.

"There are a lot of people with specific questions or needs," says Robert Steed, financial education manager at Mountain America Credit Union. "It’s free and focused on financial principles. We can talk about credit repair, debt repayment, general financial planning, basic investing, and anything in-between." During these sessions, Steed says, "We really want to focus on making sure we understand an individual’s goals. We’re looking beyond the moment to how we can help set you up for continued success."

Members interested in a one-on-one session can click here, select "Financial Counseling" and choose any branch from the list to schedule a virtual appointment.

Banzai

Another great tool offered at Mountain America is Banzai. Banzai makes financial education fun for all ages. It is an interactive educational platform that provides games, helpful articles, coaching, and other free resources to teach both kids and adults about money. Banzai can be used at home as a family or individually. But the resources go beyond games and articles. "They even have AI (artificial intelligence) coaches where you can input information, and it will help you through the debt calculation process or through the process of creating a budget," says Steed.

Mountain America also offers a variety of free online educational content in their Learning Center. Choose from blog posts, YouTube videos, podcasts, and more on a wide variety of topics. These resources are available 24/7 and are a great tool for anyone looking to learn more about how to better manage their money.

If you are concerned about your finances, don’t hesitate to reach out. Mountain America is here to help.