Money flew around Bryan Jr. Auditorium, as students tried to catch what they could, giggling in the process. Sophomore Morgaine Johnson and senior Imeh Ntuen emerged from the box of floating money with $17 and $25 respectively, all in $1 bills.
“I am totally stoked for this,” said Milner hall director Dennis Scott. “I have a problem saving; I spend – it’s the wrong ‘s.’ I want to win money!”
Patrick McGarrity from Chicago, Illinois distracted students from their stressful school week in a recent CAB-sponsored interactive event entitled ‘Big Money’ on April 7 teaching students how to save money.
“(CAB has) reconstructed itself, adding an educational path,” said sophomore CAB member Morgaine Johnson. “Guilford hasn’t seen (enough) interactive, important seminars yet.”
McGarrity incorporated his own comedic version of the popular show Street Smarts to give the audience a laugh while they learned about money.
One question read: “Pronounce the word Amortization and use it in a sentence.” Since neither one of the people from the video clips answered correctly, I gained a chance to choose a bill out of a bag. Just like that, I had won $10. (Amortization, I learned, means to gradually reduce a debt by regularly putting aside money.)
McGarrity advised the audience to pay at least the interest plus minimum payment owed on bills, calling those who pay their entire balance on time each month “superstars.”
He went on to warn that for students who have an account with a bank other than Wachovia, taking money out of our campus ATM can get costly. Though only $2 is charged for each transaction, a habit of this is dangerous.
Humor was McGarrity’s specialty as he continued to enlighten the crowd with his wisdom, showing an Family Guy clip of Peter trying to pay for a cup of lemonade with a debit card and ruining the lemonade stand when told he needed cash.
Why, might you ask, should you listen to this random guy from Chicago? He was $7000 in credit card debt when he graduated college, not including his student loan debt.
“I run Big Money because no one did it for me,” said McGarrity. “I didn’t get the education. I got in trouble and am trying to give back.”
Paying it forward was a common theme of Big Money.
McGarrity expressed his views that getting a credit card may be a good idea for a college student. Beginning to establish good credit is important in case you want to purchase a car or apartment in the future. Credit can even affect getting a job.
Credit card interest rates are high, but if you get a card and pay the balance back or make the suggested payment of interest plus minimum balance due, you shouldn’t have to worry.
It’s always good to have an idea of what your credit report looks like: annualcreditreport.com will give you a free idea of this, once every four months. Despite the notion suggested by popular commercials, freecreditreport.com is not actually free unless you cancel within thirty days.
Following the steps that McGarrity laid out, it is possible for anyone, regardless of any debt they may already be in, to be reborn into monetary “superstar”-dom. Super Paulette – now that has a nice ring to it.