At CESI, it is our mission to empower people to overcome their financial challenges and lead financially healthy lives. We believe that empowered individuals create healthy families, which in turn create healthy communities.

We are pleased to present our new digital learning platform where people (individuals) will have access to a broad selection of topics to help them on the road to financial wellness (health).

Our financial literacy offerings include the following:

Budgeting Basics

Learn to build and adjust a personalized budget:

• Track expenses, gather records, organize your tracking system, and enter your data
• Distinguish between needs and wants
• Identify what makes a budget successful
• Name some budget busters to avoid

College Finance & Student Loan Debt

Explore how you can pay for college and learn about repayment options for student loans:

• Why debit cards are preferred over credit cards as a money management tool for young adults
• Identify different sources to pay for college
• Learn about types of loans and repayment options
• Define “default” and recognize consequences of defaulting on a student loan
• Get online help with student loans

Financial Goal Setting

Create your own SMART financial goals and savings plan:

• Define why financial goals are important to you
• Create your own SMART goals
• Apply 5 steps to successful financial goal setting
• Learn about potential roadblocks, ways to manage them and ways to stay motivated with financial goal setting

Planning for Retirement

Learn how to start preparing financially for retirement and answer some of the basic questions regarding retirement planning:

• Identify your retirement goals
• Determine how much you will need for your retirement
• Consider possible sources of retirement income
• Identify different types of retirement investment options
• Learn to maximize your savings for retirement
• Identify  roadblocks to retirement readiness and some possible ways to overcome those roadblocks

Preventing and Protecting from Identity Theft

Empower yourself to guard against identity theft, scams and frauds:

• Learn what ID theft is
• How does ID theft happen
• Recognize warning signs of ID theft
• Take actions to reduce, prevent and protect from ID theft
• What identifying information should be protected
• Next steps if you are a victim of ID theft
•  Learn to recognize fraud and scams and how to avoid them

The Basics on Saving Money

Start taking simple steps to save money:

• Why it is important to save money
• Identify ways to start saving money and become aware of Individual Development Accounts (IDAs)
• Learn about simple  vs. compound interest and where to find compound interest
• Identify ways to save money

Understanding Credit and Debt

Managing credit and debt:

• Learn the basics of credit and the various types of credit
• Identify ways to use credit wisely and potential consequences of using credit unwisely
• Distinguish between good debt and bad debt
• Calculate debt to income ratio.
• Identify spending habits that can lead to debt
• Manage your debt: identify options and resource

Understanding Credit Reports and Scores

Learn how to request and read your credit report, dispute any errors in your report, and potential ways to improve your credit score:

• What is a credit report, and who are the three credit reporting agencies?
• Learn how to get your free report from the only federally authorized source
• Learn who can look at your credit report, what is in a credit report, and what to look for on your own credit report
• Learn about your credit score, how it is calculated, and the impact of credit scores
• Identify how to improve or rebuild your credit as well as how to dispute wrong information on your credit report

Budgeting for Homeownership

Learn the budgeting skills necessary to maintain homeownership

• Learn to build a budget as a homeowner
• Learn what to consider for your specific stage of life
• Distinguish between needs and wants
• Identify what makes a budget successful
• What budget-busters a homeowner may encounter

Our digital modules are completely free and funded in large part by the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). To ensure that we are serving the full range of our community, we ask that you complete the registration questionnaire, which will keep our classes cost-free.