YOUNG, FABULOUS AND BROKE!

Three University Student Bloggers Put the "Personal" Back into
Personal Finance with Cyberspace Tales of Money Woes and Sleepless Nights
in New "School of Savings" Campaign at GetSmarterAboutMoney.ca

Investor Education Fund (IEF) Launches Unbiased and Non-Commercial Online
Youth Financial Education Initiative Designed to Engage and Turn
Today's Money-Deprived Student into Tomorrow's Money-Savvy Investor

TORONTO, Nov. 29 /CNW/ - "I'm young, fabulous and broke," writes Fahmida Kamali, a 19 year-old at the University of Toronto Psychology and Economics student in her weekly blog at GetSmarterAboutMoney.ca. Forest Conservation graduate student Stacey Bowman echoes Kamali's lament in her blog: "I'm 27 years old and what do I have to show for it?" Christine Sirois, who majors in Journalism at Carleton University in Ottawa, blogs that she's frustrated by the "slow student loan lending process," with whopping yearly expenses of $17,417.35 in her third year of studies.

Kamali, Bowman and Sirois are the first student bloggers chosen by the Ontario Securities Commission's non-profit Investor Education Fund (IEF) to write weekly real-time blogs for the leading financial educator's new online initiative called "School of Savings" at Blog.GetSmarterAboutMoney.ca.

The first in a series of gut-wrenching student blogs debuted in late November as part of IEF's bold move to carve out a unique unbiased online financial education platform for youth and young adults of high school, university and college age. Each student is writing a weekly blog focusing on their own individual money woes and sleepless nights worrying about the cost of student loans, rent, text books, transportation, food, wardrobe, entertainment and everything else students must address when away at school.

"We're putting personality into the topic of student finance," says IEF President Tom Hamza. "IEF intends to help turn money-deprived students into better managers of their finances by engaging site visitors with similar and universal stories of the bad money experiences, naïve financial understanding and missing tools for responsible managing, saving and future investing of each blogger and each blog reader. Parents will find great benefit from reading the blogs too."

Since its establishment in 2001, IEF has developed and promoted online, in-class and community financial education initiatives for youth and adults.  These include the Funny Money Program and Taking Stock in Your Future Program aimed at high school students, "Let's Talk Investing" video interviews with financial experts and numerous other educational tools and resources found on IEF's public education website GetSmarterAboutMoney.ca and its InvestorEd Youtube channel.

"Social media," adds Hamza, is "an effective way to reach people with our resources and messages. It's important that we are talking to people where they are already looking and in ways they find engaging. Our extensive research shows that for younger people, social media programs like IEF's 'School of Savings' put the familiar and personal face on money management that they are looking for. Sharing money experiences is now a fundamental part of every effective financial education program."

ABOUT IEF:
Headquartered in Toronto, Investor Education Fund (IEF) is funded by the Ontario Securities Commission to develop and promote tools and resources that help people make smarter financial decisions. GetSmarterAboutMoney.ca is IEF's public educational website, offering unbiased educational, resources and information, including blogs, videos and interactive tools relating to money management, saving and investing. Visit IEF's Blog.GetSmarterAboutMoney.ca to read the "School of Savings" blogs.

ATTENTION EDITORS: High resolution images available at http://blog.getsmarteraboutmoney.ca/index.php/category/students/

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