Zippity Do Dog - A unique resource for youth

Pack Responsibly

Nelson & District Credit Union will strive to provide members with solutions to help them pack responsibly for their unique life-stages and reach their viewpoints. This process is called the Financial Hike.

What is a Financial Hike?

Your Hike starts with identifying your goals. Nelson & District Credit Union will create a personalized guidebook to help you reach them.

Healthy, long-term strategies incorporate all elements of your financial affairs. How you pack one element influences how you pack another. We offer professional financial planning and access to virtually every investment product and service in the marketplace today.

The information below will assist you in considering the best path to take and which guide to choose. Please contact us at thehike@nelsoncu.com for more information.

Credit Week

Last week was the first annual Credit Education Week to empower Canadians to make wise financial decisions. Total debt in Canada is already in excess of $1 trillion. We should be able to learn from the debt crisis on the US with record number mortgage defaults. Canadians cannot continue going down this debt-consuming path.

Some recent findings on Canadians from Toronto’s Hart House and Credit Canada:
- 90% feel they have more debt today than 5 years ago
- 53% do have a personal/household budget
- 80% do know their credit rating
- 25% do not consider the consequence of rising interest rate when borrowing money
- Household debt has been rising by 4.7% for the past 30 years

The original thought behind National Credit Week was to help youth. Young adults tend to be the most vulnerable toward accumulating debt with a deadly combination of easy credit, growing financial illiteracy and excessive marketing/advertising campaigns targeted to them.

For many people, financial planning can seem quite daunting – getting the right information can help make better decisions.

“Most students in high school are completely unaware the effect of poor money management, the high cost of interest on borrowed money and how seriously debt will effect their lives. Students can go to websites for information, however face to face presentations such as the ones by Tom Atkins and Bradley Roulston are far more beneficial. For most students, this is the first time they even consider budgeting, researching finances and setting financial goals.”
Larry Veregin, LVR Teacher

For more information check out the youth planning site Zippitydodog at zippitydodog.com. Or, contact our financial planning staff at thehike@nelsoncu.com or call 352-7207.

Added on November 19th, 2007

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