Hogs Tackle Financial Literacy

FAYETTEVILLE, Ark. — More than 150 Razorback student-athletes attended a financial literacy workshop earlier this week and learned important lessons on how to avoid debt, saving, spending wisely and investing.

According to a Marketwatch report, about 62 percent of Americans have less than $1,000 in their savings accounts. Millennials — the segment of the U.S. population aged 18-to-34 — said they have no money in their savings account.

These startling statistics show the importance of this workshop, a segment of the financial literacy programming provided to Razorback student-athletes.

“This event was very informative and interesting to attend,” freshman free/fly swimmer Kiera Michailoff-Russell said. “We will definitely benefit from the information we received tonight.”

National speaker and former mortgage originator Eric Smith introduced his four principles of winning financially: Saving, planning, spending, and giving. Specifically, Smith discussed the following topics:

• The importance of budgeting
• Reasonable debt management
• Credit scores
• How to pull credit reports
• Debit cards
• Identity theft and how to avoid it
• The power of compounding interest

Student-athletes can make use of the lessons within the financial literacy programming through online videos, quizzes, activities, case studies and guest speakers.

“This workshop was very useful,” freshman football runningback Rawleigh Williams III said. “The speaker emphasized that being broke isn’t sexy.”