Personal Finance’s priority for 2009-2010 is to create sustainable initiatives that improve the financial literacy of the Pittsburgh and the global community. In the fall semester, Personal Finance focused on planning events, building relationships with faculty and staff, and educating its members on the topics that we will be teaching. Multiple events are being planned with counsel from or run in conjunction with other organizations and individuals, generally Carnegie Mellon affiliated. Accuracy and applicability of content were emphasized to our members and we ensured such through quizzes and asking our members to select, research, and present 3 topics from a given list of pertinent subject areas. Weekly meetings were held with consistent member attendance. 

      In its tenth year of operation, we are looking to educate people of a spectrum of ages and backgrounds. Members of Personal Finance will be teaching two courses for C-MITES (Carnegie Mellon Institute for Talented Elementary and Secondary Students) titled Dollars and Sense in 2010 and Investment Decisions for 5^th-6^th graders and 7^th-9^th graders, respectively. Personal Finance is also completing the process of planning multiple workshops or guidebooks on money management for an audience including but not limited to Pittsburgh teenagers through local high schools, the Carnegie Mellon student body through the Office of International Education and Orientation & First-Year Programs, and a small village in Ecuador through CMU’s Engineers Without Borders. 

      The majority of our work and presentations will be related to budgeting, general financial planning, checking, debit, credit, savings, loans, consequences of poor financial decisions, investing, banking, the current credit crisis, and miscellaneous topics such as taxes and insurance. Most of our interaction with the BAB thus far has been in trying to find outer organizations or schools that we can hold workshops with. If more audiences can be found, Personal Finance would be open to coordinating an event.  

      By adhering to a substantial timeline, communicating with and emphasizing the value of the relationships built with schools, business leaders, faculty, and staff, having a reliable body of members, and dedicating this year to the stabilization and growth of Personal Finance, immense impact can be made this year.