Most people have heard of the marshmallow test. Ask a young child if they want one marshmallow now or two in a short while. The test was designed and originally delivered in the late 1960’s and early 1970’s, it showed a correlation between a young child’s ability to delay gratification and their future success [1].
Lagom is a Swedish that roughly translates to ‘Just Right’. It does not mean average, sufficient, moderate or adequate – it means the right amount for the circumstances. It is an expression of comfort and has elements of the concept of “Gemütlichkeit” or coziness.
The previous blog, Go Forth and Budget, described two challenges facing a family attempting to develop a household budget: staying motivated and which budgeting method to use. These challenges can be mapped onto a 2×2 Matrix as follows:
Having been a ‘budget-guy’ my entire professional life, I have promoted the concept of ‘Just-Enough Budgeting‘. Use only enough planning to achieve the maximum value from the planning [1]. Developing financial plans are expensive, challenging to maintain and may run counter to the well-being of an organization [2].
A dark ‘game’ used in select Financial Literacy circumstances to teach how compounding interest works as well as the value of paying down debt.
One of the challenges of teaching financial literacy is developing an assessment of where individual students and the entire class is at in regards to their knowledge and habits. The following self-assessment tool is a non-scientific method to perform this evaluation.
One definition of financial literacy is: “… having the knowledge, skills and confidence to make responsible financial decisions.” [1]
For the third year, I have been a member of Alberta Chartered Professional Accountants (CPA) achievement awards review committee.
Human resource costs can represent a large portion of an organization’s budget. They also come in a variety of shapes and sizes: hourly, salary, permanent, temporary, contracted, etc. This blog provides a range of methods to estimate these costs. A key feature is that there is not a one-size fits all solution.
I recall sitting in a board meeting for a non-profit I was involved with years ago and the budget process came up. Specifically the word ‘budget’ meant to different things to different board members.
Organizational Biology 