SAVE Welcomes New Board Member Michael Flittie

We would like to welcome our newest SAVE NW Board Member, Michael Flittie. Michael is the CIO and Controller at Erin Baker's Wholesome Baked Goods in Bellingham. He is also an Adjunct professor at Western Washington University where he teaches 300- and 400- level and MBA courses in Operations Management, Supply Chain Strategy, Project Management, Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP), and Supply Chain Management with executive MBA program courses in Corporate Information Systems and Operations Management. Michael not only brings decades of experience in small business development, but will help us recruit more mentors for our Kids Biz Club courses on the WWU campus. We are thrilled to have Michael on our Board!

2019 SAVE Public School Enrichment Classes Begin

Go!  Dolphins! --  Go! Bobcats! Fall 2019 After-School Enrichment Programs!

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Kids Biz Club Course Gets Alderwood Students Seal of Approval

Kids Biz Club is an 8-week 16 session course created by SAVENW.org to help local Fifth Graders learn how to start their own business. Topics include creating a business budget, a business plan and a business website.

This Spring, we had the opportunity to provide this course to students in an After-School Program at Alderwood Elementary School in Bellingham, WA. Each student was provided with a laptop to use during the course, a USB drive to save their work and a course notebook. Then their work began. The first lessons were about business planning concepts: How to choose a business, how to estimate costs, how to set pricing, the difference between a service, a product or a knowledge-based business.

Then we took a day to learn from local business manager, John “Westy” Westerfield, of Yeager’s Sporting Goods. The class explored coming to a net profit, and the differences between owners, managers, and employees. We wish to thank Westy for sharing his knowledge with the class and will be sure to say “Hi,” next time we are in his store.

With a business plan forming we moved on to the technical aspects of website design, beginning with the basics of file management.

While the course has very challenging goals, every student was able to finish their own business website – created from scratch using HTML and CSS. Each student customized their website with unique images, font colors and background colors.

Read more: Kids Biz Club Course Gets Alderwood Students Seal of Approval

Wealth, the Importance of Building Up Your Nest Egg - Economic Word of the Day

There’s a lot of buzz being created by local, state , and national candidates about social and wage equality. They are proposing to establish a “wealth tax.” It is important for people to understand what a wealth tax is.

A wealth tax is a tax or bill which is payable every year on money and tangible or intangible assets of value earned and retained by a person or business. To determine that amount you must add up all of the assets you have; cash accounts, retirement accounts, land, building, stocks, bonds, furniture, jewelry, cars, trucks, antiques; anything that has an established value. Next you must list and add up the total amount of debt (liabilities) you have; loans, credit cards, mortgages, notes; all ongoing financial obligations and the total amount owing on each. Next step is to take the total amount of your assets and subtract the total amount of your liabilitues/debt to determine what your net worth is; this is your wealth factor.

This type of a tax would be due every year based on your wealth factor and would greatly effect everyone's ability to build up the funds needed to retire. Wealth is actually the "nest egg" we all need and desire to have as we live our daily lives and ease into retirement; it is your ability to live an independent lifestyle at the income level which you desire to have for your "golden years."

Unicorn - Economic Word of the Day

A unicorn refers to a startup company that reaches a $1 billion dollar market value as determined by private or public investment.  This stems from statistical rarity of such successful ventures.  The term was originally coined by Aileen Lee, founder of Cowboy Ventures in 2013.

 A unicorn can also refer to a phenomenon that occurs when those who are responsible for hiring candidates have impossible expectations. This stems from a mismatch between the expectations of the employers and who is available for hire. In other words, they are looking for a mythical candidate (i.e. a unicorn), rather than facing reality.