BMiResource Center
Your Trusted Source for Online Financial Education
   
  
  
We offer a rich selection of educational tools to help you make informed financial decisions. Regardless of your age, from 5 to 65, we can help! Review our resources below, or click on the links above, and see how we can provide the information you need to successfully reach your financial goals.
BMI's Anytime Adviser
Whether you are thinking of buying a car, a home, or just looking to get better control of your finances, our Anytime Adviser Online Coaches will help you learn how to make more informed financial decisions. All of our coaches are available in English or Spanish. The coaching modules include:
Click here to visit Anytime Adviser and review the coaching modules that are now available.
BMI’s Googolplex
The credit union guide for student money makers
What the heck’s a Googolplex?* Ever wonder which is worth more—a 1978 Boba Fett action figure or a 1989 Hot Wheels Lamborghini? Could the U.S. run out of money? Who’s taking money out of your paycheck?
You’ll find the answers to these and a googol of other questions by reading Googolplex: The CU Guide for Student Moneymakers. It’s ready for you now on our Web site.
Googolplex contains stories, games, and puzzles for elementary, middle, and high school students. It’s all about money: getting it, saving it, spending it, borrowing it. It’ll show you how business and the economy work and how you can take control of your financial future. And it’ll make you laugh. Read Googolplex today. And come back regularly. You’ll find something new each month.
Want your children to become responsible with money?
There’s a great way to help them learn to use money wisely while having fun with Googolplex: The CU Guide for Student Moneymakers. A fresh story or game is added each week, so there’s always something new. Articles and activities cover topics like:
• Buying a used car
• Finding your first job
• Planning for college
• Saving for something important
Plus fun facts, quizzes, tricks, games, and puzzles about money. Googolplex is organized into three categories to deliver age-appropriate activities to students in elementary, middle, and high school. And you might find something interesting too. Visit Googolplex on our Web site and find out today!
* It’s the largest named number. (A googol is 10 to the 100th power; a googolplex is 10 to the googol power.) Googolplex is also the name of our online youth magazine. Check it out today!
CU Succeed
The BMI Teen Club for members 12 - 17
CU Succeed is an innovative program to inform teens about finances and life. CU Succeed®, the ground breaking teen financial education program, is available to all teen members of BMI Federal Credit Union. The teen club will provide members with a quarterly newsletter on financial topics, a comprehensive website that serves as a financial resource and more.
The new teen program is just one more way BMI is working to serve its members and fulfill the “people helping people” philosophy of credit unions.
“If we can help our teenagers to better understand money and finances now, they will be a lot better off in the future,” said Sharon Custer, CEO of BMI Federal Credit Union. “We’re committed to help our teen members get a head start on their finances.”
BMI's Guides to Independence
Send your teenagers to our Web site for a little education...and some music
Would you turn over the keys to your brand new car to a teenager without a driver's license? Of course not. A driver's license is evidence of learning the rules, practicing safety, and passing an exam.
Guides to Independence is the opportunity to do the same with financial services. Guide to Independences is a series of interactive online courses now available on our website.
These courses take approximately 15 minutes to complete and have lots of quizzes, simulations, and interactions to teach your teen how to safely and accurately manage a checking account.
Users can print a certificate of completion at the end of the each course and are eligible for a free music download at the completion of the course!
Get your FREE music download!
For each 10-20 minute Guides to Independence online money course you complete on our Web site, you'll earn one free music download from the eMusic® library of more than 1.4 million songs.
Designed for teenagers and young adults, the courses are quick, interactive, and fun. Our young narrators will show you how to buy a car, use a credit card, reach your financial goals, and other useful information. Then, at the end of each course, eligible users can sign on and receive a certificate with a free eMusic® download, which can be redeemed immediately!
We believe that learning about money and credit is the way to financial independence. We want you to be smart about your money because your financial success is music to our ears.
Take advantage of this great opportunity, go to our website, click on Guides to Independence, and choose a course. Keep coming back, because we'll be adding courses throughout the year.
BMI’s Home and Family Finance Resource Center
Your everyday financial decisions are easier with the help of Home & Family Finance Resource Center. Each week this online guide features facts about the topics that matter to you from credit card fraud to saving for your children's education.
Considering leasing a car? Looking for an easier way to file your taxes? Wondering how much life insurance you need? In our Home & Family Finance Resource Center, you will find hundreds of articles with valuable facts that may alter your thinking. You are bound to find relevant topics that will lead you to financially sound moves. Each week the news and features are updated.
Kirby Kangaroo
The BMI youth club for members under 12
The Kirby Kangaroo Club is a fun, educational program that allows young savers under age 12 to interact with other kids, be surrounded by positive role models, and learn important lessons about money.
Through the Kirby Kangaroo Club, children can develop good saving habits and learn how their credit union works. Members of the Kirby Kangaroo Club will receive their newsletter and will have the chance to participate in special events and activities sponsored by our credit union throughout the year.
BMI's MoneyMix
You have goals and dreams. Will you have the money?
Get your money working towards your goals and future without sacrificing the present with MoneyMix: Launch Your Life. It's a free collection of financial tools and articles geared specifically for the opportunities and challenges young adults are facing today. You can even discuss ideas and issues with peers on our interactive blog. Topics include:
 Budgeting that matches your priorities - Savings plans that work
- Making use-not abuse-of credit
Take advantage of MoneyMix and unlock your potential. Click on the MoneyMix graphic above and start down the path to your dream.
MoneyAndStuff
Financial education for youths, tweens, and teens!
Teaching personal financial responsibility has always been part of the mission of not-for-profit credit unions. Credit unions are stepping up their efforts as leaders in financial education because the financial health of Ohio’s youngest citizens is at risk. Personal bankruptcy rates, debt, and home foreclosures are all on the upswing. Yet, at the same time, adults admit they don’t teach their children about the financial facts of life.* By turning young people into smart consumers and savers, Ohio credit unions are investing in brighter futures for all Ohioans.
Ohio credit unions are calling their unique financial education initiative MoneyAndStuff™, which focuses primarily on parents and educators of students in middle school and high school. MoneyAndStuff™ builds on credit unions’ existing collaboration as educational partners with schools.
BMI’s Plan It®
The time and place to prepare for retirement is here and now.
Get ready for retirement with Plan It ®: Retire Ready Toolkit. It’s a free online resource that can help you plan for—and achieve—retirement security. Access articles, listen to audio clips, run “what if” financial longevity scenarios, and listen in on the financial conversations on Pre-Retiree Lane.
- Create a personal profile
- Track your own retirement savings
- Print personalized charts
- Make retirement to-do lists
Let Plan It® help improve your financial future. Click the link above to get started!
Q & A
Q: To be honest, “retirement” scares me. How can I be sure I’ll have enough—and what can I do now to make sure I do?
A: There are so many variables to consider, preparing for retirement can be worrisome. Unless you use Plan It®: Retire Ready Toolkit. It’s a free, online resource on our Web site. It’s packed with tools: articles, calculators, personalized charts, and checklists. Try it out at our Web site!
BMI’s Thrive by 5
Teaching Your Preschooler About Spending and Saving
Children learn about money from many sources. Long before they enter school, they observe adults using money and buying things. They watch television daily and see thousands of commercials each year. Like it or not, money is a part of your preschooler’s life.
What children witness affects their attitudes about what money is for. Some of these beliefs will help them as adult consumers and some will not. For example, they might get the message that saving is important or they might not.
As a parent, you will not be the only influence on what your child learns about using money. But when you teach basic lessons about money, you increase the chance that your child’s values will be similar to yours.
The simple activities on this site are parent-and-child tested and will give you ideas for:
- Teaching how money works and what it can do
- Talking about how your family uses money
- Modeling good money management.
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