Financial professionals urge confidence to make sense of cents

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Lauren Barney | Staff Writer

Photo courtesy of UVU Marketing

 

In the lecture titled “Cents and Sensibility” September 9 at UVU, women and finances were the target for the address held by the Utah Women & Leadership Project (UWLP). Aiming to provide women with tips and resources to gain confidence with finances, keynote speaker Gail Miller addressed women of various ages. Following Miller’s address, three different breakout sessions in personal finance were held for attendees.

The Ragan Theater was packed as women high school age and up, filled the room to learn from some of the best in the finance world. The keynote lecture, as well as each breakout session, were recorded for live streaming and download through the Utah Education Network. Sessions included “Show Me the Money,” which addressed education and resources and was geared toward high school and college age women, “A Man is Not a Financial Plan,” which analyzed how women can financially plan for their own futures no matter potential circumstances, and “Family Finances Boot Camp” where women learned how to create spending plans to reach individual goals. Whether they are finishing a degree or creating a budget, the lectures aimed to provide women the opportunity to gain the confidence to handle more than just finances.

As the owner and chair of the board for the Larry H. Miller Group, which is comprised of over 80 companies, Gail Miller is familiar with personal finance. In her address, Miller related stories from her childhood about how her mother had engrained values into her life that had shaped how she thought about life and money.

“It’s only natural that the things that happen to you shape who you are,” Miller said. “But money was never the driving force in my life. It was important, but it had a place and it didn’t overarch everything else.”

Following Miller’s lecture, each attendee was invited to choose from one of the three breakout sessions. The “Show Me the Money” session featured several different finance professionals from UVU. Included were Luke Dean, director of the Personal Finance Program, Tera Prestwich, an advisor at the Women’s Success Center, and Timi Joy Jorgensen, a 2014 UVU graduate in personal finance. Each communicated the importance of education and finances and how to find the resources to make goals possible.

To wrap up the session, Jorgensen said, “Make a plan, have a goal, and do it.”