Finance guy to provide tricks to students

Ya Xu

Peter Bielagus, a licensed financial advisor, real estate and tax consultant will hold a lecture about finance in 7 p.m. Nov. 7 in Washburn A room. This lecture will last for one hour.

Bielagus now works as full time consultant to colleges, corporations and the military. He will talk with students about budgeting. His award-winning booking agency named “Admire Entertainment” states that “He is available to solve your students’ toughest financial dilemmas since he will spend an entire day on campus.”

“When you graduate from school, there are some important things you need to know about, in regards to retirement funds, setting yourself to be successful, how to have a balanced life when it comes to finances and making good decisions with credit cards,” said Jessica Barraclough, director of student activities & greek life. “All of these difficult things may trap you as a student and young adult when it comes to finances.”

As an organizer of this speech, Barraclough analyzed the necessity of this event.

“Financial literacy is important today. Many students take out loans to go to school,” said Barraclough. “They have so much debt out there. Not everybody leaves college with a lot of money. We want to be able to prepare students to be able to leave college and start their first career without feeling that they cannot keep up with their finances.”

As for how to be successful with money, especially about budgeting, here are some questions students can try to answer. What do your budget looks like? How much money do you spend on groceries, gas, and traveling? Do you have money left over for fun stuff? And if you do, how do you make sure that you stay with your budget, and not just spend money like getting a tree in your backyard.

“This time Peter is going to talk about how to be successful when it comes to the money that you have,” said Barraclough. “How can you do that maybe at a younger age? Some people travel all over the world when they retire. And they won’t be able to do that if they were not smart with their money. So he is going to teach the students how to do that. That is something important today. Universities all over the nation are talking about this idea of financial literacy. That is something that we want to help students be successful, not only as professional, but also with their personal finances.”

At the end of speech Bielagus will leave some time for questions. Students are encouraged to ask questions, even if there are personal. Or they can meet him after to discuss. In regards to personal finances, he is going to give tricks and everything students need to know about finance. He is coming to campus to talk about making the right choices.

“I always wonder about how to have a budget with a differing income,” said Rachel Schomacker, a senior student majoring in chemistry. “For instance, one week I can get $200, another may $300. It’s different every time I get paid. So it’s hard to make budget. I’d like to go to the speech. It will help a lot since I got a loan.”

Student Activities & Greek Life hosts such speeches every semester, but they won’t necessarily bring Bielagus back next time. Students don’t have to have a background in business or finance to be able to understand it.

“It’s not like going to academic classes which might be boring,” said Barraclough. “It is going to be a lot of fun. He is really engaging. You’ll learn a lot in the process.”