In the current economy, financial stability is important. That stability rests with families securing and managing the income they have. There are 15.2% of McCracken County residents that are categorized as living in poverty. The poverty rate in the city of Paducah is even higher reaching 24.7%. One out of every 4.1 residents of Paducah lives in poverty. The poverty rate across the state of Kentucky is 18.3%, meaning Paducah has a significantly higher than average percentage of residents below the poverty line when compared to the rest of Kentucky. 

The UK Cooperative Extension Service partners with two "help" agencies in town to offer monthly budgeting classes for their clients living in poverty who are requesting assistance with a bill or financial need. The Money Smart curriculum is used for the class. The class members are taught the basics of budgeting by focusing on daily spending, how to menu plan, strategies for shopping smart, tips to decrease spending and ways to be more organized with bill pay. When asked at the beginning of class "Who has a written budget" there are only 5-10% that will raise their hand.

In the past year over 200 people have attended the budgeting classes. A questionnaire is given out at the beginning and end of the class to gauge learning and the following questions are asked. They are asked to rank their knowledge before and after on the scale of 1 strongly disagree and 4 strongly agree.

1. How to track daily spending habits.
2. How to prepare a persona spending plan or budget to estimate monthly income and expenses.
3. How to identify ways to decrease spending.
4. How to identify budgeting tools that help manage my money.

According to the completed surveys:

Over 75% of the participants moved up the scale by at lease one number with agree or strongly agree being their final answer.