Are you financially literate?

[Mounds]

So, are you financially literarte? If your answer is no, what's holding you back? If yes, how did you get there?
Money is one of the most important things you will ever learn about, if not THE most important. Thoughts?

[CoolBee]

I believe I am

How did I get there? I guess I have a natural head start in that I am numerate, love spreadsheets, and I am actually interested in financial matters and can happily read and discuss stuff about mortgages, insurances, interest rates, pensions, savings plans and so forth without my brain turning to mush. I also understand that a month is longer than 4 weeks (you'd be surprised how many people are baffled by that!)

If I try talking with one of my relations about this, her brain turns to jelly and she won't talk about financial matters. My dear dad still doesn't get that the balance that shows on the ATM doesn't mean you have all that to spend because the machine doesn't 'know' you have several big automatic payments yet to be removed in the next few days!

Not to say I've always been a perfect money manager - far from it - I learnt the fairly hard way by running up huge debts as a student that I struggled for several years to get out of. I was an adept 'rob Peter to pay Paul' person, using cash withdrawals from one credit card to make the payments on another ho hum!

On the way I learnt budgeting, keeping the bank informed, working 3 jobs, assessing risk, and so on.

I'm doing financial coaching training next weekend (volcanoes permitting!) so will hopefully be gaining a better toolkit on how to draw these things out of people who are facing up to this area.

(If a couple of people would be interested in 2-3 low cost financial coaching sessions over the summer to practise my new tools, let me know!)

[SatvikBeri]

I was born financially literate =P

Seriously though, I was always a Math guy, and my mom was an Economics major who taught me how to invest and use the Motley Fool forums on my twelfth birthday. How much more of a head start can you get?

[SnerpGoodWord]

Originally Posted by Mounds

So, are you financially literarte? If your answer is no, what's holding you back? If yes, how did you get there?
Money is one of the most important things you will ever learn about, if not THE most important. Thoughts?

Sure - I've spent lots of time as a trader and investor in a variety of markets. I know more about finance than the vast majority of people, although I'm not a specialist in any one area.

[SnerpGoodWord]

Originally Posted by SatvikBeri

I was born financially literate =P

Seriously though, I was always a Math guy, and my mom was an Economics major who taught me how to invest and use the Motley Fool forums on my twelfth birthday. How much more of a head start can you get?

She could have aimed you at a trading method that works

[SatvikBeri]

Originally Posted by SnerpGoodWord

She could have aimed you at a trading method that works

True, MF is downright terrible. But the traders on the forums aren't (or more accurately on CAPS), and that's how I learned to make the big bucks

[SnerpGoodWord]

Originally Posted by SatvikBeri

True, MF is downright terrible. But the traders on the forums aren't (or more accurately on CAPS), and that's how I learned to make the big bucks

Yeah, all perma-long stock strategies depend heavily on start and end date for their performance. It's no coincidence that the Foolish Four was originally published in the 90's after a huge run up in equities, and didn't work a lick thereafter.

I guess the good news is that MF nutted up and admitted they were wrong. That's a good start...

[ouyang]

Such a suitable question to ask me! Ahhh, the right questions asked at the right times, I love it. I'm currently working on financial literacy - I have just seen the light!

What was holding me back before was a lack of financial consciousness. I really was clueless to the fact that I was financially illiterate. I'm glad I caught it while I'm still young!

How about you Tim?