Financial illiteracy is a big problem, but you can be part of the solution
With the constant fluctuations in markets and the economy in recent times, there’s never been a starker reminder of how big a problem financial literacy is in our community – or rather, financial illiteracy.
From recent conversations I’ve had, it’s pretty clear a large percentage of people really struggle to understand what rising inflation and interest rates actually mean in a broader context.
In my view, this is due to a severe lack of financial literacy being taught in schools. It’s my opinion that every kid should graduate school with basic financial literacy skills, including how to budget, how to apply for a credit card or a loan, and how things like interest rates and stock markets work.
In fact, that’s a large part of why The Finance Guru was created. One of the most important things we do is speak with people of all ages in schools and through the media to help them understand what’s going on in the world of finance.
This topic came up recently when I was sitting with my father and my son on Father’s Day, talking about how the employment landscape has changed over the years.
The challenge dad and I had when we were younger is that there weren’t enough jobs to go around and competition was thick, so as jobseekers we didn’t always have the luxury of picking and choosing.
The landscape for my son is completely different. As things stand today, there are more jobs than there are people, which means greater opportunity for jobseekers and those who wish to start a business to fill a demand.
As a jobseeker now, all you need to do is post on social media that you’re looking for a gig or offering a service, and the opportunities will come your way.
For my entrepreneurial son, this means offering services like gardening, car washing, or lawn mowing in the local area. He’s learned to price in his time as well as his costs, and also that nobody carries cash anymore so he had to get a Square setup to take eftpos payments.
As simple as it sounds, this is the beginning of his education in financial literacy, and the more kids we can get to understand these simple machinations at a young age, the more financially literate we will be as a community in the future.
So with the school holidays approaching, there’s never been a better time to chat to the kids in your life about how money works – they’ll thank you later in life!
