Why Should You Learn About Finance?
Learning about financial matters such as budgeting, saving, investing, and managing debt all contribute to your financial literacy. Financial literacy refers to your understanding and application of various financial skills, and can benefit you in a number of ways throughout your life.
Independence
Being financially literate means you can make smarter decisions about your wealth, such as realistic saving goals, wiser investments, and effective debt prevention strategies. Being able to do these things yourself means you are less dependent on other people when it comes to your own money, boosting your self-sufficiency and financial freedom. Understanding financial principles and their importance are the first steps in attaining financial independence.
Security
Knowing how to manage your money means you can secure your financial health and protect yourself from debt. People who are financially literate are less likely to make ruinous financial mistakes or go into debt, because they understand how they must manage their money for the best long-term gain. Improving your financial literacy can protect everything you've worked so hard for.
Confidence
Financial literacy can impact who you are as a person as well as your wealth. Being able to manage your financial situation no matter how bad or good it gets can boost your morale, reduce your stress levels, and help you feel better about yourself and the way you've been handling things. This, in turn, can improve your confidence and self-esteem, allowing you to pursue your goals with greater enthusiasm.
What are some basic financial principles?
Budgeting
The planning process
Saving
Make yourself wealthier
Spending
Using your money
Borrowing
The risks and the benefits
Investing
More than a financial gamble
Taxation
And how to file your taxes
Debt Management
Dealing with the worst-case scenario
Credit
The future of finance
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Did you know?
The inspiration for this project came from seeing the financial struggles of those around me. When I say “financial struggles,” I don't mean not having enough money at home - I mean struggles to understand finance, from its most basic principles to the more complex ones. I hear a lot of kids my age, even the smart ones, talk about the financial aspect of adulthood with dread; not excited or determined but fearful of managing their own financial situation because of how unprepared they are.
The root of their unpreparedness comes not from a lack of experience, but how hard it is to learn about finance even in theory, because financial resources such as articles, textbooks, and videos, all share one tragic flaw - assuming their reader is already financially literate. So many resources assume their users have a basic financial knowledge that most people, particularly the young, haven't acquired yet. This makes all the jargon, figures of speech, and abstractions composing these external resources indecipherable to those just starting to learn. Where were the basics - a place where people could start from?
The desire for such a starting point to exist for my generation is what inspired me to create my project. The first step to becoming financially literate is the largest, and I wanted to create something that could help users take this step, and start them off on their journey to financial literacy. This “something” took form as an article-based, nonprofit website, both coded and written with simplicity in mind, to help the inexperienced take their first step. Appropriately named: First Step Finance.
Other ways you can get involved
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