Do you know what level of financial education you have? It is easy to measure. You just have to imagine that you receive a large sum of money from one day to the next. Only 4% of people would be able to multiply that money significantly. Are you one of them? Find out why it is imperative that you and your children learn to manage and multiply your money wisely.
What would you do if you received $ 10,000 today?
Among many other things, it could determine your level of financial education.
The level of financial literacy of people can easily be measured by the way they handle a significant sum of money. If we give $ 10,000 to 100 people, after a year 80 of them will have spent it all, 16 will have around $ 10,050, and only 4 will have $ 20,000 or more on their hands.
What is the difference between these 3 groups of people?
Your financial education.
Unlike what many people believe, the ability to manage and multiply money wisely can be learned in the same way that any other skill can be learned. However, it requires a radical change of mind that not everyone is willing to make in their lives.
The problem is that we have not been educated to handle money wisely, much less to multiply it well. On the one hand, financial education is conspicuous by its absence from the curricula of schools and the vast majority of universities and, on the other hand, the media bombard us daily with messages that encourage us to spend more than we have.
Around every corner there is an offer from a credit card that gives us the possibility to immediately enjoy goods that we have not yet paid for. The financial institutions and trading houses constantly tempts us with messages inciters "buy today, pay tomorrow".
Faced with such an oversupply of opportunities to spend our money, even beyond our means, it is not surprising that the vast majority of people will spend the $ 10,000 instead of investing it wisely.
Additionally, the news of the enormous indebtedness of the European economies shows us that this tendency of not knowing how to manage a budget wisely extends even to the highest levels of government of the nations. The excess of expenses versus income is a disease that affects much of the world 's population.
That is why we are in a historical moment in which it is essential to improve the financial education of the population. Recent events in Europe clearly demonstrate that governments will no longer be able to finance their extensive social programs.
In practice, this means that each person will have to participate more actively in preparing for their old age and their possible future expenses in the area of health. Therefore, it is important to realize that times have changed and that a good job no longer guarantees a stable long-term financial situation and an ideal preparation for old age.
Added to this is the trend of aging populations. There are fewer and fewer young people working for each elderly person who no longer contributes to the country's economy.
The answer to this great dilemma is a solid financial education not only for adults, but also for children and young people who will very soon have to face the new challenges of the 21st century.
Discipline, fostering savings habits, and acquiring basic investment knowledge would be the key elements of a proper financial education.
