4 Basic Financial Skills you should’ve Learned in High School
If you are lucky, your parents taught you the basics of budgeting and balancing books of accounts. They made you account for every penny of the pocket money and maybe rewarded or reprimanded you accordingly. You had it good even if it may not have seemed the case then. The majority of us who weren’t taught these skills for free is still grappling with the basics of investment and poor saving culture.
Can you Learn Financial Literacy on your Own?
Honestly, learning financial literacy on your own when all grown is not as easy as, say, studying literature in school. Here’s an example: to understand Shakespeare’s work, you would have to read his books and even do a Macbeth essay or something similar to get his style. Luckily, there is no shortage of Macbeth essays on https://gradesfixer.com/free-essay-examples/macbeth/ and other free online resources, so you would have an easily-available head start. You can also check this to know more about tax considerations. That’s much easier than learning about assets, liabilities, and capital expenditure for the first time and without a tutor. That said, there is always the first step.
On face value, most of the education students get in high school essentially lays the foundation for higher learning. As in the case with Macbeth essays as a source to learn about Shakespeare, any financial skill we gain in high school will be of great use in the future. Personal finance is one of the few courses that each of us still relies on regardless of the path we take in college.
Here are examples of basic skills everyone should learn while still in high school.
How to Build Credit
A critical part of financial literacy for high school students should be demystifying credit. Most people only get to understand way into adulthood that acquiring assets through credit isn’t such a bad thing after all. You can only go so far without a bank loan. There should be a personal introduction to credit so that young people know they build credit by borrowing and repaying on time. Students should apply for credit cards as soon as they are old enough to qualify to start building good credit that will give them access to mortgages or car loans should they need them later in their lives. Avoiding loans is the first step towards building poor credit.
How Credit Works
It is not enough to teach high school kids about credit; it is equally important that they develop a good relationship from the get-go. Getting a credit card is not a license to spend money carelessly. Research shows those who get their credit cards while very young as likely candidates for overspending. Personal finance high school education should teach one about interest, how it accumulates, and how one becomes a risky lender. Some of the crucial lessons here include accumulation of credit card interest (daily increment), the borrower has to pay back every dime, and the fact that credit card interest can get out of control fast.
The Basics of Budgeting
Most people live from check to check because they never learned any budgeting skills in high school. There should be budgeting activities for high school students to teach these life skills early on, but unfortunately, syllabuses do not cover any part of this topic. Students should learn to make summaries of their expenses versus income as well as separating needs from wants. These skills are crucial and can only get better as one grows up. Read EssayWrittingService reviews.
Basics of Investment
Many young people are unfamiliar with financial instruments such as government bills and bonds, and that shouldn’t be the case in the age of technology. Topics in investment at the stock market, information about bonds, and even money markets that we see on the papers should not be reserved for older investors. When investors start young, they can take advantage of compound interest to build wealth while still young. Even when they are not examined in a school paper, they are handy when learning to deal with money when one is gainfully employed. They also help build the character of a young investor early enough.
What is a Personal Finance Class?
Personal finance covers topics such as investment, relationship with money, mortgages, taxes, and even outlines how one should handle income from inheritance. Some of these things would not appeal to high school students due to their complexity, but they are essential even from a young age. By the time one leaves high school, they should comfortably make an analysis of a basic balance sheet and other books of accounts even if finance is not their preferred field of study in college.
