>The study found almost two-thirds (61%) of young adults ***do not recall*** receiving any financial education at school, compared to under a third (29%) who do remember receiving financial education.
Aye, there’s the problem. At that age, they don’t care enough to engage.
Do their parents take any part in this?
Along with cooking this should be one of the most important subjects in schools.
Finances get more interesting when you either have money to ‘play’ with (enact your choices) or it’s literally forced upon you to optimise else you sink.
Quite a lot of kids at school weren’t very good at maths for a start. I’m quite into personal finances but even for me at 15 it wouldn’t have made sense to tell me about mortgages, or really when ISAs make sense.
Some of these landscapes also change by the time you will need them.
I recall doing something about compound interest, and that was a struggle for many. That was about it. I just don’t think you get the engagement.
The most valuable skill to come away with is the critical thinking to go look into something and process the information. Actually, I learned a lot of my financial knowhow by looking at the questions people didn’t Google themselves and posted somewhere, then googled them myself to find the answer and tell them. You don’t even need to be that good at searching either when the likes of Martin Lewis do what they do so well.
I actually think financial masterclasses at university could help some more. Obviously it doesn’t capture everyone but you’re at least speaking to a subset of young adults that are about to need it and have hopefully matured to the point of accepting it’s in their interest to try learn a bit.
Not really
0 + 0 = 0
It’s all anybody born after 1987 really needs to know as far as personal finance goes in this economy
I don’t think it’s down to financial illiteracy , rather, some financial products are deliberatly obscure and are made to look like free money when they are complex with hidden charges etc which means the financial house is always the winner.
Look through any of the T&Cs, and you would need a degree in several different subjects to make sense of it.
I skim-read that title as ‘financially literate’ and was so surprised and pleased for a moment.
There are people working right now who think earning over a tax threshold means it applies to their entire wage.
Have to wonder if lack if financial education is deliberate. A lot of sectors rely on debt and or spureous spending or even poor wages.
Would be interesting to see if there is a seperation between private and public schools.
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
Financial literacy instilled in two sentences, courtesy of Charles Dickens.
I’m far from convinced this is limited to only young people.
I met people all the time with no understanding of basic economics – Reddit is littered with them – and who don’t have the slightest grasp of taxation, trade, investment, etc.
My brother has a colleague that’s just been stung for 7 years back taxes by HMRC because he didn’t know he should have been doing his own tax returns. This guy has a very responsible job and is well into his 40s.
I moved from the UK to the US when i was 25 (15 years ago), and granted I work in finance, but I’m amazed by how financially illiterate most of my friends at home are and they all have professional careers. One of my friends had questions about a private pension he has, and I asked what it was invested in, and he said “I don’t know, i just have a risk dial I can move so I have it set to as little risk as possible”. When I see finance topics come up on this sub it’s the same, people have absolutely no clue about very basic investing concepts, what an interest rate is, how compounding works etc…it’s crazy.
By the time you really need to understand financial services, people are several years out of school and have forgotten a lot of what they learnt at school generally (not just in maths). Add to this the fact that deciphering the lingo is another barrier to overcome first and people give up before they have a chance to try and understand what they need to know. It is all well and good talking about teaching finances in school, however kids need to engage with the material at the time they are being taught about it, otherwise they are going to find it as useful as knowing what an oxbow lake is in a few years time.
Luckily, none of us have enough money for that to matter
No amount of money literacy will save our young from the incompetent machinations of the nasty parties destruction of their financial futures.😠
Lol. If I cut back on my pleasantries and ‘treats’, I’ll save roughly £70 a month.
If I stop paying my rent, council tax and energy bills I’ll save just over £1800 a month.
Makes you think.
It’s not taught at school for the vast majority of people. So it’s hardly a surprise.
And the majority of elders and mid aged people too.
My work colleague took out an unnecessary loan at 6% recently, and gleefully told me “inflation is at 10%, so it pays for itself!” Sometimes a little knowledge can be dangerous.
wdym financial literacy bitch I’m working full time with no expenses haha I don’t need that shit
Economics, finance and basic accounting should be taught at every school. They’re very useful to know about and you can pick up really important problem solving and logic skills from studying them. Especially if it’s part-taught on excel, a pretty essential skill for almost every white collar job.
Saying this, it’s in the government and companies interest for most people to remain financially illiterate, as it means we can’t question them as much and they can get away with a lot more
You can remove the ‘young’ part, people being shit with money has been a constant as old as humanity.
Not a chance 2/5 are financially literate, doubt it’s even a tenth of that.
It would be nice if they could actually define what ‘financially literate’ means, because the article seems to say that you’re only finanically literate if you’ve received formal education on the matter, which is nonsense.
Using that logic, you could say the majority of young people are illiterate at wiping their arse because school never formally teaches them how.
I wonder how a young person is defined, most people get financially savvy through experience.
Basic budgeting and such should be taught in schools
The majority of the population are ‘financially illiterate’
My mate’s been saving years but just can’t manage to actually save anything. Turns out he spends £30 a week on a haircut and beard trim. Hair looks great though
The only answer is to ensure everyone studies maths until the age of 18. Why no-one has thought of this already is beyond reckoning
I’d say this probably applies to all age groups, it was certainly not a focus at school where it really should be.
Anyone know where I can find resources to learn more about finance?
Seriously, they needed a study for this?
The fact the Daily Mail can run a Column telling people entering the Higher Rate tax band is a bad thing, so they shouldn’t seek a pay rise, and people believe them, should tell you something.
That’s the goal of capitalist primary and secondary education. Create people who know how to do a particular job and not see how they are exploited. The more you get in trouble financially in your life the harder you have to work for the bosses.
For example: the more irresponsible you are with money the greater the chance the bank will be able to take the property you may have inherited. Most are encouraged to overconsume and get in debt instead of following the rules of wealth accumulation.
Well, of course. I don’t know of anyone since at least Gen X that received any sort of education in how finances work.
Never taught to budget or disburse earnings, never taught about taxes, how to get a mortgage, how the stock market works, hell, even how money works, how it’s assigned value, what inflation is and how it works, etc., etc., etc.
But hey, I know what the quadratic equation is. Even though I’ve only ever used it once since leaving school, and that was still in an education setting. Also, writing in cursive. Because that is totally an essential skill…
I had to explain the concept compound interest to my 47 year-old wife the other day
I was very attentive in school and received top grades in every subject. Personal finance was literally *never* covered, even in “Business Management”. There was* a serious lack of education on actually useful subjects.
*I’m using “was” here optimistically in the hope that this has improved.
So what does financially illiterate actually mean? I’ve met people who can budget but don’t understand how the economy works. Like at all. I’ve also met people who are consistently broke but have a great working knowledge of how economic policy actually behaves
It doesn’t really surprise me considering I know under 25s who take out Klarna for <£100 purchases.
The responsility lies with the individual. Since the invention of the internet it’s very very easy to find all of this information (this post is literally a news article about personal finance) but folk would rather watch Netflix for three hours a night instead. You can’t expect everyone to do everything for you.
37 comments
>The study found almost two-thirds (61%) of young adults ***do not recall*** receiving any financial education at school, compared to under a third (29%) who do remember receiving financial education.
Aye, there’s the problem. At that age, they don’t care enough to engage.
Do their parents take any part in this?
Along with cooking this should be one of the most important subjects in schools.
Finances get more interesting when you either have money to ‘play’ with (enact your choices) or it’s literally forced upon you to optimise else you sink.
Quite a lot of kids at school weren’t very good at maths for a start. I’m quite into personal finances but even for me at 15 it wouldn’t have made sense to tell me about mortgages, or really when ISAs make sense.
Some of these landscapes also change by the time you will need them.
I recall doing something about compound interest, and that was a struggle for many. That was about it. I just don’t think you get the engagement.
The most valuable skill to come away with is the critical thinking to go look into something and process the information. Actually, I learned a lot of my financial knowhow by looking at the questions people didn’t Google themselves and posted somewhere, then googled them myself to find the answer and tell them. You don’t even need to be that good at searching either when the likes of Martin Lewis do what they do so well.
I actually think financial masterclasses at university could help some more. Obviously it doesn’t capture everyone but you’re at least speaking to a subset of young adults that are about to need it and have hopefully matured to the point of accepting it’s in their interest to try learn a bit.
Not really
0 + 0 = 0
It’s all anybody born after 1987 really needs to know as far as personal finance goes in this economy
I don’t think it’s down to financial illiteracy , rather, some financial products are deliberatly obscure and are made to look like free money when they are complex with hidden charges etc which means the financial house is always the winner.
Look through any of the T&Cs, and you would need a degree in several different subjects to make sense of it.
I skim-read that title as ‘financially literate’ and was so surprised and pleased for a moment.
There are people working right now who think earning over a tax threshold means it applies to their entire wage.
Have to wonder if lack if financial education is deliberate. A lot of sectors rely on debt and or spureous spending or even poor wages.
Would be interesting to see if there is a seperation between private and public schools.
“Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure nineteen and six, result happiness. Annual income twenty pounds, annual expenditure twenty pounds ought and six, result misery.”
Financial literacy instilled in two sentences, courtesy of Charles Dickens.
I’m far from convinced this is limited to only young people.
I met people all the time with no understanding of basic economics – Reddit is littered with them – and who don’t have the slightest grasp of taxation, trade, investment, etc.
My brother has a colleague that’s just been stung for 7 years back taxes by HMRC because he didn’t know he should have been doing his own tax returns. This guy has a very responsible job and is well into his 40s.
I moved from the UK to the US when i was 25 (15 years ago), and granted I work in finance, but I’m amazed by how financially illiterate most of my friends at home are and they all have professional careers. One of my friends had questions about a private pension he has, and I asked what it was invested in, and he said “I don’t know, i just have a risk dial I can move so I have it set to as little risk as possible”. When I see finance topics come up on this sub it’s the same, people have absolutely no clue about very basic investing concepts, what an interest rate is, how compounding works etc…it’s crazy.
By the time you really need to understand financial services, people are several years out of school and have forgotten a lot of what they learnt at school generally (not just in maths). Add to this the fact that deciphering the lingo is another barrier to overcome first and people give up before they have a chance to try and understand what they need to know. It is all well and good talking about teaching finances in school, however kids need to engage with the material at the time they are being taught about it, otherwise they are going to find it as useful as knowing what an oxbow lake is in a few years time.
Luckily, none of us have enough money for that to matter
No amount of money literacy will save our young from the incompetent machinations of the nasty parties destruction of their financial futures.😠
Lol. If I cut back on my pleasantries and ‘treats’, I’ll save roughly £70 a month.
If I stop paying my rent, council tax and energy bills I’ll save just over £1800 a month.
Makes you think.
It’s not taught at school for the vast majority of people. So it’s hardly a surprise.
And the majority of elders and mid aged people too.
My work colleague took out an unnecessary loan at 6% recently, and gleefully told me “inflation is at 10%, so it pays for itself!” Sometimes a little knowledge can be dangerous.
wdym financial literacy bitch I’m working full time with no expenses haha I don’t need that shit
Economics, finance and basic accounting should be taught at every school. They’re very useful to know about and you can pick up really important problem solving and logic skills from studying them. Especially if it’s part-taught on excel, a pretty essential skill for almost every white collar job.
Saying this, it’s in the government and companies interest for most people to remain financially illiterate, as it means we can’t question them as much and they can get away with a lot more
You can remove the ‘young’ part, people being shit with money has been a constant as old as humanity.
Not a chance 2/5 are financially literate, doubt it’s even a tenth of that.
It would be nice if they could actually define what ‘financially literate’ means, because the article seems to say that you’re only finanically literate if you’ve received formal education on the matter, which is nonsense.
Using that logic, you could say the majority of young people are illiterate at wiping their arse because school never formally teaches them how.
I wonder how a young person is defined, most people get financially savvy through experience.
Basic budgeting and such should be taught in schools
The majority of the population are ‘financially illiterate’
My mate’s been saving years but just can’t manage to actually save anything. Turns out he spends £30 a week on a haircut and beard trim. Hair looks great though
The only answer is to ensure everyone studies maths until the age of 18. Why no-one has thought of this already is beyond reckoning
I’d say this probably applies to all age groups, it was certainly not a focus at school where it really should be.
Anyone know where I can find resources to learn more about finance?
Seriously, they needed a study for this?
The fact the Daily Mail can run a Column telling people entering the Higher Rate tax band is a bad thing, so they shouldn’t seek a pay rise, and people believe them, should tell you something.
That’s the goal of capitalist primary and secondary education. Create people who know how to do a particular job and not see how they are exploited. The more you get in trouble financially in your life the harder you have to work for the bosses.
For example: the more irresponsible you are with money the greater the chance the bank will be able to take the property you may have inherited. Most are encouraged to overconsume and get in debt instead of following the rules of wealth accumulation.
Well, of course. I don’t know of anyone since at least Gen X that received any sort of education in how finances work.
Never taught to budget or disburse earnings, never taught about taxes, how to get a mortgage, how the stock market works, hell, even how money works, how it’s assigned value, what inflation is and how it works, etc., etc., etc.
But hey, I know what the quadratic equation is. Even though I’ve only ever used it once since leaving school, and that was still in an education setting. Also, writing in cursive. Because that is totally an essential skill…
I had to explain the concept compound interest to my 47 year-old wife the other day
I was very attentive in school and received top grades in every subject. Personal finance was literally *never* covered, even in “Business Management”. There was* a serious lack of education on actually useful subjects.
*I’m using “was” here optimistically in the hope that this has improved.
So what does financially illiterate actually mean? I’ve met people who can budget but don’t understand how the economy works. Like at all. I’ve also met people who are consistently broke but have a great working knowledge of how economic policy actually behaves
It doesn’t really surprise me considering I know under 25s who take out Klarna for <£100 purchases.
The responsility lies with the individual. Since the invention of the internet it’s very very easy to find all of this information (this post is literally a news article about personal finance) but folk would rather watch Netflix for three hours a night instead. You can’t expect everyone to do everything for you.