At Liberty, our primary focus is aiding you on your pathway to financial freedom. This comes in many forms, our member-centered products, our quality service and our financial education offerings. We continue to work towards making more resources available not only for our members but also for the Anguillian community at large.
What is Financial Literacy?
Investopedia.com describes financial literacy as, “the ability to understand and effectively use various financial skills, including personal financial management, budgeting, and investing.”
Financial literacy provides you with the knowledge to sustain your financial wellbeing. Without financial literacy a person can often be unable to explain their needs/issues in a clear manner or feeling that opportunities are outside their reach. Or one may find themselves more susceptible to the mismanagement of funds and scams.
Key Elements of Financial Literacy
As the adage goes, ‘you don’t know what you don’t know’. It can be hard to know what information to start looking for when you are ready to build on your current knowledge. The best first step is to learn about budgeting. One can begin by simply outlining where the money comes from and where it goes and then determining how to better optimize this system. Next learning about saving and investing, credit, bills and taxes. As you dive into these key elements and build a solid foundation, you will find that you naturally develop more questions that can serve as a launching pad for your journey to financial literacy.
How to Improve Your Financial Literacy
Liberty continues to develop financial literacy programs as well as partnerships with financial educators such as My First Nest Egg. We offer free financial advising to all our members. Nothing is better than a personal examination of your current financial situation with a professional where you can learn information most pertinent to you with a hands-on approach. However, education does not stop there, the internet is a great source of information (be sure to only use credible sources). There are also multitudes of blogs, videos and podcasts by financial educators that you can also access. Finally, if you have both the time and money, attending a course/class, whether in person or online, can provide you with both accredited and up-to-date financial information.
Resources
Below are a few resources that can jumpstart your financial education:
Financial Literacy – Harvard College
The Ultimate Guide to Financial Literacy for Adults – Investopedia
Financial Literacy Course – Khan Academy
Comments