How to get financial education
Your financial education is your ability to make smart financial decisions. You weren’t born financially smart or dumb; your financial knowledge or ignorance developed over a period of time. I guess you’re not ignorant, otherwise you wouldn’t be reading this. So without further ado, here are ways to get financially educated.
your own experience
There is no better teacher than your own experience, but that doesn’t mean you have to go ahead and make every possible mistake. It’s more a case of using your personal judgment based on your knowledge and the advice of others but you’ll make mistakes along the way; it is part of the learning process. It’s about who you’re going to take advice from and who to treat with a grain of salt.
A great way to get financial education is to sign up for one or more of the online stock market platforms where you can buy and sell stocks online. Only a minimum amount of money is needed to participate. In New Zealand, sharedies.nz is one such platform, but it is by no means the only one out there. Other countries have similar stock trading platforms available.
experience of others
The easy way to learn is from the mistakes of others. All you need to do is keep your eyes open; many people do not do this and instead follow others like sheep. This is not necessarily the best way. In fact, history has taught me that following the crowd is often the wrong way to go. A classic example is the stock market when a stock is overvalued because so many people jumped on the bandwagon and bought stock in that particular company because everyone else is doing it. It is the young people with no experience in the markets who are prone to this mistake.
It pays to go against the crowd; What this means is that you are looking for bargains in the markets, be it gold, stocks, property, etc. You don’t have to experience what others are experiencing if you have the ability to assess what is a good investment and what isn’t.
Be prepared to hear what the older generation has to say. Many of your opinions will be based on your own experience.
Books
Ignorance is no excuse for not being financially literate because your local library will have books on finance. There are fantastic books on finance. Some I recommend are “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert T. Kiyosaki with Sharon L. Lechter. They have several other books that are recommended to be read. “How to Be Rich and Happy” by Hans Jakobi, Australia’s Wealth Coach is another book I highly recommend. Hans also has several other books published, “Underground Knowledge” and “Due Diligence” being two of them. “Making Money Made Easy,” written by Australian financial advisor Noel Whittaker, is a good read. Mary Holm and Martin Hawes are other excellent financial authors.
The Internet
There is a lot of information available online about finances and investments; A simple Google search will bring them up, but just like listening to your peers, you need to use your own judgment when evaluating the information on some sites and how it relates to your own personal situation. Martin Hawes and Mary Holm are reputable consultants with good websites.
newspapers
Most newspapers contain financial information and are worth reading. Clip articles that interest you; they make a good read in a year or so.