Are you constantly worried about money? How is your financial situation during the lockdown? Are you struggling to make ends meet? Do you have enough savings to go through this pandemic? Are you struggling to meet debt obligations? Are you living from paycheck to paycheck? Do you feel that your salary is not enough to cover your monthly expenses? Are your financial worries so stressful that they are already gravely affecting all aspects of your life including your health and personal relationships? Well, there is a solution to your problem. That is, a basic understanding of finance. Financial literacy can change your life for the better.
What will you do when you have money problems? Most people will look for ways to earn more money by sacrificing their time and health. They will either get a second job or work overtime just to raise the needed money. Other people will resort to borrowing money. However, not all loans are created equal. There are good loans and bad loans. Some loans like credit cards charge high interests and can easily spiral out of control especially if you don’t know how to use them. There are some who will simply rely on government support. While these strategies may help ease your financial burdens in the short term, it is not going to permanently solve your money issues in the long run.
There is only one solution to money problems and that is financial literacy.
The single biggest difference between financial success and financial failure is how well you manage your money. It’s simple: to master money, you must manage money. –
T. Harv Eker
Financial literacy is essential in having a secure financial future. Unfortunately, financial literacy was never thought in school. For most people, the yearning to learn financial literacy only comes when they are already faced with financial crisis.
Academic qualifications are important and so is financial education. They’re both important and schools are forgetting one of them.
Robert Kiyosaki
So, what exactly is financial literacy? Wikipedia defines financial literacy as ” the possession of the set of skills and knowledge that allows an individual to make informed and effective decisions with all of their financial resources”.
In short, financial literacyis simply understanding money and how it works. It is knowing how to budget, how to pay your bills, how to borrow money responsibly, how to save, invest and prepare for retirement. Financial literacy will help you make good financial decisions in your everyday life that will ultimately affect your overall financial situation and change your life for the better.
Working hard is simply not enough. You can be a graduate of a four-year course, have a master’s degree or even a doctorate degree but know nothing about personal finance. Even if you are earning millions, you can still end up poor if you know nothing about how money works. It is not about how much money you make but it is all about what you do with the money that you earn that matters.
It is not about how much money you make. The question is are you educated enough to keep it.
Shaquille O’Neal
More so, have you ever wondered why the rich is becoming richer and the poor becoming poorer? Contrary to popular belief, it is not because the rich are all crooks. Neither it is the government’s fault. If you want to know the answer to this question, invest your time in financial education and soon you will find out that the only thing that is stopping you from being wealthy is you.
Make your first step and start your journey towards financial literacy now.
And remember, financial literacy is a lifelong journey. It will not end by simply reading just one book. It is something that you need to learn throughout your life if you want to achieve complete financial freedom.
Edited version. First published in Pinoy Smart Living 10.19.2018Feature Image by mohamed Hassan from Pixabay Images
