What Youth Must Know to be Financially Literate

The population with the largest increase in bankruptcy rates in 2004 was young adults under the age of 24! Teens and young adults must learn about financial skills earlier than most parents think.

Financial literacy includes having a working knowledge about the issues everyone faces regarding money – getting money, spending money, and keeping money. Too often information is only focused on two narrow aspects of these large topics, budgeting and investing in the stock market. The skills that everyone needs to develop in order to be financially literate in today’s world are much more complex than that. Let’s take a look at each of these topics and what they mean to young people.

Getting Money – In the U.S. economy, getting money usually means earning a wage. Young people need to understand that what you earn is generally dependent on the knowledge and skills you possess. The typical American high school curriculum that just gets you a diploma does not usually develop any particular knowledge or skill set that will increase your earnings in any substantial way. There are programs in many schools that may develop some degree of skill specialization, or prepare you for higher education. These are the immediate goals for young people in order to address their future financial needs.

Additionally, the concept of compounding interest and the time value of money is a critical foundation for understanding the benefits of saving and investing and the drawbacks of borrowing. Time is on the side of youth in this country, but they need to know about the opportunity to start saving and the power of compounding to take advantage of the circumstance granted to everyone.

Spending Money – In 2005, Americans spent more than they earned. That might lead one to believe that we know how to spend! We do, we just don’t do it well. In order to spend money well we need to be aware of our goals, short term and long term, and make decisions that support the attainment of those goals. Spending happens on a daily basis for most of us, but are we really thinking about the things we want when we spend our money?

Spending money also means knowing how to take on debt in a manner that is appropriate. Discovering what financial strategies fit well with your personality and temperament will go a long way in making solid, consistent decisions. That in turn allows for credit scores to remain high enough to provide benefits on insurance rates and loan rates.





Consumer protection, identity theft, phishing, risk management, and predatory lending are all topics that everyone needs to be aware of in order to be financially successful today.

Keeping Money – A long time ago, you could put your savings under your mattress and you were set for most financial situations. Today, not only do you need to save, but you need to put your money to work for you. Discovering what investing tools motivate you to stay informed and on top of your investments is vital. That motivation also spurs you to continue to save. This positive spiral allows financial success. Not knowing what to do, investing poorly and loosing money, or putting your money in someone else’s hands are setting yourself up for failure. Investment decisions are yours alone. There is plenty of advice floating around. How do you tell the good advice from the bad? You need a basic financial knowledge. That will eliminate most of the risk of falling for a scam.

You also need to know how to keep the money that you make through your investments. With plenty of tax plans to assist with this, deferring or eliminating much of the tax consequences of making money through investing is available to everyone, not just the very rich.

But if you have developed basic financial literacy and live according what you know, you will be rich.

What Youth Must Know to be Financially Literate / Sandy Welch

Sandy Welch is a financial literacy educator, speaker, and author of The Next Generation’s Millionaires: What You Must Know About Money, A book for teenagers and young adults. Check out her other resources by visiting sandywelchonline.com.