Money is a must-have for all seasons. Be it winter, spring, summer or fall, we all have spending necessities to take care of, at the same time, the pursuit to earn and save continue. This means that improving one’s money or financial intelligence should be a lifetime devotion.
Here are useful mind -boosting articles to help you better understand ideas, concepts, insights and views surrounding money and its use, and realize how good financial IQ can help you not only stockpile on dollars but also stockpile on the happiness that proper money management can bring.
1. Develop Your Financial IQ
For average Americans, accumulating money is a complex thing. An increase in salary would mean a higher income bracket and therefore more taxes. At the same time, one’s personal expenses shoot up as one moves up the wealth ladder. Cars, homes and activities require higher financing plans.
This multi-part article offers different ways to look at money, and from there, make a discernment on how to approach money issues in one’s life equipped with proper financial intelligence. Aside from fresh insights about people and money and the interdependence that binds the two, there are also short personal quizzes for the reader to help in determining the appropriate approaches fitting to his or her personality and situation.
2. Harvard Students Need To Learn Finances Too
The lack of financial literacy among Americans, where even the brightest academic students admit they have no adequate personal finance education, has been blamed as a contributing factor in triggering the last two US recessions.
This article takes readers on what goes on in a Harvard University 3-day class that teaches personal finance basics: credit cards, budgeting money, understanding credit scores, interest rates and inflation, among others. It aims to bring attention to the fact that Americans need a more formal financial literacy education. One thing the article focused on is understanding the psychology of financial decision-making, and not to fall into money marketing traps like store credit cards.
3. Psychology Today
This is one article that truly hits home on financial mismanagement everyone is guilty of at one point in time – buying things you don’t need or even use. While it recognizes the fact that there is an innate desire to save among us, this very desire is being exploited so that we buy things under the mental conditioning of saving. It explains how the unconscious mind falls to marketing and retailing traps that drive impractical consumer behavior.
The “admonitions” would be better understood while reading and looking at one’s home surroundings – realizing the many items that are sitting idle in the house, and mentally calculating how much your home junk already amounted to.
4. Money Lessons My Part-Time Jobs Taught Me
Forbes associate editor Natalie Wearstler shares important money lessons from strings of summer jobs and weekend jobs she had, starting at age 16, before landing a full-time job. Looking back, she acknowledges the valuable lessons the humble occupations taught her, helping her prepare to become a financially independent adult.
The money lessons are relatable and at times, good reminders of what it takes to earn, to spend and to save. The insights come from different “fields” all at the same time – a seller, a customer, and also a lowly minimum wage earner struggling to please clients and bosses while pining for things the meager income cannot buy at once, reinforcing the need to work hard, save and to find ways to better one’s lot.
5. Signs You Picked The Wrong Financial Advisor
An article on financial management support would be a fitting wrap-up for our feature. First things first, we often associate financial advisors with the wealthy ones. This article explains that financial advisors need not be the usual stiff and power-suit clad men and women – they come in all forms and appearances. And as if this is not tricky enough, they make claims bordering on impossible to outright insane.
The ‘signs’ include the basic ones like lack of certification and making outlandish claims on how your money will grow, plus enticing pitches that average savers and newbie small investors may misinterpret for sympathy – like offering their services for free or asking you to just chillax, and he will take care of everything.
Do you have ideas and tips to improve one’s money intelligence? Share them!
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