Money Smart Guide

Financial literacy is the ability to make informed judgments and to take effective actions regarding the current and future use and management of money. It includes the ability to understand financial choices, plan for the future, spend wisely, and manage the challenges associated with life events such as a job loss, saving for retirement, or paying for a child’s education. Are you financially literate?

In , “Show Me The Money Resources: Financial Literacy For 21St-Century Learners”, Karen Gavigan shares why there is a need for financial literacy: 

• After surveying more than 46,000 high school students nationwide in May 2008, the Council on Financial Literacy discovered that the average student's score regarding personal finance issues was 56% (Delisio, 2007).
  
  
• More young people filed for bankruptcy than graduated from college in 2001 (Suiter & Meszaros, 2007).
  
  
• Forty-five percent of college students today face credit card debt with the average debt totaling over $3,000 (Delisio, 2007).”
  
  
• “Former Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan stated that our children are financially illiterate and unable to inherit the global economy unless we start to educate them in elementary school (Godfrey, N.S., 2006).

Are you MoneySmart?