No matter how much or how little money you have, there is no doubt that it has an effect on your life.
From buying a cup of coffee to investing in your first home, you need money and, more importantly, you need to know how to manage it properly.
Why is financial literacy important but so often overlooked, considering the role money plays in our lives?
Many people focus on just having or not having money, but financial literacy goes far beyond that.
With financial literacy tools and book summaries from Blinkist, like the Rich Dad Poor Dad summary, you can equip yourself to be more prepared for the future.
Why Is Financial Literacy Important?
There’s no denying that learning about money and how it flows is important, but why?
1. Achieve Goals More Efficiently
Whether your goal is to go to college, start your own business, or buy a house, you can achieve them more efficiently when you understand how your finances work.
Money, loans, and credit all play a huge role in how you live and what your future will be like.
If you don’t understand how to use these things in an efficient, safe way, you will be holding yourself back.
2. Maximize What You Have
When you know exactly how much money you have, where that money goes, and what expectations are in place, you can maximize its potential and use it to your advantage.
Rather than wasting income on bad investments or poor financial decisions, you can instead control your future more successfully.
In a nutshell, financial literacy allows you to do more with every cent that you own.
3. Get Out Of Survival Mode
Many people who do not have a grasp on their finances or on how to control their finances are living in survival mode.
Even when not living from paycheck to paycheck, they live on a very limited amount in a very irregular way.
Gaining financial literacy can help you analyze your situation and get out of survival mode.
Rather than feeling like every day is a struggle to get through, you can begin to thrive and grow.
4. Know What’s Important
People often end up in difficult financial situations not because they were reckless with their money, but because they didn’t understand what was happening.
From signing up for bad credit cards to getting locked into a predatory loan, they don’t realize how much they lose through these poor financial decisions.
Financial literacy educates people on what needs to be considered when making financial choices so that you can find success and financial freedom.
Who Can Benefit From Financial Literacy?
Who will benefit most from financial literacy? Ultimately, everyone should gain this educational skill.
However, there are a few specific parties that should be given better opportunities to understand their financial options.
1. Grade School Students
Often, children in middle and high school have never learned anything about how money works.
They may not understand credit cards, loans, stocks, or any other area of the financial world they will soon be a part of.
In fact, high school students often decide what college they go to and how much debt they take on before the concept of debt even has a real meaning in their lives.
How does that make sense?
Increasing financial education from a young age is very important.
When people grow up with an awareness of money and finances, they can do a better job of having a stable financial future.
2. College Students
If youths are not given the opportunity to learn financial literacy in high school or earlier, they should definitely be given that chance during their college years.
Many college students have huge amounts of debt and work a job or two while studying just to try to get by.
They may even start to sign up for credit cards to manage their expenses without realizing the effect that this could have on their future.
They are doing their best, but they don’t have the education necessary to make the best choices.
3. Those Recovering From Financial Setbacks
Finally, more banks and loan service companies should have programs that work with those who have defaulted on their loans or otherwise faced huge financial setbacks.
These programs would seek to educate those who made poor financial choices in the past without punishing them.
It is always possible to improve your financial literacy; some people just don’t know where to begin.
How To Improve Your Financial Literacy on Blinkist
If you are ready to start improving your own financial literacy, the best place to begin is with some of the top finance books on the market today.
There are hundreds of books that can help you to get a better idea of finances and how to manage your own.
In fact, there are so many books with sound advice that you might not even know where to begin!
Using Blinkist, a book summary service, allows you to get the core lessons out of books in under 15 minutes of reading.
While you can always read the complete book later on, Blinkist summaries will give you an idea of what it offers and what to start applying to your own life immediately.
‘Rich Dad, Poor Dad’ Book Summary
To learn why financial literacy is important, you can start by reading about it.
One of the most popular financial literacy books of all time is Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert Kiyosaki.
This book, which uses the examples of the author’s real dad and his best friend’s dad to illustrate financial lessons, has long been applauded as one of the best financial books.
The book covers how it does not always take a lot of money to be rich; instead, it is important that rich people know how to make people (and systems) work for them.
Through his five core lessons, he talks about how those who are financially stable and comfortable have found out how to make their assets work for, not against, them.
Once they have money, those who are financially stable know how to keep that money on their side.
The lessons of the book focus on this idea of protecting your money and allowing it to generate more income without becoming a liability.
Get Focused On Your Finances
Your financial future is very important, and you should ensure that you have a good degree of financial literacy as you move forward.
If you aren’t sure that you’ve achieved this yet, take some time to read the Rich Dad Poor Dad summary and other financial book summaries on Blinkist.
You will be able to very quickly see if you are implementing the necessary financial lessons from experts, or if you need to take more time to improve your situation.
Regardless of how you choose to educate yourself about your finances, you want to be sure that you find a way to gain financial stability.