Here are five key components of financial literacy:
- Budgeting
- Saving
- Managing debt
- Investing
- Managing credit
You can think of budgeting as the bedrock of your whole financial life. It's a plan for how you'll direct your income toward expenses, spending and savings goals.
Without a budget, it can be easy to fall into overspending and living paycheck to paycheck. A personal budget, on the other hand, can make meeting your financial obligations predictable.
To increase your budgeting skills:
- Learn about how to start a budget.
- Read tips for sticking to your budget.
- Learn about different budgeting methods and top-rated mobile budgeting apps.
- Get advice for how to recover if you go off your budget.
Saving is a crucial financial move because it's how you build security and work toward your money goals. Generally speaking, your first order of business should be setting up an emergency savings fund and aiming to keep around three to six months' worth of expenses socked away. Beyond that, saving in advance can help you afford anything you need or want, from unexpected car repairs to next summer's vacation, without going into debt.
To increase your saving skills:
- Learn about how to pay yourself first to make saving a habit.
- Find out how to set savings goals that motivate you, such as a home down payment fund.
- Know where you should keep your savings based on your goals.
- Try setting up sinking funds, a savings life hack that helps you reach mini goals.
For better or for worse, debt is a common part of financial life. People borrow to achieve any number of goals. You might take out student loans to attend college, an auto loan when you need a new car or a mortgage when you're ready to buy a house. You might also use a credit card or a personal loan when you want to finance a purchase and pay it back over time.
But debt can also be destructive to your finances. To manage your debt well:
- Learn about the difference between good and bad debt.
- Understand the impacts of how you manage debt on your credit score, especially how you handle monthly payments.
- Understand what a grace period is and how paying off your credit cards each month lets you avoid paying interest.
- If you're carrying balances, learn how to get out of debt faster.
There's a common myth that investing is only for the super wealthy and out of reach for most people. In reality, investing is something everyone should begin as early as possible and doesn't require lots of money.
You can sign up for a retirement account, such as a 401(k) or IRA, and direct a portion of each paycheck into it to start saving for retirement now. That's even true if you only work part time. Experts recommend putting 10% to 15% of your income into your retirement investments, but even starting smaller—at, for example, 5% or 6%—is still a good move.
For context, if someone earns $850 per week pretax, putting 5% of that into retirement would mean contributing $42.50 per week. Invested in a 401(k) or IRA, that money could continue to grow and earn compound interest over time. As your income increases throughout your career, you can up your contributions to reach your retirement goals.
To increase your investing management skills:
- Understand the basics of retirement planning and how to start investing.
- Learn what diversification is and how it helps you manage investment risk.
- Consider the benefits of getting financial advice from a financial advisor.
Good credit is a key piece of a solid financial foundation. When you build and maintain a good credit score, you'll have access to credit at better terms. For example, you'll be able to qualify for a mortgage when you need to buy a home and a lower-rate auto loan when you need a car. You'll also have an easier time qualifying for credit perks such as 0% introductory APR credit cards and rewards credit cards.
To increase your credit management skills:
- Learn what a credit score is and what impacts your credit.
- Take steps to build credit over time.
- Understand what causes decreases in your credit score.
- Sign up to monitor your credit for free through Experian for insights into what's currently impacting your score and advice on how to improve.