The Importance of Financial Literacy Month
It’s Financial Literacy Month in Canada! This provides a great time to continue our discussion from a month ago about the challenges of personal finance. As we discussed, people need to be motivated with a WHY, they need to know HOW to do something about it, and they need to DO it.
Overcoming barriers to personal finance
There are two ways to overcome these challenges. We can:
Improve the SUPPLY side of information and solutions to lower barriers
Improve the DEMAND side of interest and incentives to motivate people
There’s a direct relationship between how motivated you are and how willing you are to overcome barriers. If you know how vital saving and investing for the future is, you’re more willing to put in the work required. In addition, if it becomes easier to save and invest, then it requires less motivation for you to do it.
Financial Literacy Month helps on both of these fronts. From a supply-side, government organizations and businesses create learning materials to help lower barriers. From a demand side, discussions with friends and family can help express the importance of financial literacy and provide motivation.
From my experience, the greatest opportunity we have to improve the financial situation for ourselves, our friends, our family and our neighbours is to talk more openly about personal finance topics. While there are opportunities for schools, employers and financial institutions to lower barriers and provide motivation, we can’t rely on these solutions.
Therefore, I recommend two activities for November that I hope you continue year-round:
Ask questions about your money
If you’ve been thinking about starting a financial goal, reach out to a trusted friend or colleague and see if they can help or point you in the right direction
Alternatively, there are great resources online to help get you started:
https://www.getsmarteraboutmoney.ca/ is provided by the Ontario Securities Commission (OSC), a regulatory body that protects investors in Canada
https://www.reddit.com/r/PersonalFinanceCanada/ is a public forum where Canadians help one another with their financial questions
Share your experiences with others
You may be able to lower barriers for others by explaining how to create a budget or pay off debt
Or you may be able to motivate by describing how well you slept once you had an emergency savings account in place
It’s in all our best interest to help one another through financial challenges in life. It can be hard to ask for help with any topic, but it seems especially true for financial topics. I hope that this trend stops, and we become more comfortable talking about debt, spending habits and how money can be used as a tool to get the most out of life. If you have questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out directly in person or contact me here.
If you’re looking for an introduction to tools and mindsets that will help get the most from your money, The Snowman’s Guide to Personal Finance is available for free in its entirety on this site or for purchase.