“Financial literacy means to be able to understand money and how it works” says Nelson Soh in his Ted Talk about financial literacy.

Most people that find themselves in financial struggles have spent years in school without learning anything about money. This is the one big issue in modern schools: they do not train students for real life situations, especially so when it comes to understanding basic economical principles. How many senior students know what a budget, a retirement plan or even an emergency fund are? If we think about it, these people are going to be financially independent in a year or two! Because of the lack of economical teachings in schools all over the world, new (and old) generations are struggling more and more with paying debts – that nowadays have record-high interest rates – and establishing financial goals for a life free from financial-related worries.

Because schools do not teach students how to handle money it is often the parent’s job to insight their children on how to so. The problem here is that most parents are not good at managing finances themselves and therefore “transfer” their financial illiteracy to their children, who, in most cases are going to be stuck with these wrong principles themselves their entire lives.

Writing these little and easy-to-read articles, my purpose is to make a free guide to insight people, and especially teenagers, on how important and how life changing it can be to properly understand the science of saving, planning and investing money.

By Raffaela Quaranta