Financial education for young adults

decisions about their postsecondary education, jobs and careers. They also are starting to live independently and form their own households. These changes require careful management of income and expenses and financial planning. If young adults take on large amounts of debt, either through credit cards, student loans, or other avenues and cannot manage the payments, this debt can be problematic years into the future.”

It’s imperative that if it’s not taught in the schools, then parents need to take the lead. The problem is that children are great observers of their parent’s behavior and if they are raised in a home of financial mismanagement, they will consider parental advice as hypocritical. If they see bad money habits in the home, and never are taught or shown how to properly deal with money, then chances are that they will make costly financial decisions when they get older.

So for you parents reading this, it’s time to get your financial home in order as well. Teenagers need to learn responsible money habits. Just like most things in life, if kids learn the “right” lessons they will have a much easier time being financially responsible. for them, they can actually earn a bit of interest on money market accounts and can start learning about investing as well. As I have written numerous times, the earlier one starts to invest, the better off they will be in the future. Learning how compound interest works and how they can make money passively by investing is very important for their longterm financial security.