If you find yourself weighed down by worry related to your finances or debt, you might also be seeking information on ways you can avoid future debt or how to plan for your financial future. It’s never too late for financial education and there are many reasons why financial health matters. Learning how to keep your budget balanced and making a savings plan can make an enormous difference in your future.
Here are the top 5 Reasons why Financial Education matters
1. Financial Education Helps You Gain Control
If you feel overwhelmed by debt, or are struggling to make payments on your loans and bills, learning how to manage your finances well is the first step to gaining control. Putting that advice to use and working to eliminate your debt is the second step. Learn to understand what you can realistically afford and what you might need to trim from your budget. Financial education can offer you a way out when debt feels overwhelming.
2. Financial Education Helps End the Debt Cycle
Learning to make a budget and to understand how your income relates to your expenses can help you avoid accumulating debt in the future. Understanding how your finances work and what makes them healthy is part of learning to live without debt. You will probably need credit again at some point in your future, so it is important to learn how to use credit wisely instead of using it in ways that harm you.
3. Financial Education Helps You Understand Your Money
Financial education helps you better understand how money works and what your money can do for you. For example, if you need to make a big decision about whether to buy a house or car or whether to save for an emergency or retirement, working with a financial counselor can help. A counselor can take a close look at your income and expenses and help you see if you have room to make a large purchase or how making such a purchase would affect the rest of your financial life.
4. Financial Education Helps You Plan for the Future
To plan for your future, you need to understand what different savings options are and how they may impact your goals. For example, if you are planning on retiring someday, financial education can help you understand how much money you’ll need. It can help you understand how to save based on your current income, inflation, and how long you anticipate living in retirement.
Understanding your finances can also help you plan for other goals. If you want to go on a vacation, it can help you figure out how much you need to save for that vacation and how much you should set aside each month so that you have the funds needed to cover your trip.
5. Financial Education Helps You Understand Your Choices
Understanding money and how finances work can help you understand the reason behind some choices you might need to make. For example, if you are saving for a vacation, you might decide not to make another large purchase that could derail your goal. If you plan on buying a home in the future, it can help you understand why you don’t want to open a credit card right now, or how doing so could get in the way of getting the best mortgage offer.
Financial Education is important — and it’s important to know that you don’t have to learn alone or teach yourself all there is to know about money. The team at CESI is committed to helping you make wise financial decisions and to helping you understand how to get out, and stay out of debt. To learn about our free financial education resources, or to start a free debt analysis, contact us and find out how we can help.
This article was syndicated and originally appeared on the CESI Debt Solutions website.
