Your financial literacy is your ability to make wise and crucial financial decisions. Nobody was born with financial literacy in this world; your financial knowledge is improving over time and your financial ignorance is decreasing thereby. You must be having a little idea, that’s why you are here to read this. So without further delay, here are some ways to get financial information.
Your experience
There is no better teacher than your experience but you should not keep making all the mistakes you can make. It is very obvious to make wrong decisions based on your own knowledge and advice and you will make mistakes along the way; it is part of the learning process. But you should never repeat mistakes & you should always learn from your mistakes. It is a matter of your own choice from whom you will accept advice and whose advice you should take with you.
One of the best ways to get financial education is to sign up for one or more online share broker platforms where you can buy and sell stocks or Mutual funds online. You only need a small amount of money to get involved. In India Zerodha, Upstox, Angel Broking, Grow, 5Paisa, Motilal Oswal, Sharekhan are such platforms but there are more around. Other countries have similar share or trading platforms available. Therefore go ahead with your favorite brokerage platform.
The experiences of others
The easiest way to learn something is from the mistakes of others. All you need to do is to keep your eyes & ears open; most people do not do this but follow others like sheep. This is by no means the best course. History has really taught us that following the crowd is the wrong way to go. An old example is the stock market where particular stocks have been in the overbought zone because so many people have jumped onto it. And buying shares of that particular company. After all, everyone does it. It is young people with no market knowledge who are prone to this error.
The better option is to look at transactions in the market whether it is gold, stocks, commodities, and so on. You do not need to hear what others are saying if you have the ability to evaluate what is good and what is bad.
Hence be prepared to listen to what the older generation has to say and their ideas are based on their experience & this can help you a lot.
Books
Ignorance is not only a reason for not studying finance books & the other one is they may be boring sometimes. There are terrible books on finances too. Some of my recommendations are, “The Richest Man in Babylon” by George S. Clason, “Rich Dad Poor Dad” by Robert T. Kiyosaki, “The Parable of Pipeline” by Burke Hedges, “Think & Grow Rich” by Napoleon Hill, “The Total Money Makeover” by Dave Ramsey, “I will teach you To be Rich” by Ramit Sethi, “The Psychology of Money” by Morgan Housel etc. There are so many other recommended books for reading. The above-mentioned are some of the most successful financial writers. Therefore it’s the perfect time to start reading books & gaining knowledge.
The Internet
There is a lot of information available online about finance and investment. A simple Google search will reveal this. But as a listener to your partners, you should use your judgment when checking information from other sites and how it relates to your present situation. So many well-established Financial advisors/Planners are providing services in India. There are so many youtube channels where financial information is available & also there are so many blogs sharing very crucial information about personal finances. Hence by researching on the internet, very good advice can also be obtained freely.
The Newspapers
Many newspapers carry financial information and this should be read. Cut out your favorite articles; then make a good habit of reading for a long time with discipline.
