<$Wednesday, January 16, 2008$>
Personal Finance 101
| Once you become even a little knowledgeable about a topic, it can become really easy to take for granted that everybody else knows as much about it as you do, because it's all come to seem intuitive and common sense. Like with computers: whenever I try to show my mom how to do something on her computer, we both get frustrated because I start from the assumption that she at least knows and remembers the things I consider to be very basic and second nature--right-click and keyboard shortcuts, basic formatting, how to locate a file on her hard drive, etc. I forget that these are mostly foreign concepts for her, or at least difficult concepts for her to remember and put into practice enough to become familiar with them. I forget that I have to go back to the basics. It can be the same with personal finance and money management. I'm by no means an expert, but I find when having conversations with my offline circle of people that some of the money management tricks and habits that come fairly naturally to me now are alien to them--and then I remember that, not so long ago, they were alien to me as well. I'm sure it must be overwhelming to those who are new to the personal finance blogosphere -- and to personal finance in general -- to start reading PF blogs and get hit with information about IRAs and stocks and net worth and whatnot (I know it still is to me, and I've been at this for a little while now), when they don't even have a basic grasp of money management. There is a lot of useful advice out there that cover the basics, but it's hard to dig around in the PF haystack to find it. So over the next few weeks I'm going to focus on the basics, as I understand them. I'll be gathering links to info and advice on various topics such as tracking your spending, creating a budget, getting on top of late fees, etc., and go from there. I'll also evaluate the advice I find and give examples of how it helped me conquer my own finances (or why it didn't), and I'll even offer up my own advice in areas where I feel knowledgeable enough to do so. So if you're new to all of this, or know someone who could stand to be introduced to it, keep watching this space. This information might seem pretty obvious to a lot of you, but I have no doubt there are plenty of folks out there who could use it. Labels: educational, money management |
Good approach. I have the exact same problem with my mom!
Heh. Moms and computers really shouldn't mix.