Things That Should Be Taught In Schools, But Aren’t
What have you learned that sticks with you?
Do you remember the last time you used algebra? Yeah, me neither.
Fortunately, high schools are making a much bigger effort to teach personal finances. Whether you learned these skills in high school or not, here are some key concepts that every high school student should know:
Money Management
Although many schools are now covering basic finance subjects, there should be more emphasis on how to manage money, including budgeting, saving, paying bills, and even doing taxes.
With so much of the country in heavy debt, living paycheck to paycheck, and paying for everything with a credit card, so much of this could be avoided if proper money management was taught at a young age in school- so that these healthy habits could be formed early.
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Here are some specific points:
Change is hard
The reason that people don’t diet, don’t exercise, and don’t resolve bad personal relationships is that change is hard. As a result, we don’t really, truly change and grow unless we’re in real pain. When we’re at that point, the pain of change is less severe than that pain of not changing.
Discipline and time
With discipline and time, I think most people can accumulate far more wealth than they think is possible. But growing wealth requires change- which is precisely why most people don’t make the effort. The changes I’m suggesting involve an old friend:
Delayed gratification
Some decisions are relatively small:
Dropping a subscription music service and just listening to the free version (Pandora, for example).
Making coffee at home two days a week, which means that you stop by Starbucksless often.
Buying afew more generic products when you go to the grocery store and Target. (I’m not going generic on salad dressing, however).
Since these are smaller decisions, the amount of gratification you’re delaying is small. You don’t mind listening the commercials on Pandora (I certainly don’t- I just turned down the sound), and the coffee at home isn’t bad.
So, what do I get?
OK- so what do I get out of all this delayed gratification?
You build wealth- which can give you peace of mind.
Here’s a practical example: By making changes to your spending and building a savings account, you create a $1,000 emergency fund. If your car brakes down, you can pay for the repair.
Entrepreneurship
In today’s world, thanks to the internet and social media making it easier for people to follow their passions, more and more awareness is coming to the fact that not everyone is cut out for the traditional path of leaving school, going to college, and working a 9-5. It’s also becoming far less desirable for many people.
Unfortunately, the people who realize this still feel somewhat alienated by society because, this isn’t viewed as normal within the school system, so they’re not pursuing their true passions and talents until much later in life- and often wasting years doing something they don’t really enjoy.
Managing Life
Lots of people are now leaving school well educated in many areas, but when it comes to the practical aspects of daily life, they really struggle. Things like applying for a mortgage, booking appointments, job interviews, or even getting in touch with someone like Insurance Doctor to get themselves covered can seem completely foreign to so many high school graduates these days.
Education is Key
These are just a few of the things that really could help people, if every school taught these concepts.
This post is for educational purposes only.
Ken Boyd
Author: Cost Accounting for Dummies, Accounting All-In-One for Dummies, The CPA Exam for Dummies and 1,001 Accounting Questions for Dummies
Co-Founder: accountinged.com
(email) ken@stltest.net
(website and blog) http://www.accountingaccidentally.com/
(you tube channel) kenboydstl
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