Many thanks to Cara Delany for this terrific infographic.
Way back when I went to high school, I was required to take a trimester long class called Personal Finance. Among the topics were how to write a check and balance a checkbook, how to put together a family budget (this lesson might as well have been called “Don’t get pregnant unless you like poverty”), what color cars were safest, how to calculate cost per unit (with the bizarre aside that a longer cassette tape was cheaper per minute than a shorter one of the same cost, the quality of the music being irrelevant), and Why Capitalism Is Better Than Communism (it was during the Reagan Administration, I even remember the propaganda filmstrips). I think we might have spent a day or two on different kinds of insurance. Topics that in retrospect I would have liked to have seen but didn’t include how to decipher utility bills, how interest works, credit cards and other short term debt (pay it off ASAP!), secured debt such as car notes and mortgages, and basic investment vehicles (stocks, bonds, mutual funds, etc).
Have a great weekend, folks!