So many people fail to ‘invest’ into their own financial literacy. I don’t mean that everyone should become economists or bow-tie wearing stock analysts. If that is your dream, then by all means go for it. For most of us that won’t be the case. Most of us won’t need to understand the meanings of hedging/un-headging (I’m not even sure if that is a word!), derivatives, futures commodities and all of those other lovely, yet overwhelming financial terms.

Even though most of us won’t work in the financial sector but we all still need to ‘invest’ (brilliant) into our financial literacy.  We need to have an understanding (however basic) of how money works. We need to have a general idea of how money is lent to us, and the conditions by which it will have to be repaid.

This is not an attack on banks or credit cards – they are all a fundamental part of our society. We do however need to know how they work.

As lovely as the young lady is behind the counter of your local bank branch, of however well spoken that man at phone shop sounds you need to be able to make your own educated decisions.

You can only make an educated decision if you first have an understanding of the basics.