- 06
- Dec
More and more young people are struggling to understand the basic of personal finance, according to new government research. This leaves them at risk of ruining their credit rating early on and jeopardising their ability to secure loans in the future.
A recent government poll recently suggested that a culture of secrecy seems to have developed among 16 to 21 year-olds who admitted that they would not tell their parents they were overdrawn and with 1 in 5 saying they wouldn’t even let their parents know that they had a credit card.
This lack of knowledge on young people’s side could be down to parents making money matters a taboo. Most parents admit that they do not feel comfortable discussing money matters with their children and 22% thought that their children did not consider money matters to be of any importance.
However it is not only young people with the knowledge gaps and if you don’t know how to manage your finances efficiently than you risk not making the best decisions with your money and getting into financial difficulties. If you have some extra money sitting in your current account why not put it in a saving account for instance? Also a lot of us don’t know when getting another credit card is not to solution to our financial woes and when taking out a debt consolidation loan is better than repaying the minimum on high-interest cards.
The DfES has a campaign called Talking Money which is aimed at encouraging families to be more open about their financial matters as the family is your best financial safety net.
