It’s April once again, which means it’s also Financial Literacy Month in the United States. Because basic financial literacy is imperative, Get Rich Slowly will devote the next few weeks to covering the fundamentals of personal finance. If you have a topic you’d like me to write about, please let me know. To begin, however, here’s my annual collection of financial literacy resources I’ve provided in the past.

Get Rich Slowly
This site regularly features articles about basic personal finance skills. Some of the best from the past three years include information on the following topics:

Basic skills

Budgeting

Bank accounts

Credit and credit cards

Investing

As a general rule, the basics category here at Get Rich Slowly contains information about fundamental financial literacy.

Saving and Investing
In April 2007, I shared a series of videos from author Michael Fischer. Though designed as companions to his book, Saving and Investing, these short pieces stand on their own. Look past the fact that these aren’t polished and professional — Michael provides some excellent information. Here are links to each part in the series:

  1. Introduction
  2. The power of compounding
  3. Providers and users of capital
  4. The difference between debt and equity
  5. What is leverage?
  6. An introduction to financial statements
  7. Why do financial markets exist?
  8. What is a bond?
  9. What is a stock?
  10. What is a stock market index?
  11. The importance of diversification (also an introduction to diversification)
  12. What is a mutual fund?
  13. Types of mutual funds
  14. The difference between active and passive management
  15. An introduction to dollar-cost averaging
  16. The impact of time
  17. The three enemies of growth
  18. Coping with high-interest debt
  19. Getting started
  20. 5 popular misconceptions about money

Other web sites
There are other excellent financial literacy resources around the web.

  • CNNMoney has an outstanding overview of basic personal finance topics called Money 101. Each of the 23 topics includes several pages of information, and many of the subjects include an interactive calculator or tool.
  • The Federal government has a website called MyMoney.gov, which is “dedicated to teaching all Americans the basics about financial education.”
  • The Federal government also provides the Federal Citizen Information Center, which offers free (or cheap) publications on a variety of topics including personal finance. Many of these publications are available in free PDF versions.
  • Both Illinois and Wisconsin have sites devoted to personal finance education. These two pages contain a wealth of links to information on many subjects.
  • 360 Degrees of Financial Literacy is a site from the American institute of CPAs. It includes many articles on various life stages such as “college”, “couples & marriage”, “home ownership”, etc. A clunky interface, but a lot of solid information.
  • Ramit at I Will Teach You to Be Rich has The world’s easiest guide to understanding retirement accounts.
  • Rhetorical Device offers A brief history of money. This is actual history. It’s a short article, but fascinating.

Between the Saving and Investing video series, the GRS basics archive, and the other sites I’ve linked here, you have a wealth of personal finance material at your disposal. I look forward to writing more about financial literacy during the month of April!

This article is about Basics  Thursday, 2nd April 2009 (by J.D. Roth)