With the recent news of the extraordinary movement of a stock price, you may be feeling a bit insecure about your financial knowledge. What happened to GameStop stock? Why did it happen? And why should you care beyond wanting to be conversant about a big news story?
GameStop will be yesterday’s story in short order, but what you might want to take from this event is the importance of improving your financial literacy. We define financial literacy as acquiring knowledge to make well-informed financial decisions to stabilize finances and build wealth. And learning how to access financial tools and support is key.
For 2021, we’ve chosen Financial Literacy as the overarching theme for our blogs. The lens we’ll apply is Transition, something appropriate for the residual challenges of 2020, and the changes on the road ahead.
Financial literacy includes developing a deeper understanding of the financial items you encounter on a daily basis. These include income, bills and obligations, taxes, investing, employee benefits, and retirement planning, just to name a few.
Here are a few concepts to lay in as part of your foundation:
- Interest rates and debt (student, credit card, auto, etc.)
- Investment time horizons
- Asset allocation
- Insurance (how much you self-insure vs. paying for protection)
From the big picture strategic planning that aligns you with your accounting and financial investment professionals, to the day-to-day management of bill paying, cash distribution, and cash flow, it all needs to be understood and managed. It’s easier if you’ve developed a good level of financial literacy.
Helping people understand the big picture of their personal finances and providing the perspective, counsel, and support as they work with their advisors is what we do at Eddy & Schein Group. Let us know how we might help you.
(Read more in our article “It’s Time for a Personal Finances Reboot.”)