Financial literacy for students: 6 money skills to learn before 18

The need for financial literacy for students before 18 is to educate on how to use money wisely and avoid being a debtor at an early age .

Financial literacy is not associated to banking as you may think it’s about learning financial accounting.

The term ” financial literacy” can be simply defined as knowing how to understand finances and apply techniques or skills to manage your money well.

It is for educational purpose which cuts across the classroom to sensitivity over the use of money.

We have a challenging economy in Nigeria, yet there are students who don’t foresee that money is the biggest problem as well as the solution.

It becomes the biggest problem when you lack it to afford things for yourself and when you go into debt, still find money later to pay off your debts and managing life.

It also becomes the solution to problems which you can have it as a solution when you spend money wisely.

I have heard young ones who are still under 18 and even more than, say “tomorrow will take care of itself”.

For real ? Is that what you think too…

Think about this, you spend your last money carelessly today without any means of sorting out life tomorrow, do you still think ” tomorrow will take care of itself”.

Your tomorrow depends on how you cope with life today.

How you control your money today, using it for things that would always produce profits back to you would save you later.

It is important to note that, money is difficult to achieve in Nigeria’s economy.

Learning this now is not about being rich quick, it’s about knowing how to control your money. And the earlier you learn it, the earlier life gets better.

I recommend six (6) money skills to learn before 18. These money skills are techniques to apply in the control of your money to make your financial life more easier.

The money skills are as follows:

1. Money budgeting.

2. Understand needs and wants.

3. Savings.

4. Investing concepts.

5. Protecting your money online.

6. Earning money yourself.

MONEY BUDGETING: Another word for budgeting is planning. That means, money budgeting is money planning.

It requires you as a student to draft a plan of what your money should be used for.

In this skill, you are trying to keep control of what your money would be used to get.

This is important in order to avoid careless use of money and get stuck later, which could push you to going into depts, borrowing from people or taking things on credit.

As a student, money planning keeps you free from depts and credit which would require you to pay back from the next money that comes. Once this starts, it takes difficult ways to end it.

The control of 5k for two school days is a skill to imbibe.

When others spend 5k for one day, sometimes still not enough for them. You get your budget and spend 5k for two days.

Planning comes first before any other thing, and once you miss this first skill, you are likely to loss the other skills.

You should decide what comes first and most important at the time making your budget. Setting the most important first is essential. It keeps your plan in order.

One thing is to make the plan, the other is to follow the plan set out.

If you make a budget and end up not using it, you still fall back to lack financial skills.

Therefore, state your budget to fit in the money available and go in accordance to it.

UNDERSTANDING NEEDS AND WANTS: Needs and wants differs. Most people use the words interchangeably but the hit point is they have their differences.

Needs are basic requirements one cannot do without.

On the other hand, wants are follow-up of needs, they are not basic requirements.

Needs are necessities. That they are the major things man cannot live without having them. They include, shelter, clothing and food.

One cannot live without a roof over his head, that is why shelter is a need.

One cannot live naked, that is why clothing is a need.

As well as, one cannot live without food to keep him healthy and strong to carry out daily activities.

As a student, note the difference between needs and wants.

Wants include commodities one can live without. Of course, you can live with human hair or frontal wigs, iphones, hard drugs, and many more.

But, it is seen that most students keep these WANTS as NEEDS and instead of them to focus on attaining needs first, they make wants their needs which starts affecting their use of money.

Some students are ready to give up all their money to get frontal wigs, iphone and others luxurious items.

It is not a condemnation to have these wants, but it becomes a problem when there’s no enough money to get those things.

It then turns to “getting the right things at the wrong time”.

Without knowing this skill of understanding your needs and wants, you become so confused of what issue to attend to first.

Some students goes bankrupt to meet up wants that they could get later when there is enough money.

Some disturbs their focus by joining contributions daily or weekly to get human hair.

So, this skill keeps you on the right pace on what to use your money for.

While making  your money budget, the needs should come first.

Growing with this understanding, makes you to always put your needs first and wants later.

SAVINGS: