Over the past few years, we have heard or said “there is an App for that” and indeed, from a financial literacy perspective, there are applications for:

• Mobile Banking
• Budgeting
• Cash Flow Management
• Investing Loan Calculators

These are helpful but currently can only help us so much.  There are resources to help fill in the gaps such as:

• The American Institute of Certified Public Accountants (AICPA) has a free community service program titled 360 Degrees of Financial Literacy.  http://www.360financialliteracy.org . The goal is to help people make smart financial decisions at every stage of life.  Information is included for both personal finance and for small business owners.
• Feed the Pig: www.feedthepig.org was designed to encourage 25-34 year olds to take control of their personal finances.

Poverty-Action.org has a paper titled Keeping it Simple: Financial Literacy and Rules of Thumb http://personal.lse.ac.uk/fischerg/Assets/KIS-DFS-March2013.pdf .  The research suggests that reducing complexity can improve effectiveness. Rather than teach double-entry accounting, working capital management, and investment decisions to some business owners, Rules of Thumb could be used. Most of us use some of these in our personal life, but as a country we do not do a very good job in practice.

The Council for Economic Education: Survey of the States 2011: The State of Economic and Personal Finance Education in our Nation’s Schools http://www.councilforeconed.org/news-information/survey-of-the-states/ includes a lot of information that is important for our kids, ourselves, and our economic future.

We are all busy and we usually only seek information when we need it; i.e. “just in time education”.  Some people like to learn on their own and for you, I have provided some on- line resources. Others like to learn with someone and for you, perhaps, I can be your partner. As Benjamin Franklin said, “an investment in knowledge pays the best interest”. Please let me know if I can help.

Email: debfoxfinancial@gmail.com

I hope this information helps to empower you to navigate life’s uncertain financial seas. Life is meant to be good; enjoy.