Finances can be incredibly tricky to manage. It’s a mystery as to why our standardized education system doesn’t make personal finance a required subject. Nonetheless, individuals and businesses both need to understand how to manage their finances to reach financial goals. Luckily, it is never too late to build your knowledge of your finances.
It has been polled that at least 40% of Americans can’t cover a $1,000 emergency.
Luckily, you don’t have to have any kind of degree in finance to understand how to handle them. There are so many resources out there that are either free or incredibly cheap that can teach you what steps to take towards financial stability.
Now is the time to learn how to manage your finances in an effective way to reach your goals. Whether that means you want to be financially stable right now, in the future, or both, learning how to manage your finances is important to help you reach those goals.
What Is Personal Finance?
Personal finance covers managing your own money and how to properly save and invest.
Going into more detail, subtopics for personal finance will include:
- Budgeting,
- Insurance,
- Banking,
- Investments,
- Mortgages,
- Retirement Planning, and
- Tax Planning.
Personal finance focuses on meeting your personal financial goals. This could be your short-term financial needs or future financial needs such as retirement or your child’s college expenses.
We highly recommend reading even more about personal finance education at these two links here:
- https://www.cnbc.com/2020/04/23/free-personal-finance-courses-to-get-better-with-money.html
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/sleasca/2017/08/31/free-personal-finance-classes-online/
Now that we know what are some basic skills and topics, let’s get into what classes you should take to improve your understanding.
The Complete Learn Finance Super Bundle by StackSocial
This is a massive bundle that features 82 hours of content that will help you learn how to handle your finances effectively.
Each of the 12 courses included in this bundle are taught by professors, accountants, and authors who have been utilizing these financial principles for decades.
In the first course of the bundle you will learn advanced skills to create Excel dashboards and formula-driven developments. In the next course, you will learn the basics of accounting starting with equations and ending with actual balance sheets. Next, you will learn tax accounting.
The fourth course is financial accounting and payroll. You will learn about federal income tax, social security, and Medicare. The following course will teach you about QuickBooks Desktop Pro and how to track your taxes.
The next class is a personal finance masterclass where you will learn to save more money, invest your money smarter, reduce your loans, and retire easier. You will also learn how to create Excel financial models in the next course.
Personal and Family Financial Planning by Coursera
This course is offered by Coursera and the University of Florida. It is a 15-hour course that teaches the principles of making financially smart decisions.
It will start with the basics of personal finance, then move on to discussing budgeting, building and maintaining good credit, managing income taxes, managing risk, and investing.
Some videos teach you how to understand personal finance, financial statements, and budgets, how to manage your income tax, building and maintaining good credit, investment fundamentals, managing risk, and how to create a personal plan of action.
This course is offered for free and gives you the option to pay a fee for a certificate.
Managing Personal Cash and Credit by edX
Indiana University and edX teamed up to provide a four-week course teaching cash management and financial prudence when it comes to credit use. Each of the four weeks focuses on a different category of financial management: managing liquid assets, obtaining and managing credit, open consumer credit, and consumer loans.
Some of the things you will learn in this course include:
- How to choose the right financial institution for your goals,
- How banking online is cost-effective,
- What liquid assets are and how to classify them,
- How to compare available returns,
This course is also offered for free.
How Not To Suck at Investing: Understanding Stocks by Skillshare
Investing is an intimidating thing to try to understand on your own. If you are interested in investing, this course offered by Skillshare will be able to help you out.
In just 20 minutes, you will be able to go over 8 lessons on:
- How stock market exchanges work,
- what it means when a company goes public,
- Why brokers and index types are important, and
- How exchange-traded funds work.
This course comes in two parts. Part one teaches you about what the stock market is. It will go over what brokers and stocks are, what it means when companies go public, what an index is and what the types of indexes are. You will also learn about ETFs.
The second part will teach you some of the more confusing stuff. It goes over what valuation is and why it matters, market capitalization, P/E ratios, P/FCF ratios, P/B ratios, D/E ratios, dividends, buybacks, and the types of stock classes. You will also learn about fundamental and technical analysis.
The second part of the course also involves a class project that you will upload for others to see. This will help give you an even deeper understanding of the stock market, stocks, and how to invest your money to grow your wealth in a way that meets your goals.
Investing in Stocks: The Complete Course by Udemy
When you are considering your long-term goals, you will be told over and over again how important investments are when growing wealth.
This course offered by Udemy is a beginner-friendly course taught by Steve Ballinger, personal finance and investment instructor. This course also covers the risks that are involved in the stock market, investment strategies, and stock evaluation.
After you complete this course, you will have a complete understanding of how the stock market works and how to invest in it. You will also gain an understanding of how to use basic and advanced stock screeners to narrow down which stocks are most beneficial for you.
You will also be able to apply the key investing strategies like Dividend Paying Stocks, Value Stocks, Growth Stocks, and Stocks that have future growth. You will learn how to place orders like Limit Orders, Stops Loss Orders, and Market Orders. Finally, you will learn how to pick individual stocks, mutual funds, and exchange-traded funds for their portfolio.
Conclusion
If you are overwhelmed by the thought of managing your finances, you might benefit from taking a course on personal finances. These five courses will teach you how to manage your finances and build wealth through investments.
