The Financial Times wrote an excellent article this week about how many Finnish schools are taking financial literacy seriously with some help from academia, financial professionals, and the media here.
The article by Richard Milne (FT 6.1.2025) is freely available from the FT since they have thankfully posted the article outside their paywall – https://on.ft.com/4a2IFiH
Young people here are certainly encouraged to become financially literate by their parents – many have debit cards in their early teens and learn the pain of paying for things they want to buy! Many also encouraged to work part-time in shops and other businesses at weekends or during holidays when old enough and the same continues when they begin their studies at university.
Both of the above common practices prepare many for their future lives, but, it must be said that, financial literacy relating to housing, mortgages, and long-term investments of savings are being challenged by the hard-selling unscrupulous salesmen from banks and fund managers. Many people end up with high risk and high-cost portfolios of shares and bonds without fully understanding the small print which requires more than a magnifying glass!
Much more needs to be done – there are many excellent books that are fun and useful to read about financial literacy.
One of your correspondent’s colleagues from the USA has recently published a new book on financial literacy called “Wealth and Happiness”. Jaret Wilson, the author, is an impartial investment professional who has now written his second book on this important topic that is also available on Amazon’s Kindle: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DRPL4P3G
This book, called “Wealth and Happiness” provides one of the most objective and systematic approaches to financial literacy in the widest possible manner.
Jaret is also familiar with Finland, and the fact that Finland ranks along with the other Nordics as one of the happiest countries in the world…