KEY POINTS:
All too many Kiwis flunk financial literacy. Many have no idea of the financial impacts of stopping at the takeaway once a week, at one end of the scale, to extending their mortgage to buy the latest high-tech-must have devices at the other.
Fortunately for the next generation, financial literacy was added to the New Zealand education curriculum late last year. It will see some schools adding money and avings skills lessons to their programme.
Commerce Minister Lianne Dalziel says the new curriculum will help children become enterprising and entrepreneurial.
"The implementation of the new curriculum will position students to make well-informed financial decisions throughout their lives," she says.
That doesn't mean they will learn money and savings skills. It simply allows schools to teach it, says Lyn Morris, national director, of Enterprise New Zealand Trust(ENZT), a non-profit organisation, which promotes an enterprise culture amongst New Zealand school students.
Currently around 35,000 primary and secondary students participate in ENZT programmes. For those children who don't get financial lessons at school, the ENZT even runs educational holiday programmes for year five to eight students, in which they run their own economy by creating jobs, earning incomes, running business ventures and wheeling and dealing on market day.
Morris says the New ZealandQualifications Authority (NZQA) is developing unit standards in Personal Financial Management, which many schools are awaiting to include in their senior classes' programmes of work.
Parents who want to help their children further with their financial literacy should read Robert Kiyosaki's Rich Dad's Rich Kid, Smart Kid: Giving Your Children a Financial Headstart or Capitate Your Kids, by John Whitcomb.
For those adults who 'Passed Go' without learning the basics of how to keep their credit card under control, all is not lost. There are many ways to boost your financial knowledge - depending on your learning style.
These include:
* Buy a book or two about personal finances and make sure you read them. Some books that won't send you to sleep include Lisa Dudson's Get Your Head Out Of The $and, and The Barefoot Investor, by Scott Pape, an Australian with a fast and furious writing style.
* Visit a budget adviser. They're free through the New Zealand Federation of Family Budgeting Services: familybudgeting.org.nz.
* Learn the basics from websites such as looklearninvest.org.nz, Fool.co.uk, Sorted.org.nz or Sharechat.co.nz. You'llalso find good basic investor education on the websites such as NZX.com and Consumer.org.nz.
* Take an online training course. There's an excellent online directory at Worldwidelearn.com, which has links to online courses ranging from Investing101 at Bloomberg to famed businessman Donald Trump's' Trump University.
* Join your local property investor association. They're non-profit organisations that cater for everyone from the beginner to the professional investor. Find your local association by visiting www.nzpif.org.nz
* Attend a seminar. But beware of seminars that cost thousands of dollars. Often the same information is available elsewhere (such as in books) for a fraction of the cost. Run a mile if the presenter asks you to buy products such as options software; or pay more to join an 'inner circle'; or attend another seminar for the 'real secrets'.
* Employ a financial coach or mentor to give you a kick up the pants and keep you on the straight and narrow. The idea is that you see them regularly and they make you work towards your goals. This is great if you're a procrastinator.
