Recent surveys seem to indicate that we, Singaporeans, however well educated as a general population, still needs work to be financially literate. If we happen to be the most well educated country per capita and our financial literacy needs work then it sort of proof, if you are academically smart, you may not be financially literate.
The common pill to this problem is: MORE EDUCATION.
I definitely think education is important, but more of how it is carried out. The planners can be a bit innovative in this area.
Targeting young kids and making them well aware of how money works and effective use of it when they are young is good. However, that is carried out at a time where they have the least amount of money.
Without practice, people are likely to forget about it.
Perhaps a national budgeting campaign can be carried out. I kind of like the idea of the old Speak English, Speak Mandarin type of campaigns. Do it with some social engineering and it may work.
The challenge is to increase financial literacy of their parents, or people in my age group.
This is difficult. I find my peers resistant to this. They can complain about money at the whole lunch conversation. Yet, if you provide financial literacy solution via different mediums, they cite the challenge that they do not have the time for it.
How do you find time to care about your money? Or rather, perhaps they don’t realize that to tend to their wealth, it requires spending some time on it. Perhaps all Temasek Linked or Government Linked Companies need mandatory weekly lessons conducted during office hours to force the financial stuff into every employees head.
The end result, I felt is that nothing much will change.
Kyith is the Owner and Sole Writer behind Investment Moats. Readers tune in to Investment Moats to learn and build stronger, firmer wealth foundations, how to have a Passive investment strategy, know more about investing in REITs and the nuts and bolts of Active Investing.
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Kyith worked as an IT operations engineer from 2004 to 2019. Currently, he works as a Senior Solutions Specialist in Insurance Start-up Havend. All opinions on Investment Moats are his own and does not represent the views of Providend.
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dowz
Sunday 10th of May 2015
If more people are financially literate.... then perhaps the CPF problem would be much lesser... people would not have to rely so heavily on CPF to retire. CPF payout would just be another stream of income out of multiple other streams.
Just as a curious thought - can it be that every one is well-off? Can there really be no poor people in a society?
Kyith
Sunday 10th of May 2015
i think no. the way things work is that there is always a hierachy. even when everyone is rich its the animal instinct to create classes or segregations.
curious cat
Thursday 7th of May 2015
im curious wad was said during lunch lol
Kyith
Thursday 7th of May 2015
Hi curious cat,
its not a good thing for a cat to be curious. What i am referring to is your conversations with your lunch khakis, what you can profile of them. In my lunch the topics center on the stresses of life, which can be challenging considering, they say no time, but was not able to see the quality of a 2 hour commute. Other than that, when i was spending time alone eating lunch, what i hear more are the property chatters.
Hope this helps.
AK
Thursday 7th of May 2015
Hey Kyith. I agree with you that nothing much will change. I think for most of my peers (except a select few studying econs/finance), learning how to manage their finances is seldom thought of. The most my parents know about financial literacy is the bank and interest rates. In JC, we had financial literacy classes, but I was one of those catching up with other subjects' homework at the back of the class. It was not until after JC that I got interested in finance and economics (though I'm not studying either now), and of course that's how I found your blog. ;)
Kyith
Thursday 7th of May 2015
Hey AK,
Thanks for providing me with so much splendid history. You can look at me as someone that based on experience see nothing will change but a fly on the wall paying attention to how a possible change will occur.
Perhaps u can elaborate why in JC there ate financial literacy classes and how far do they go into .
When I was in JC, I am already swarming and stress about never passing any of my econs and physics, where got time think about stupid stuff like money !
LP
Wednesday 6th of May 2015
I think everyone has the time to do it. It's just whether they wish to spend the time doing it, as opposed to watching shows or watching sports. So the problem is about motivation. So why aren't they not motivated to learn more about money? Maybe they are not really interested? Maybe there's a steep learning curve?
Kyith
Thursday 7th of May 2015
Hi LP,
That is not what I heard. U need 'time'. And we are busy. I understand the family situation when I talk to an acquaintance that ask me about investing. He didn't say he do not have time, but I draw that conclusion. He has free time but he needs to devote to work in spending time with the wifey