Personal Finance and Financial Literacy

What this unit covers

The resources here follow the everyday money topics a personal finance course tends to cover. Mind maps such as household income, Household budgets and Types of Expenditure deal with where money comes from and where it goes. Others look at Methods of saving, Methods of borrowing and CONSUMER CREDIT.

Where to start

Begin with vocabulary. Many flashcard decks are built around course units, such as Unit 2 - Personal Banking, which covers terms like Certificate of Deposit and Direct Deposit, and Unit 3 Savvy Consumer, which has terms like Bait and Switch and Brand Loyalty. For investing words, try Key Terms Chapter 21 Stocks, Bonds, & Mutual Funds, with entries such as Bond Yield, Dividends and Net Asset Value.

If you are working towards CeFS, the CeFS key terms decks are split by topic, so you can take them one at a time.

Using quizzes and maps together

1. Read a mind map first to see how a topic fits together.
2. Take a quiz on the same topic, for example Unit 8 - Taxes Part 1, which asks who is exempt from paying taxes.
3. Note the questions you missed and go back to the matching map or deck.

The specimen papers are useful for exam-style practice. Specimen Paper A - Unit 2 - Practices of Managing Money (FIS) includes a question on a sensible emergency fund of three to six months' essential expenditure.

Where it sits

This unit belongs to the Personal Finance strand of Finance and banking. It also links to the life cycle, with the Unit Two: The Personal Life Cycle mind map running from birth and infanthood to old age.

Choose one topic today, open a map or a deck, then try a quiz and see what you remember. Teachers can pick out a set to share with a class.