But budgeting, financial planning and everything related to money really intimidated me for years. I did my best to avoid doing all but the most necessary stuff, like paying the bills so the phone, heat, electricity and water wouldn't be shut off. (Talk about incentive!)
I think most people feel that way--that finances are hard to figure out. It's intimidating, even scary. After all, what if you make a mistake? It could cost you your whole future! Except that, really, that's unlikely. Most of us make many mistakes when learning how to do anything, so why should finances be any different? And the real joke here?
Finances are all lower math. In elementary and middle school, you learned everything you need to know to get a handle on your money. It's all addition, subtraction, multiplication and division, all learned by 5th grade. And it takes a bit of work with percentages, which most of us learned in 6th or 7th grade.
But what about the long-term, loan-financing and interest-earning calculations to figure out whether one loan is a better deal than another, or one investment will earn significantly more than another? You don't need to do that on your own either. There are many websites with calculators on them that will do the math for you with a few numbers plugged in. The magic of the internet is at your fingertips, so you can put it to work for you.
Does knowing that it's all just lower math help a bit with the intimidation factor? I hope so!
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