Managing Your Personal Finances

- When people introduce themselves, they usually talk about their jobs, their families, their passions, one thing you rarely hear is their money story, which is their relationship to money. Now, ask yourself these questions: Was money a taboo topic when you were growing up? And, if it's the latter, is that because of a lack of confidence, a lack of time, or just because you've told yourself you can't do it? Welcome to Personal Finance Fundamentals.

I'm Jane Barratt. The foundation of my money story is that my parents told me I could do anything in life, as long as I paid for it myself. Now, this was great advice, especially given I'm one of eight kids, and my Dad worked multiple jobs as an electrician. After spending 20 years selling things to people, and managing Madison Avenue agencies, I changed careers to become an investment advisor, and now I run a company that helps beginners get started with investing.

I look at financial empowerment as a circular process that covers earning, spending, saving, and growing your money, where there's opportunities to move yourself forward in each of them, but the ultimate goal isn't so much to get organized, or feel in control, but it's to move into the realm of taking whatever money you have and growing it wisely. In this course, I'm going to review the building blocks of personal financial management. I'll cover the basics of paying down debts, working up a good credit score, what tools you can use to get organized, and help you prepare to be a confident investor.

So, stick with me as we travel the cycle of earning, spending, saving, and growing your money in Personal Finance Fundamentals.