April is Financial Literacy Month. You know financial literacy is in troubles when they dedicate a month to it! Because today is April 1, I thought we could start off with a list of the reasons to be financially literate, following the example of other famous top ten lists.
Top ten reasons to be financially literate:
1. Because being financially literate is smart and sexy!
2. Because it is useful to know that ARM has to do with mortgages and is not a rock band;
3. Because 401(k) is the worse name that could be given to pensions and you still cannot figure out how anyone came up with it;
4. Because you are tired of having to get endless stock market tips from your brother-in-law;
5. Because you would love to criticize banks but do not know what to say;
6. Because you need topics to share with your barber/hair-dresser, taxi drivers, and bar tenders that make you look rich and cool;
7. Because everybody talks about the financial crisis and you have no clues what is going on and whom to blame other than banks;
8. Because you have time to spare now that unemployment is really high and nobody seems to be able to find a job;
9. Because you want to protect granny from scams;
10. Because you want to mathematically prove that the Lexus your neighbor drives with such pride was a bad financial decision.