Part 1 of 3 Parts: Equal The The Financial Playing Field With Financial Literacy

What is financial literacy?

My difinition of financial literacy is the ability to understand how to make informed financial decisions based on facts and figures. Based on this difinition and my experiences in consumer finance, I would estimate that 85% of consumers are financially illiterate.  With that said I estimate approximately 99% of people of color are financial illiterate.

Why do I believes this? Because I worked in the financial for over 23 years in the mortgage lending industry, automobile sales, life insurance, and credit counseling and I have talked to thousands of consumers from various walks of life, ethnicities, educations, and professions, and the one thing most of them have in common is a lack of well-rounded financial literacy.

What I mean by "well-rounded" is having the knowledge and ability to think, rationalize, and make informed decisions when purchasing consumer products, i.e, homes, automobiles, life insurance, investment products, etc. that require reading contracts/agreements, determining the overall costs invoved, understing how to restructure loans to reduce costs, and knowing when and how to reevaluate completed transactions.

Yes, it sounds like a lot of knowledge is required to be financially literate, and it is, but with the right resources anyone can master financial literacy.

Be sure to check out Part 2 where I address the "key" componets of financial literacy.