Maybe Mom doesn’t know best. A new survey found 61 percent of Americans consider parents a key influence in shaping the way they manage finances, but parents with kids under age 21 lack confidence on a number of personal finance topics.
In fact, almost half give their level of financial literacy a grade of C or lower, according to Country Financial.
In particular, they struggled with managing a 401(k) (53 percent), planning for retirement (61 percent) or taking out and paying off student loans (55 percent).
The skill parents felt least confident in was investing in the stock market.
The company added that 52 percent of parents and (coincidentally) 52 percent of Americans overall reported not having received any financial education in K-12 or college, with only 15 percent of Americans overall reporting feeling “very prepared” to manage their personal finances once they left college and entered adulthood.
For these reasons, an astonishing 86 percent of Americans believe that financial education classes should be mandatory for K-12 schools nationwide.
Vital topics not discussed at home
The survey found that parents’ lack of confidence in certain personal finance skills might impact the conversations they have (or are not having) with their kids. When asked what personal finance topics they had broached with their kids, only 13 percent of parents said they had talked to their kids about planning for retirement, while 9 percent had talked to them about managing student loans.
Saving and budgeting were far more popular topics of discussion, as the majority of parents had also reported feeling confident managing a bank or savings account.
When given the option to do something other than talking to their kids about finances, parents said they would rather go to the dentist, talk about the birds and the bees or pay a speeding ticket.
With more than 20 years serving financial markets, John Sullivan is the former editor-in-chief of Investment Advisor magazine and retirement editor of ThinkAdvisor.com. Sullivan is also the former editor of Boomer Market Advisor and Bank Advisor magazines, and has a background in the insurance and investment industries in addition to his journalism roots.
