What it means to be financially literate

Originally published at: Join us for a Financial Literacy Month live Q&A with Finny

When I was 8 years old I went to live with my aunt. She raised me from that time to… well still today she’s raising me in a lot of ways. When I was about 9 she asked me to start writing the checks for our bills and balancing her checkbook. She was working hard at multiple jobs to earn the money to pay our bills (though I did have my own grass mowing side hustle at that time to pay for things I wanted that we couldn’t afford), but she wanted to help me understand the value of money; what it meant to have to pay for things, understand that we weren’t very financially secure (we lived below the “poverty line” at that time), and get some basic, but life relevant, math practice – and what do you know, balancing a checkbook is very close to understanding budget spreadsheet mechanics, right? That was the seed for me becoming financially literate, and I was fortunate because most kids don’t get that type of experience. But I still have gaps. Even though I spend my days in budgeting spreadsheets getting sharp about cash flow, and despite learning the ropes of how…

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Thanks for sharing this background, @heather. I had heard bits and pieces before but much of it was new to me.

As you know, I’m cut from the same cloth in being more of a product design person than a financial expert. (I designed coffee machines :coffee: for over a decade before joining Tiller.) I enjoy the riddles of organizing data, analyzing it, and rendering it into something more valuable all in ways that are hopefully intuitive and enlightening.

I’m grateful to learn about finances and fill in some knowledge gaps every day in this community.

Looking forward to the webinar.

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Thanks for sharing, @heather! I can’t make it to the webinar but I’m definitely interested, will it be recorded and available afterward?

Yes @matt ! We’ll be recording the session and will post it in the Community here.

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Here’s the link for replay: Financial Literacy Month Live Q&A Replay

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