Financial Literacy: Basic Investing

If you have ever tried looking for an Adult Level Basic Investing class, you will find the topic is not readily in the menu of most training organizations or even in the tool bag of the typical financial literacy non-for-profits. So where do you look? We even tried MorningStar, but found only elearning products and offerings. Their customer service representative told us they do not do on-site gigs! This was frustrating. We Googled the topic endlessly and also spoke to moneymanagement.org, where they said they only offered the elementary financial literacy presentations, for example, how to read your credit report, saving, and debt management. Still we did not give up looking. We eventually found the local community college website had a list of community education and training offerings that listed a couple of adult basic investing seminars. Later, we stumbled upon the American Association of Individual Investors. What we are working on now is a seminar that is guided in-part by the following outline:

The basics of investing in stocks, bonds, mutual funds; retirement accounts; and saving accounts. Also being considered: real estate purchases in retirement (e.g. second homes; deductions; reverse mortgages; financing).

The following are some great links we came across for further research:

American Association of Individual Investors

Institute for Individual Investors

Investment Company Institute Education Foundation

Jump$tart For Coalition For Personal Financial Literacy

Charles Schwab 2012 Older Workers and Money Survey

eXtension.org – Personal Finance

University of Maryland Extension – Financial Literacy

Competence Software