Should I rent or buy a house? Lease a new car or buy one used? Pay off debt or invest more? And what does it mean to “invest” anyway?
April is National Financial Literacy Month. This month, empower yourself to answer these and other personal finance questions. MCPL has books, online resources, and programs to help increase your financial literacy so that you can control your finances and not let your finances control you.
Budgeting, debt management, retirement – there are so many aspects of personal finance that it can be hard to know where to start. Try a book that provides a general introduction to personal finance. Personal Finance for Dummies is a good example of this type of book. It covers lots of different aspects of personal finance and doesn’t assume the reader knows anything about the topic when they start reading. You can tell this from the first few chapters, which talk about finding reliable personal finance information, figuring out where you stand financially at the moment, and determining where your money’s currently going. For a less formal, I-need-money-help-now, perspective, try The 30-Day Money Cleanse: Take Control of Your Finances, Manage Your Spending, and De-Stress Your Money for Good.
We also have books that are more focused on specific aspects of personal finance, such as real estate, investing, and retirement. I was happy to see that one particular real estate book, 100 Questions Every First-Time Home Buyer Should Ask is still around. My wife and I used this book when we bought our home, in 1998! Don’t worry, MCPL has a revised edition, from 2018.
You can find a few online classes related to personal finance, as well as more specific related topics like investing and real estate through two of MCPL’s online resources, Gale Courses and Lynda.com. The classes available through Gale Courses start every month and last six weeks. The courses available through Lynda.com can be started at any time. The length of the Lynda.com courses vary.
Finally, MCPL is offering a variety of programs related to financial literacy during the month of April. The programs include several workshops about protecting yourself against identity theft, some on starting a business or side hustle, and several events about budgeting.
For information about how MCPL can enhance your financial literacy, check out our latest Library Matters podcast –