Best Free Online Courses to Help You With Finances
It is not necessary to learn all about money all at once , but a course can teach you a lot of useful information at a reasonable pace. The course will help you master the basics, especially if you have never studied personal finance from the very beginning . Here are some of the best personal finance courses available. Moreover, they are all free.
Family Finance , Utah State University
Alena Johnson, Utah Professor of Family, Consumer, and Human Development , teaches this 14-unit course. All lessons are available for download and are available in PDF format, so you can read and follow them yourself. According to the program, they last about 100 minutes. You will learn everything from basic budgeting to taxes and deciding whether to buy or rent a car. You also receive assignments for each department, and they represent the next steps you can take to get your own finances in order. For instance:
FINANCIAL FILE – create your personal financial file. The following folders are required for full credit: Personal Information (SS Card, Birth Certificate, Immunization Record, etc.), Financial Statements (put your financial inspection sheets here, as well as your credit history and SS Benefit Statement), Debt or loans, checking or savings accounts, insurance and taxes. You can add whatever you want, but for full credit, you must have at least all the referenced files, even if you do not currently have information about any particular file. After you finish the file, write down the name of each file and a list of what is included in each file. Submit your written document.
The course focuses on personal values and goals, which is an important first step to money management . By the end of all this, you will have defined your values and will be able to draw up a financial plan that supports those values.
Managing My Money , Open University
According to its leader Martin Upton, this free eight-week course offers “a practical guide to managing your money.” You must enroll in a course and it is offered several times a year (the next one is January 9, 2017). You will learn the basics of money management, including:
- Create a budget
- Debt and Investment Management
- How mortgage works
- How pensions are processed, how to accumulate retirement savings, etc.
The course is based in the UK but continues to cover topics for a global audience. With each lesson, you will receive the structure and practice tasks you will need to apply these lessons to your finances. The course lasts eight weeks and requires three hours of your time per week.
Fundamentals of Personal Financial Planning , University of California, Irvine
The University of California offers this course for free and is designed for people who cannot afford extensive financial planning but still want to get their finances in shape. The university created it with a grant from the Certified Financial Planning Standards Board and focuses on eight general themes:
- Goals
- Figuring out where you are financially
- Taxation
- Protection: Don’t let bad things get in the way of your goals
- Investment
- Funding pensions
- College planning
- Fundamentals of Real Estate Planning
Each problem has 1 to 6 lessons, and since it is self-administered, you can choose from different topics. You view each lesson online and receive a summary of the goals you will achieve by the end. For example, here is an overview of the Calculation of Retirement Needs module:
After completing this tutorial, you will be able to:
- Use the Retirement Needs Estimation Calculator to determine the estimated capital you will need to retire based on your needs.
- Use “When can I retire?” A calculator to determine the age at which you will reach the capital required for retirement in accordance with the plan.
The entire course takes 25 to 30 hours to complete.
Free Personal Finance Course , University of Arizona
This online course will guide you through a series of lessons on topics ranging from budgeting to investing. You do not need to enroll and you can take the course at your own pace. Each lesson is a long explanatory post, but it is organized to help you understand the basic and more advanced topics of personal finance.
From start to finish, the course is about 15 hours. It is part of the Take Charge America Institute , a financial literacy organization. They also launched Consumer Jungle , an interactive online program for high school students to learn the basics of consumer and financial literacy.
Introduction to Credit Risk Management at Delft University of Technology
Credit is not easy and this course covers the basics of how it works. It includes a lot of technical information, but is ideal if you want to improve your rating or just learn the ins and outs of the credit industry. Here are a few things you will learn:
- Definition and Implications of Credit Risk for Banks and Other Financial Institutions
- Definition and use of credit ratings
- Fundamentals of Credit Default Swaps (CDS)
- What is stress testing and why is it useful
The course approaches credit from both a consumer and organizational perspective, which can be helpful, but you can also skip the section as it is completely self-contained. The course lasts approximately 48 hours, from start to finish.
Safe Retirement Planning , Purdue University
This online self-study course includes 10 modules that will teach you the basics of retirement planning. It comes with interactive questionnaires, personality profiles and calculators so you can set up your own retirement plan. You will also need to download the manual for the exit on pension, to use it in every lesson.
Each module consists of several separate lessons with specific goals. For example, this is what you will move in Module 1:
1a: Rating of retirement readiness
Determine the personal qualities associated with how you manage your money.
1b: Life Expectancy Calculators
Estimate how long you will live.
1c: risk tolerance
Determine your level of risk tolerance for saving and investing.
1d: your retirement lifestyle
Describe what you want in retirement.
In Module 10, you will also learn about estate planning, long-term care, and federal assistance programs for the elderly.
Of course, we’ve created our own helpful guides to help you learn the basics of personal finance, and you can find them here:
- How to start managing your money, for those who have not learned to grow
- Adult Budgeting 101: How to Budget Your First Real World Budget
- How to Create a Simple Set-and-forget Investment Portfolio for Newbies
- A quick guide to buying a home
- Be that as it may, wealth creation always comes down to these four pillars
In fact, there are many free resources out there to help you learn more about money, but it can sometimes be helpful to have these lessons already organized for you. The course is designed to introduce you to the basics so you can move on to more advanced topics and make sure you master each one. If you need a little help with Money 101, these guides will get you started.