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Steve Balmer, Managing Director & Independent Financial Adviser, explains the importance of financial awareness in the younger generation.

As a parent myself, one thing that has stood out to me, as my two boys aged 12 and 15 have moved through primary and secondary school, is the need for financial awareness in children.  This tends to be a subject that the younger audience know little about, but I feel very passionate that children should know the importance of dealing with money and day to day finances, as this is something they will soon need to know about, whether it be for university or a full-time job.

Most school curriculums cover the likes of Geography, English, Maths and Science, but there is no great focus put on things such as, what is a pension? What is a mortgage? What is a credit card? How much money will you need to purchase a house, or how much will you need to ensure you can retire? The list goes on.

The area of personal finance is often ignored throughout education and basically left for young individuals to find out for themselves when they leave school and head out to the world of employment and adulthood.  A great desire for me is to raise awareness of the importance of knowing the ins and outs of personal finance, not just in schools but also in the workplace, especially for the younger members of the workforce who may have missed out on this knowledge as they were growing up.

It amazes me that the things most of us will have at some point in our lives, such as a mortgage, bank account, credit card or a pension, are not taught to the future generation before they come to the time of needing them.  Likewise, I meet many clients who despite being put into a pension via their employer, don’t actually know what it is and why it comes off their monthly payslip.

Sometimes the hardest element of my job is making the things that I deal with day to day, easy to understand for those who I am advising.  However, when they do understand it the job is so much easier, and my clients have peace of mind and generally a better handle of their finances which helps them achieve their financial goals.

Therefore, the earlier we can discuss the area of finances the better, be that encouraging our children to save their pocket money or speaking to employees before they join their workplace pension scheme.

Money is often a taboo subject and we are just left to work it out for ourselves, but as I see credit card debt at record levels and people with not enough to live on in retirement, I feel more needs to be done at an early stage to tackle these issues.  At David Allen Financial Services, we have already engaged with many local schools and employers about raising financial awareness.  Should this be of interest to you personally, or as a teacher or business owner, please do not hesitate to get in touch with me.