Money guides by life stage

These are some of the things we learned from the 1,501 Americans we polled when we asked them about the following:

If they have spent more time learning about financial matters like personal finance, saving, investing and general economic trends since the Covid-19 pandemic started . . .

— 27% said they feel they’ve spent more time learning about financial matters.
— 55% said they feel they have spent the same amount of time learning about financial matters.

Where they’ve been learning about financial matters since the Covid-19 pandemic started . . .

— 47% said they’ve learned about financial matters from financial websites.
— 38% said they’ve learned about financial matters from friends and family.
— 35% said they’ve learned about financial matters from social media.

Which social media they’ve looked to learn about financial matters since the Covid-19 pandemic started . . .

— 77% said they have learned about financial matters from YouTube.
— 53% said they have learned about financial matters from Facebook.
— 37% said they have learned about financial matters from Twitter.
— 20% said they have learned about financial matters from Reddit.
— 19% said they have learned about financial matters from TikTok.

How knowledgeable they felt about personal finance . . .

— 38% think they are knowledgeable about personal finance.
— 8% think they are not knowledgeable about personal finance.

Who, if anyone taught them about personal finance . . .

— 38% were taught about personal finance by one or both of their parents.
— 42% taught themselves about personal finance. 
— 13% were taught about personal finance in school.

When they started to learn about managing their finances . . .

— 23% first learned about managing their finances once they started working. 
— 32% first learned about managing their finances in high school.

When they started to feel comfortable managing their finances . . .

— 10% don’t feel comfortable managing their personal finances.
— 23% started to feel comfortable managing their personal finances once they started working.
— 9% started to feel comfortable managing their personal finances once they got married.

When they think people should start learning about personal finance . . .

— 47% think people should learn about managing their personal finances in high school.
— 26% think people should learn about managing their personal finances in middle school.
— 13% think people should learn about managing their personal finances during or before elementary school.

Where they think people should learn about personal finance . . .

— 60% think people should learn about personal finance at school.
— 42% think people should learn about personal finance at home.

Which of the following they wish they’d learned about earlier in school . . .

— 49% wish they had learned about personal finance earlier in school.
— 27% wish they had learned about mental health and self-care earlier in school.
— 21% wish they had learned about time management earlier in school.