Lack of financial nous amongst young people

carolt

Very true. I think T& C's are deliberately made as impossible to read and jargon-ful as possible.

Whilst there is an argument for making everyone more financially literate (of all ages), I think there's a stronger argument for making financial organisations present their T &Cs clearly and briefly.

Davesnave

Pennywise wrote: »

Isn't a lot of the problem down to a very short attention span? I've found that a lot of the younger generation just can't concentrate or think about anything for more than a few minutes.

Of course, this is a generalisation, but in most cases, I've found quite startling trends and differences between the generations.

I think you are wrong in assuming this difference is simply down to a change in learning styles, though the 'instant gratification' part of modern life probably plays a part.

I think it is more to do with the way some parents no longer train children to focus on tasks from an early age, or expect to hold increasingly longer and deeper conversations with their children as they grow up. Go into any supermarket and watch how many adults fail to have any significant interaction with their offspring, for example. It's truly frightening.

Modern kids, given the chance, are just as happy puzzling over a jigsaw as they are amusing themselves with PS3 games or with TV , especially with the help of an interested adult. The question is, how many are given the chance? Many adults just don't 'get' the message that input at an early stage is rewarded with an easier time later on.

My children had the videos & computer games too, but they valued the time we spent as a family and actually enjoyed going shopping because they were included and always played a part. Later, as they became more mature, I noticed that the shoot-em-up and racing games were being replaced with those of a more cerebral, strategy and puzzle-based variety. Nobody forced them down that route. Later still, they both used good old Mavis Beacon and learned to touch-type; something I've never had the patience to do. Now they take the mickey out of my one-fingered efforts!

I think what I'm saying, in a long-winded way, is more children fail to have have the early experiences that make a difference later on in their learning. Perhaps there was never a Golden Age, but I feel that many are being short changed today.

lostinrates

kabayiri wrote: »

. Legal types have been doing this for years.

Agreed (in the main and where applicable to we ''normal'' people)

One of DH's firms biggest thing with trainees though is telling them to cut the legalese rubbish. Its a corporate firm, the clients have as much hope as anyone around of understanding legalese, but also perhaps are more prepared to point out when they know they are being BSed and don't fall for being intimidated.

StevieJ

Yakubu22 wrote: »

Not really. Personally i dont really like this kind of middle of the road nonesense...but thanks for looking out anyway :T

You are joking it was a class series.

bendix

Yeah, but why the hell are you spamming a perfectly interesting discussion with a bloody advert for a series on DVD?

Are you mad?

StevieJ

bendix wrote: »

Yeah, but why the hell are you spamming a perfectly interesting discussion with a bloody advert for a series on DVD?

Are you mad?

Yeah, why are you spamming my spam, are you insane

GrammarGirl

The Plain English Campaign are working hard to make important documents (like T&Cs) more accessible to people who don't understand legalese (i.e. most of us). Other posters are absolutely correct that T&Cs are there to protect the company, not to inform the customer, and that's exactly why they are so complex - to dissuade us from reading in any depth.

As for the original point about young people lacking financial nous... in some ways I agree. Until I found this site, I was very lacking in financial knowledge and have a small amount of debt to prove it. However, I do have plenty of common sense and think I'm a reasonably sensible person. I educated myself and tackled my debts head on. I still don't have a great knowledge on many financial topics - the stock market, interest rates, share dealing, the exchange rate, etc. I do know about the things that directly affect me, though - overdrafts, car loans, mortgage rates, budgeting.

Hopefully the young girl in question will learn a valuable lesson while she's at university.

Oldernotwiser

Davesnave wrote: »

I think you are wrong in assuming this difference is simply down to a change in learning styles, though the 'instant gratification' part of modern life probably plays a part.

I think it is more to do with the way some parents no longer train children to focus on tasks from an early age, or expect to hold increasingly longer and deeper conversations with their children as they grow up. Go into any supermarket and watch how many adults fail to have any significant interaction with their offspring, for example. It's truly frightening.

Modern kids, given the chance, are just as happy puzzling over a jigsaw as they are amusing themselves with PS3 games or with TV , especially with the help of an interested adult. The question is, how many are given the chance? Many adults just don't 'get' the message that input at an early stage is rewarded with an easier time later on.

My children had the videos & computer games too, but they valued the time we spent as a family and actually enjoyed going shopping because they were included and always played a part. Later, as they became more mature, I noticed that the shoot-em-up and racing games were being replaced with those of a more cerebral, strategy and puzzle-based variety. Nobody forced them down that route. Later still, they both used good old Mavis Beacon and learned to touch-type; something I've never had the patience to do. Now they take the mickey out of my one-fingered efforts!

I think what I'm saying, in a long-winded way, is more children fail to have have the early experiences that make a difference later on in their learning. Perhaps there was never a Golden Age, but I feel that many are being short changed today.

Tying in with this is the way in which so many parents do so much for their adult offspring.

I spend a lot of time on the Student Board and two types of thread come up time and time again.

The first is where parents post to say that theyare applying for their child's student finance and want more information. If you point out that the student should be doing this for his/her self, they get quite heated and go on at length about how "good" parents help their children with everything and one's a monster to suggest otherwise.

The second is from current and ex students who have no understanding whatsoever about the loans they've taken out. They can't understand why the amounts have increased (interest) and that the interest can be more than the (very small) repayments they might be making.

I'm sure that I can't be the only person to make the connection between these two types of thread, can I?

lostinrates

Oldernotwiser wrote: »

...
I'm sure that I can't be the only person to make the connection between these two types of thread, can I?

No. But then, during fresher's week I remember the long lecture on why we should apply for student loan (''cheapest debt you'll ever get'' and ''if you don't need it talk to your parents because it might work out better for them to use your allowance than their debt'') during this whole discussion part time work was only touched upon briefly and mainly dismissed as being too inflexible for first and final years, and a bit of a waste of drinking time in second year.

Afriend_2

I find the young generation far more knowledgeable with regard to finance than any generation before.
I think access to sites such as this which previous generations never had. I see far more people investing in the stock market or BTLs than have ever done, or would have considered, in the past.