Basic financial literacy

Ross Woods, 2021

These notes started when listening to a radio interview with someone from The Foxglove Project. Since then, I have added some more of my own. The Foxglove Project is an aid foundation that provides to relief to people living in poverty in targeted developing world countries by empowering women and girls to change their own lives.

It starts with a course in basic financial literacy for entrepreneurs. The value of these is that they are very simple questions that do not presume knowledge that is common among the financially literate. The order in which that are asked and the way they are grouped into sessions needs to be reviewed according to local needs.

  1. What is money?
  2. Who issues money?
  3. What is profit?
  4. What is loss?
  5. What is inflation?
  6. What is a fair deal?
  7. What is “fair market value”?
  8. What are your long-term goals?
  9. What is the role of saving?
  10. What are assets?
    1. Which assets lose value?
    2. Which assets gain value?
  11. What kinds of trading are done in my area?
    1. What sells?
    2. What doesn’t?
  12. What opportunities are available now with current resources?
  13. What is “capital”? Why is it necessary?
  14. What kinds of debt can you have?
  15. What records do you need to keep?
  16. What is a “middle man”?
    1. When is it good to have a “middle man”?
    2. When is it bad?
  17. What is discretionary income and what are real needs?
  18. What is compound interest?
  19. How does compound interest work:
    1. for you?
    2. against you?
  20. How does advertising work:
    1. for you?
    2. against you?
  21. How can someone get out of debt?
  22. What kinds of things have hidden fees or costs?
  23. Challenges:
    1. “Keeping face”
    2. “Penny wise, pound foolish”
    3. “I have to pay for a big wedding/ big funeral?”
    4. What is the principle of delayed gratification?”