Financial education should start as early as possible, in the family, and then continue throughout life - expert Irina Chitu
This opinion was expressed by the financial analyst and financial expert from Romania within the new edition of the regular “Give Sense to Money” podcast, prepared at the initiative of the NBM with the support of the USAID program “Moldova Institutional and Structural Reforms Activity” to provide citizens with more detailed information on financial and economic topics. She noted that in Romania, financial education projects started almost 20 years ago, involving both the banking sector and financial institutions, as well as private companies, and financial education in schools was optional from the 3rd-4th grade, but from 2020-2021, financial education was introduced as a compulsory subject in school of Romania, in the 8th grade. “But financial education should start as early as possible. First of all, it starts in the family and then it continues throughout life. So we can't just say that's it, we are financially educated. Neither can I say that, nor can my 102-year-old father-in-law say that's it, he's done and there's nothing more to learn. Every day we need to learn something new about ourselves, about how to manage our money, about what else may appear, but it does not scare us, because, after all, we make financial decisions in our daily lives, every time we leave the house, when we make a payment on the Internet, when we decide to go by car to a certain destination or by bicycle, or by bus, public transport, to save money,” said Irina Chitu. According to her, in this way, every day we make decisions, and we make them from childhood. That's why it is important to start financial education from an early age. “I have 4 children from 8 to 28 years old, and I learned a lot from them, because the same thing is not suitable for everyone. Because everyone has different wants, different needs, and then you can't say, 'Okay, we're gurus, I know, I apply the same recipe to child X and the neighbor's kid.'” There are a number of basic principles, but beyond that everyone has to invest in them constantly and throughout their lives,” said the financial analyst and financial expert from Romania. Irina Chitu emphasized that during the National Financial Education Forum held in Chisinau, she spoke about the book “The Secret of Money”, a financial education that is not given at school and that she learned step by step. “Practically you have to invest in yourself all the time and this is what I also tell the children: the difference between the ordinary and the extraordinary is this. Because look, I'll give you an example: we all want a car. A nice one. But when you buy a car, are you only looking for a steering wheel and four wheels? No, everybody has those. So you look at the extras. That's what we do all our lives, and that's what I tell young people all the time: add more options to your life. Self-esteem matters wherever you go. Investing in yourself and investing in good financial habits, in financial knowledge - there's a lot of information on the internet right now, but we have to try to choose the important information. And I learned with them too,” said the financial analyst and financial expert from Romania. She gave an example from her family life. “When my husband and I got married 30 years ago, we said: okay, everyone has their own money and we try to manage it. In that time, children have come along, but it hasn't worked. Why didn't it work? Because I'm a spender, he's a saver. And still, even though I have very clear principles of saving, I still tend to spend, and then you have to put some filters in place. So how does that work? I said: “Okay. We're going to save your paycheck, and we're only going to spend mine.' Our goal was to buy a house in Bucharest. And yes, we did it for 6 years and it wasn't enough, we took another loan to make up the difference, but when we had a common goal and we were both sailing in the same boat, everything else went well and we reached our goal of having our own house, but at the expense of savings,” said Irina Chitu. //30.12.2024 - InfoMarket.
