Becoming financially literate means knowing yourself

If you have been a follower of this blog then you know that I am passionate about empowering consumers with financial literacy.  When consumers understand their choices and can make informed decisions then it leads to better outcomes for them as well as the financial service firms who are serving them.  The traditional approach to financial literacy is to teach students about budgets, banking, investing, credit, etc.  In today’s WSJ however, they run an article (see HERE) about a gentleman by the name of Yuval Bar-Or who is taking a different approach.  He argues that making intelligent financial decisions is as much about understanding your emotional make-up as it is about knowing the ins & outs of financial products.  I tend to agree.  Consumers make decisions about their mortgages based on emotion and not necessarily about  what the numbers signal.  I plan to look into this guys work.