One of the most important aspects of an individual’s livelihood is learning personal finance, a term that describes how someone manages their money. It essentially covers everything from how you earn and spend your money to how you save, invest and borrow it.
However, despite its importance in our daily lives, personal finance is a topic that has historically been left out of school curricula, although that is now changing. As a result, many adults today have no adequate education or guidance about how their finances actually work.
Luckily, there are a wealth of resources online, including blogs and YouTube channels, that explain the basics of personal finance and make it easier for anyone to get started learning. For a more organized approach, there are also online courses taught by vetted industry professionals and experts who are just a few clicks away.
Below, Select highlights four free online personal finance courses that can help you jumpstart your financial journey—and don’t require a lot of time.
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Udemy’s Personal Finance 101: Everything You Need to Know
Udemy is a huge online educational resource on various topics.
A good place to start learning about personal finance is the Personal Finance 101: Everything You Need to Know course. By watching animated videos, users can learn basic personal finance topics such as saving for college, retirement planning, and the ins and outs of credit cards.
This three-hour course requires no prior knowledge of finance or statistics and takes you through concise online lectures, each lasting no more than a few minutes. More than 55,000 people are enrolled and reviewers are generally satisfied with the content, giving the course an average rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars. You will have to pay for a certificate of completion if you want one, but all other video content in the course is available for free.
Skillshare’s “My Financial Mountain: Understand Your Path to a Solid Financial Foundation”
Maybe you’ve already heard about it Skillshare is a popular online learning community that offers all types of educational courses.
Even though Skillshare is a subscription-based service, you can still sign up for a free trial and get unlimited access to more than 35,000 courses. You can cancel the free trial at any time. Once it expires, you will be charged $168 for the annual premium subscription.
We recommend that beginners sign up for the free trial and take a course called “My Financial Mountain: Understand Your Path to a Solid Financial Foundation” – it only takes 24 minutes and allows you to learn about topics like saving for the future and Get through financial planning in no time.
While it’s definitely not a deep dive into personal finance and you won’t get a certificate for completing it, this course will help newbies understand key concepts as it also walks you through seven steps you can take to have a strong financial one Create foundation.
With an enrollment of approximately 850, this course exceeded 33% of reviewers’ expectations and met 50%.
Alison’s “Introduction to Managing Your Personal Financial Debt”
Alison – short for Advanced Learning Interactive Systems Online – is an educational platform that offers free online courses with certificates and diplomas, the latter of which can also be purchased. Users can use their programs to learn skills such as accounting, contract law, business management, and graphic design, and there are numerous personal finance courses available.
We recommend you try Alison’s “Introduction to Managing Your Personal Financial Debt” because a lot of personal finance has to do with balancing the different types of debt you may owe. In this free course, you’ll learn how to prioritize which debts to pay off first, how to organize your debts using a spreadsheet, and how to negotiate interest rates with credit card companies, among other things.
In 1.5 to 3 hours, you will learn methods of responsible debt management with the aim of preventing or alleviating personal debt problems. Along with the more than 40,000 people also enrolled, you will receive a certificate and become an Alison graduate by achieving at least 80% on all exams.
Reviewers call this course “very informative” and “easy to follow,” while boasting a near-perfect five-star average rating.
If you’d like to learn more, check out Alison’s free courses on wealth creation, retirement planning and financial freedom – all of which last under three hours.
Coursera’s “Create a Budget with Google Sheets”
We particularly like the Create a Budget with Google Sheets course, where you’ll learn both budgeting and navigating Google Sheets like a pro – let’s face it, spreadsheets are key to keeping track of your money to get.
In just one hour, you’ll learn how to create, format, and update your budget to achieve your financial goals. About 8,000 people are already enrolled and the course has an average rating of 4.7 out of 5 stars.
While you won’t receive a certificate for completing this course, you will end up with a professional budget that will help you keep your finances in order.
Bottom line
Thanks to free online personal finance courses like the four described above, anyone with internet access can learn how to manage money from credible sources.
No matter how old you are or where you are in your life, remember that it is never too late to learn about the best practices when it comes to money management. Not only will this pay off in every sense of the word, but you won’t have to sacrifice a lot of time signing up and learning.
Editorial note: The opinions, analyses, reviews or recommendations expressed in this article are those of the Select editorial team alone and have not been reviewed, approved or otherwise endorsed by any third party.