Money Management Skills

Wrap up the course by building a solid and realistic financial plan. You'll learn how to set up a cash-flow statement, prepare a budget for future expenditures, and make a balance sheet for your estate planning process.

The goal of estate planning is to prepare your financial affairs to save your relatives from a confusing mess of assets, liabilities, and property transfers after you've passed. Here you'll discover a roadmap for sorting out your affairs, setting up trusts for your assets, and creating a plan for your end-of-life care options.

When should you retire? And how do you save enough to ensure that you're financially covered for the future?

No discussion of finances can evade the topic of taxes. In this lecture, Professor Finke provides a clear and concise overview of the U.

Insurance is really about "risk management." The world abounds with perils, and insurance is about estimating the probability of a loss and weighing the cost of insurance versus potential out-of-pocket expenses.

After education, home ownership might be the most important financial decision we make in our lifetimes. Is home ownership really a great investment?

Most economists would agree that education offers one of the highest returns of any investment; however, paying for college often involves taking on student loans. Whether you're a high school student or a parent preparing to pay for your child's tuition, learn the key risks of student loans, and see what tax advantages you might apply toward a college education.

Debt can be intimidating, but when used appropriately, it is a powerful tool. Psychology plays a key role when we take on debt, so it is important to recognize bad habits such as impulsiveness.

Tour the range of investment options, from liquid assets such as cash and checking accounts to long-term assets such as mutual funds, stocks, and bonds. See what fees and returns you can expect from each type of instrument - and what tax obligations you may incur.

You don't have to be a financial guru to make wise investment choices. In fact, as you will learn in this lecture, a few basic rules of thumb are all most of us need to make solid financial choices.

In this lecture, you will reconsider your entire approach to your finances. Life cycle theory is a framework for making financial decisions at different stages in your life, and it offers sound guidance for saving, borrowing, and investing across time.

Begin your course with an examination of the brain to explore the tension between conscious decision-making and the automatic emotional response of our limbic systems. This tension affects many of our approaches to financial management, including our innate aversion to loss, our tolerance of risk, and our investment confidence.