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I'm in My 30s, and I Don't Know Basic Finance. Is It Too Late to Learn? · Becoming Financially Confident

• 0:37
  You read an article about America's financial literacy hitting all time lows and you recognize yourself in it.
• 0:45
  That's not a hypothetical.
• 0:46
  That's a real question from someone in their 30s who never learned this stuff, who's been living in survival mode for way too long to learn it, and who's now sitting with a quiet shame about it.
• 0:57
  Well, friend, there's a reason your brain couldn't learn this until now and it's not a character flaw.
• 1:02
  And the fact that you're asking the question already changes everything.
• 1:05
  So stay with me today.
• 1:07
  We're going to talk about how to make this work right now on today's show.
• 1:20
  Hello and welcome to Financially Confident Christian.
• 1:23
  This is your daily dose of trying to make faith and finance come together.
• 1:28
  And today I want to talk about America's financial knowledge declining and hitting record lows.
• 1:34
  We got a question today from somebody who's in their early 30s.
• 1:37
  They never were taught basic finance and they're too busy surviving to learn it on their own.
• 1:42
  And they're asking a really tough question.
• 1:45
  Is it too late to start?
• 1:47
  They're feeling behind, they're feeling ashamed and they're overwhelmed by conflicting advice.
• 1:52
  What a great question.
• 1:54
  And maybe you've got a question you'd like me to answer on the show.
• 1:57
  I would love to hear it.
• 1:58
  You can go to financiallyconfidentchristian.com/question we'll put a link in the show notes.
• 2:04
  But again, that's financiallyconfidentchristian.com/question All right, you ready for this one?
• 2:11
  This is the subject line.
• 2:13
  It says I'm in my 30s and I don't know basic finances.
• 2:17
  Is it too late to learn?
• 2:19
  Then they get into their question.
• 2:21
  Hey Ralph, I read an article about American's financial knowledge being at an all time low and it got me thinking about my own situation.
• 2:29
  I'm in my early 30s and honestly I don't know much about basic finance.
• 2:35
  I was never taught it in high school and I've been too caught in just surviving month to month to learn it on my own.
• 2:41
  The article mentioned that people with poor financial understanding make bad decisions and are financially fragile.
• 2:48
  That's me.
• 2:49
  I couldn't come up with $2,000 for an emergency if I had to.
• 2:53
  And I know part of the problem isn't that I don't understand the basics, things like saving, investing, borrowing, all that stuff.
• 3:01
  But here's what scares me.
• 3:03
  Is it too late to learn?
• 3:05
  I feel like everyone else figured this out already and I'm way behind.
• 3:10
  Also, every time I try to look stuff up online, I Get flooded with financial influencers giving me advice that sounds good, but I can't tell if it's real or not.
• 3:20
  Is there hope for someone like me?
• 3:22
  Where do I even start?
• 3:24
  Thank you, Ralph.
• 3:26
  Well, thank you.
• 3:27
  And I love the fact that you said the Internet is full of financial influencers who are flooding you with nonsense.
• 3:34
  That's my words.
• 3:35
  But it's true.
• 3:36
  There are a lot of knuckleheads out there promoting stuff that just doesn't make any sense.
• 3:41
  But here's the problem today I want to focus in on, because you mentioned about being in this tough situation of survival mode.
• 3:49
  Financial stress crowds out your ability to learn.
• 3:53
  You're thinking right now.
• 3:54
  But Ralph, I've never learned this.
• 3:55
  It's neuroscience what you're talking about.
• 3:58
  It's not a personal failure.
• 4:00
  When you're living in that stress environment, your brain can't learn anything.
• 4:05
  So what we've got to do first is we got to reduce the stress first, and then you can start to absorb some financial knowledge.
• 4:14
  But listen, friend, you're not behind because you're broken.
• 4:16
  You're high because nobody gave you the breathing room to learn.
• 4:19
  So that's what I'm going to do today.
• 4:20
  I'm going to give you breathing room to learn.
• 4:23
  But I want you to start by understanding why you couldn't learn this until now.
• 4:29
  So many people that I work with every day live in financial stress.
• 4:34
  And when you're living in that situation, it's hard for your brain to absorb complex information.
• 4:41
  That's just neuroscience.
• 4:42
  It's not because you're lazy.
• 4:43
  It's not because you didn't want to learn it.
• 4:45
  It's because you've been in survival mode.
• 4:47
  You're working, you're paying bills.
• 4:50
  You don't have time for learning at that point.
• 4:53
  And millions of Americans, dare I say millions of people all over the world are in the same spot.
• 4:58
  And the research backs it up.
• 5:01
  Basic finance isn't beating the market or some getting rich quick scheme.
• 5:06
  It's actually pretty simple.
• 5:07
  It's eight core ideas.
• 5:09
  Now, we're not going to cover all these today, but these are the eight core ideas.
• 5:12
  It's earning, saving, consuming investing, borrowing, ensuring understanding risk, and knowing where to find reliable information.
• 5:23
  Now that's a hell of a list, isn't it?
• 5:25
  And you don't need to master all eight in one week.
• 5:28
  You just need to fill in the gaps one at a time.
• 5:32
  Here's an interesting.
• 5:34
  Most Americans only get 47% of financial literacy questions correct.
• 5:38
  47%.
• 5:40
  Less than half.
• 5:42
  Half of Adults are getting this wrong, too.
• 5:45
  The problem is your brain was too stressed to learn.
• 5:48
  That says nothing about your capacity now.
• 5:52
  So let's talk about how to fix this.
• 5:54
  You gotta solve the information overload and build some breathing room.
• 5:59
  Social media is flooded with financial influencers.
• 6:02
  I mentioned that a little while ago.
• 6:04
  Some of these people are great.
• 6:05
  I'll count myself as one of the good ones.
• 6:08
  But so many have designed their stuff for clicks rather than helping you.
• 6:15
  Honestly, the solution is to ignore most of it and find one or two trusted sources instead.
• 6:20
  You've landed on a great one here, but find one book, find a podcast or a person you actually trust.
• 6:27
  Not the loudest one, the one that makes sense.
• 6:32
  There are great resources at community colleges and libraries and.
• 6:35
  And there's nonprofits that.
• 6:37
  Free or cheap financial courses worth checking out.
• 6:40
  But listen, you can't think straight while you're in crisis mode.
• 6:44
  So the first step isn't learning to invest.
• 6:46
  It's not learning how derivatives work or how the markets work.
• 6:50
  It's getting out of that financial fragility that you're in.
• 6:53
  So, yes, I'm going to go there.
• 6:55
  It starts with something super practical, not some fancy hack.
• 7:00
  $2,000 in an emergency fund.
• 7:03
  Now, that probably already scared half the listeners, but you can start small.
• 7:08
  $100 a month in a savings account.
• 7:10
  Yeah, it sounds boring, but it changes your ability to think clearly.
• 7:15
  And once you've built that small buffer, your brain can actually relax for a second and you can engage with learning.
• 7:23
  It's not time to worry about investing when you're worried about paying your rent, but you've also got to let yourself go a little bit.
• 7:30
  You got to give yourself permission to learn slowly.
• 7:33
  You said you're in your 30s, which means that you've got 30, 40, or maybe 50 years ahead of you.
• 7:38
  Got plenty of time to learn this.
• 7:41
  You don't need to learn it all this year.
• 7:43
  Spread it out a little bit at a time.
• 7:46
  Maybe one concept a month.
• 7:48
  Maybe you read one financial book a quarter or make one small change every few months.
• 7:54
  Now, that's slow and unglamorous, but it's the only pace that's actually going to stick and be working for you.
• 8:01
  Fast financial learning, which you see on TikTok and reels and Instagram, those things are great.
• 8:08
  They tend to get forgotten quickly.
• 8:10
  But slow learning builds, and it builds those habits, because that's what we're talking about today.
• 8:15
  We're talking about how to build those habits.
• 8:18
  Slow beats fast.
• 8:19
  When it comes to something, you're going to need for the rest of your life.
• 8:22
  And at 30, guess what?
• 8:23
  You're just getting started.
• 8:25
  I'd love to be 30 again, but I want to get a little deeper into the faith part of this.
• 8:30
  Because you said something like, everyone else figured this out already and you're way behind, friend.
• 8:36
  That's a lie you're telling yourself.
• 8:39
  Not everybody's got this figured out.
• 8:40
  What did I say?
• 8:41
  Only 47% of Americans have the knowledge of financial literacy.
• 8:47
  But here's what fate doesn't promise us.
• 8:51
  It doesn't promise that you'll know everything by a certain age.
• 8:54
  God didn't give say okay, by 30, you're going to know it all.
• 8:56
  It doesn't say that.
• 8:58
  And it also doesn't promise that other people are as far ahead as they look.
• 9:02
  Some people put on a brave face on the outside, but here's what fate does promise us.
• 9:09
  You get to start where you are, not where you think you should be.
• 9:13
  God doesn't have some heavenly grading on a curve, and he doesn't compare you to anyone else.
• 9:20
  He sees you and he asks one question.
• 9:23
  What's the next step?
• 9:25
  Let's look at Proverbs 13:12.
• 9:27
  It says, Hope deferred makes the heart sick.
• 9:30
  But a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
• 9:34
  Your longing today is to understand your money, to stop feeling fragile and to make better decisions.
• 9:42
  And that's a beautiful longing.
• 9:45
  And it can be fulfilled very easily with just one step and then another, and then another.
• 9:52
  You don't need to suddenly understand what you missed for 30 years.
• 9:56
  You just need to start moving forward, understanding today.
• 9:59
  And the fact that you're already asking means you've already started the journey.
• 10:04
  You didn't miss your window, my friend.
• 10:06
  You're exactly where you need to be to start learning today.
• 10:10
  And starting is what matters right now.
• 10:13
  So here's your win for today, and I'm encouraged by this.
• 10:16
  I want you to pick one financial concept you don't understand and then find one trustworthy source that explains it could be saving, investing, credit scores, those emergency funds.
• 10:29
  Pick whatever scares you the most, and then find one YouTube video and article or a podcast episode that explains it clearly.
• 10:37
  Now I'm going to pitch my stuff.
• 10:38
  We've got over a thousand episodes in the catalog@financiallyconfidentchristian.com and most of them are formed in terms of a question.
• 10:46
  So go check out the catalog again.
• 10:47
  That's@financiallyconfidentchristian.com Now, I'm not telling you to commit to months of study.
• 10:54
  You don't need to go get a master's degree in finance.
• 10:57
  Just expose yourself to one explanation and don't beat yourself up.
• 11:02
  You don't need to ever understand everything.
• 11:04
  Tonight just understand one more thing because you can't build a concept you'd never looked at.
• 11:11
  So I encourage you today, go look at one.
• 11:14
  Which leads us to today's Bible verse and I've already mentioned it.
• 11:17
  Proverbs 13:12.
• 11:19
  Hope deferred makes the heart sick.
• 11:22
  But a longing fulfilled is a tree of life.
• 11:26
  You're in that longing stage right now.
• 11:29
  You're longing to understand your money is real and it's not too late.
• 11:34
  But I want to get into a difference between hope deferred and hope fulfilled.
• 11:37
  Hope deferred is what happens when you think I should have learned this already and you just give up.
• 11:43
  But hope fulfilled is what happens when you take one step towards understanding.
• 11:48
  That tree of life it talks about isn't a destination you arrive at suddenly.
• 11:53
  It's something you build one day and one concept at a time.
• 11:57
  Let's pray together.
• 12:00
  Heavenly Father, I bring before you someone today who feels behind on something they think they should already know.
• 12:07
  Help them to see that being in survival mode wasn't a failure, Lord.
• 12:10
  It was actually just survival.
• 12:13
  So today, give them permission to start where they are, not where they think they should be.
• 12:18
  And Lord, put before them one trusted resource and one clear explanation to take that first step.
• 12:24
  Protect them from shame and they've carried enough of it already, Lord.
• 12:29
  And help them to build slowly and steadily towards financial understanding.
• 12:35
  And we ask this in Jesus name.
• 12:37
  Amen.
• 12:40
  Friend.
• 12:40
  You're not broken for not knowing this stuff yet.
• 12:43
  You're human and you've been busy surviving.
• 12:46
  But the very fact that you're asking the question now means you're ready and timing matters the more than years behind you.
• 12:53
  So again, here's today's takeaway.
• 12:55
  Remember that financial stress crowds out the ability to learn.
• 12:59
  That's biology.
• 12:59
  That's not a failure.
• 13:01
  We talked about the basic finance in eight steps, not 800.
• 13:05
  And start with one, just one trusted source.
• 13:08
  Build that breathing room we talked about that emergency fund.
• 13:11
  And give yourself from permission to learn slowly.
• 13:14
  You're not going to catch it all at once.
• 13:17
  Now maybe you're trying to figure out some financial stuff on your own.
• 13:21
  I'd love to hear what's going on in your life.
• 13:23
  You can leave me a voicemail message by going to financiallyconfidentchristian.com/voicemail.
• 13:29
  We'll put a link in the show notes, just click right on there and record it.
• 13:32
  Financiallyconfidentchristian.com/voicemail thank you so much for joining me today.
• 13:38
  I want to encourage you always stay financially savvy.
• 13:42
  May God bless you and you have a truly great day today.