Increasing Financial Literacy

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of MassMutual.

To celebrate Financial Literacy Month this month, Massachusetts Mutual Life Insurance Company wants to help you take small steps to better understand your finances so you can secure your financial future and protect those who matter most to you. Our family is very focused on making certain that we are financially responsible and that everyone in our family is financially literate.

Increasing your financial smarts can be as simple as taking a few small steps – like simply identifying your short- and long-term goals, making a budget or talking to a financial professional. MassMutual can help guide you through this process.

6 Tips for Increasing Your Financial Literacy

Sometimes taking small steps with your finances can make the biggest difference. Here are six tips from MassMutual to help you increase your financial smarts and reach your short- and long-term goals.

1. Identify your financial goals.
   Identifying our financial goals was how we began to plan to achieve them. Our goals are to save for college and for retirement.
2. Get organized.
   Getting organized was probably the most important part of this process for us. My husband and I needed to get everything together so that we could figure how we would achieve our financial goals.
3. Use tools to help you project your savings needs.
   Since college is definitely on the horizon for all three of our kids, this handy College Savings Calculator helped us figure out how much we need to be saving monthly in order to meet our goals. The Retirement Planning Calculator was the next thing we used to add to the amount we would be saving each month.
4. Consider your most valuable asset and how it affects your future.
   Our most valuable assets are our home and our business. We have taken steps to make certain that we are covered no matter what. We have insurance and a savings cushion.
5. Teach your kids early.
   All three of my children have savings accounts that they regularly monitor and make deposits to. We have worked hard to make certain that our kids understand the value of money and how much things cost.
6. Find the right people to help you.
   Finding the right person to guide you through your finances is crucial to being able to save money and meet your financial goals. Make certain that the people who work with your money are capable and qualified.

This is a sponsored post written by me on behalf of MassMutual.