This is Optimal Finance Daily. Seven personal finance lessons I wish everyone learned in high school,

part one by Jeff Rose of goodfinancialsense.com. Imagine if what you know now, you knew way back in

high school. How much better off would you be? When I was in high school, I didn't learn anything

about money, budgeting, or investing. While I'm was in high school, I didn't learn anything about money, budgeting,

or investing. While I'm a financial planner now, I didn't learn most financial basics until my

junior year of college. What's crazy is, I did take a financial basics course at one point.

Unfortunately, it wasn't even remotely helpful. The course took place during my senior year of high school, and they called it Home Economics.

While I can't tell you a thing I learned during that class, I can tell you what I didn't

learn.

I didn't learn about investing, credit scores, calculating interest on debt, or the magic of compounding

interest.

That's right, I sat through a year of classes,

yet I didn't learn a single money skill that could apply to my life. While I want to believe more

money skills are being taught in schools than what I experienced back in the day, or not too long ago,

what I'm hearing from parents is that not much has changed. While some schools offer a home

economics class or something similar, they're still failing to impart a basic financial education

that I believe is necessary for a successful, financially stable life outside of school.

Here's a look at some of the essentials I wish I would have learned in high school, and I think

we should be taught today. Number one, how credit cards and interest rates work. Since you can normally get

your own credit card at around 18 years old, it seems like common sense to teach high school

students about the intricacies of credit. As a financial advisor, I've seen far too many young people run up

huge credit card balances even when they don't have a good understanding of how credit works.

...