Welcome to Financial Literacy! | Financial Literacy | Khan Academy

Hi everyone! Sal Cotton here from Khan Academy, and I just wanted to introduce you and welcome you to our financial literacy course.

Why financial literacy? Well, money is everywhere, and if you don't understand money, it can easily take control of your life. But if you know what its uses are, what the pros and what the cons are, then it becomes a powerful tool for you, a control over resources.

As you'll see in this financial literacy course, you're going to learn everything from understanding your paycheck to taxes and savings and many, many, many other important things. If it isn't obvious to you that this is important to your life, I will tell you that there's a lot of folks, some with big salaries, who end up not having any savings and having to struggle for money.

There are other folks who have maybe more modest means but are financially literate and are able to save, who are able to budget, who are able to think about things that might happen in their life and plan accordingly. Those people are usually just fine.

Now, another aspect of financial literacy: a lot of people say, "Well, of course, I would love to save money, but that seems so daunting to try to save a large amount so that I could buy a car or put a down payment on a house or whatever else."

What you'll see in this course, and as you go through it, is that it isn't just about information. It's about thinking about the world in a different way, creating habits. Realizing that if you create the right habits, what might seem like a small thing—spending a few dollars less per day—can add up over time in very, very, very big ways.

Now the other thing about this course is it isn't just videos and articles; it's also practice. Mastery-based practice means you have as many chances as you need and as many items as you need to really make sure that you are fluent in the topic.

That's really important because between the videos, where you'll get a little bit of background, the articles, where you also get background, and the exercises, if you go through this, I can guarantee you that you're going to be able to look at the world in a different and very powerful way and also help many folks around you.