“It is about how to budget your money and live within your means, it is about saving a certain portion of your income for your entire life.”

Question: How can we get a better grip on our personal finances?

Carrie Schwab: The first step really is to gain the basic knowledge, a personal finance particular, around saving and investing for our life time.

Unfortunately, there is not a lot of education in the schools. And what we have found from our studies is very few families talk about it. There is got to be some type of personal ownership to gain this level of knowledge and act on it.

There is plenty of books out there of course. My dad and I wrote a book called “Pays to Talk, How to Have the Essential Conversations about Money and Investing.” It will give you all the nuts and bolts that you need to know through a lifetime to be financially fit.

There are certainly lots of websites and all sorts of books out there.

And also your employer is a great place to start become financially fit. Because often times that is when we first start to invest and we get access to 401K, when a employer matches it then it is almost like free money and it with compound growth, you really can get yourself on the right track.

Recorded on: March 27, 2008