College graduates and their parents are faced with a daunting challenge of managing their finances on their own, often for the very first time. But, many recent high school and college graduates have a lot of questions. It stems from not receiving the proper education from our school system and their parents on how to handle money, debt, and investing on their own. Many have questions such as: How much do I need to save for in an emergency fund? Should I invest in my employer’s 401k retirement plan? Are credit cards the right way to build a credit history in order to help me pay for my first home? These are many of the financial questions, and there are more, that young people in their 20s and 30s are struggling with and do not know where to turn for the answers. Our school systems have done a poor job preparing our children to answer these personal finance questions. We as parents have also done a poor job preparing our children for the daunting tasks of managing their money, investing for retirement, paying down debt, and living the lives they had dreamed of growing up.

In this episode of the Money Q&A podcast, “Your Money: Your Choices”, I interview Chris Smith who is a former senior finance executive with Hewlett Packard and the author of the book, “Securing Your Financial Future: Complete Personal Finance for Beginners”. We talk about a wide range of personal finance topics from budget, debt, student loans, credit cards, emergency funds, and everywhere in between. This is a great conversation for both recent high school and college graduates and their parents which tackles the tricky personal finance questions head on. You won’t want to miss it.