Financial education is very important among Romanians, as well as in society as a whole. Unfortunately, few people know how to manage their income.
Financial knowledge and skills help people understand how to manage money effectively, make informed financial choices, and improve their long-term financial health.
Through financial literacy, people can learn to set realistic financial goals, build a budget, and manage their spending based on their income. They can better understand the concepts of saving, investing, debt and planning for retirement. Financial education can also help people identify and avoid financial pitfalls, such as high-interest loans or other complex and unsuitable financial products.
People who are well-educated financially tend to make better decisions about managing their money, which can help reduce personal debt, increase savings, and build a solid financial foundation for themselves and their families.
Unfortunately, Romanians are doing very poorly in terms of financial education. This is also proven by a study presented by Alexandru Chirilă, investor and financial advisor, in the iThink show with Iusti Fudulu from Antena 3 CNN.
“Last year we had a moment, together with the management team, in which we asked ourselves, in the situation where we want to develop a large company, where do we start from? What is time 0? Where are we? What impact will we bring to society in 10, 20, 30 years?
We started a study at national level, on approximately 2900 respondents, with a margin of error of 2.93%, a study that showed us where Romania is in the year 2023. And here the numbers are worrying, because it seems that, although there is YouTube, there is education offered by banks, there are books, there is free content to which anyone has access, many Romanians, approximately 40%, cannot make an urgent expenditure of more than 5000 lei without borrowing. What put us on guard and we realized that, although the average income in Romania exceeds 4000 lei net, Romanians do not manage to save and have a clear long-term strategy.
And then we thought that this is moment 0, and we’re going to take a series of actions nationally over the next few years that we want to bring awareness to the importance of managing personal finances, but then also the importance of a long-term retirement age strategy . Because the pension is coming, and it’s a one-way street”, explained Alexandru Chirilă.
“There is some information that we consider extremely worrying. For example, if they were to lose their main source of income today, 40% of the respondents do not have the financial resources to live for a month from their own resources, a quarter of the participants cannot live for more than three months from the accumulated reserves.
55% of them still say they can save some of what they earn. 40% of them can save more than 10% of their income. Although Romania has increased its standard of living in recent years, the average salary has increased, however we are talking about a Romania of contrasts, in which there is a category that earns money, but there is also a category that does not earn money.
And then we believe that in order to make an impact in society, we need to deal with both categories. So many of those who today fail to save, fail to make an urgent expenditure of more than 5000 lei without borrowing, but we still need to offer concrete educational solutions to those who do manage to save”, said Alexandru Chirilă exclusively in the iThink show with Iusti Fudulu from Antena 3 CNN.
