Financial Literacy for Working Investors

By Brent Meyer — SafeMoney.com Founder & Editor Reviewed by Licensed Financial Professionals  |  SafeMoney.com — Trusted Since 2011  |  Updated Regularly Quick Answer: Explore financial literacy for working investors. Learn how to secure your retirement with safe money alternatives. Start planning today! Editor’s Note: This is the third part of a four-part series on financial literacy in the United States. You can find  Part 1 of the series here . Stay tuned for more helpful articles on how you can reach the retirement you have worked hard to attain. Like other working-age investors, you may have a 401(k) account — or another employer retirement plan. In anticipation of the future, you probably are socking away money for retirement. And if you are lucky, your employer is even contributing to help your nest egg grow even more. But, with April being National Financial Literacy Month , now is a good time to be honest with ourselves. Many working-age investors don’t fully know what their investments are. Various studies, like the “Wellness in the Workplace” survey by KRC Research, have shown that, in many cases, the majority of working investors don’t understand their retirement plan make-up.   So, take a moment to ask yourself about whether everything makes sense to you. It’s okay to admit not being fluent in your 401(k) – or even retirement in general – because money matters are hard enough for many of us. And when it comes to retirement issues, you aren’t alone. A comprehensive barometer of U.S. adults’ readiness to make sound financial decisions is found in the TIAA Institute-GFLEC Personal Finance Index (P-Fin Index) from TIAA Institute and the Global Financial Literacy Excellence Center. This report examines financial literacy across eight common activities: earning, spending, saving, investing, borrowing, insuring, understanding risk, and gathering information. And the findings aren’t great. You Have a 50-50 Chance of Getting it Right “Most Americans lack personal finance knowledge for making appropriate financial decisions in the normal course of life,” the Index reports. “On average, U.S. adults answered 50% of the P-Fin Index questions correctly.”” Where do most people get the lowest score? Possibly in the area that can hurt us the most: understanding (and avoiding) risk . “On average, survey participants answered only 35% of these questions correctly,” the Index re