If you want to pay off student loan debt, gain control over your credit cards, strategize for the future, and simply get your financial house in order, you’re in luck!
Today, there are plenty of online courses that will help guide you through the ins and outs of personal finance. Online courses are an excellent way to improve your financial literacy. These courses provide a thorough overview of financial topics, allowing you to learn at your own pace so that you can continue improving your budgeting skills, even as you juggle the responsibilities of work, parenting, and maintaining a social life.
With that in mind, here are 5 worthwhile online personal finance courses that cover a wide variety of topics. Whether your goal is to get out of debt, build wealth, or simply learn something new, these courses are an excellent educational opportunity for everyone who’s serious about improving their budgeting skills.
Clever Girl Finance (30 Free Courses!)
If you don’t know where to begin, I recommend Clever Girl Finance, which offers 30 free courses for everyone! These courses are designed to build the foundation for financial literacy, which is perfect for beginners and a good refresher for those looking to reorient their financial lives.
You’ll receive easy-to-understand videos, worksheets, free mentor calls, and exclusive live call replays. For people who are in debt, it can be difficult to justify spending money on a financial course. Or maybe your credit card is maxed out, and you simply don’t have the option to enroll in ongoing online financial education. If that’s the case, then Clever Girl Finance is an excellent opportunity to learn the basics without making a large financial investment.
These 30 free courses are enough to help you find your footing on the right path.
The skills you’ll learn in this course include, but are not limited to:
- Learning how to curb overspending and achieve savings goals
- Improving your money mindset and organizational skills
- Creating a budget that works for your needs
- Creating realistic financial goals that you can achieve
- Building your credit score to enjoy favorable rates and terms
- Strategizing how to tackle your debt, from credit cards to student loans
Wealth Building Blueprint by Jessica Moorhouse ($300-$500 CAD)
Jessica Moorhouse is an Accredited Financial Counselor who is a millennial money expert. Her course is valued at $300 to $500 CAD, which converts to approximately $235 to $392 USD. One of the things I like about the Wealth Building Blueprint is that there is an application process to be able to take the course.
To be clear, the application process isn’t to be exclusive or to leave anyone out. Rather, Jessica wants to make sure that it is a good fit. Rather than trying to cast a wide net and get as many people as possible to sign up for the course, Jessica is focused on ensuring that it’s a mutually beneficial experience. In short, if your application is approved, you’ll book a quick call with Jessica herself so you can decide whether or not you want to move forward working with Jessica.
It’s important to note that Jessica’s course is geared specifically for Canadians, who have different investment and retirement accounts than Americans. Furthermore, the Canadian stock market, taxes, and legal considerations are quite different for those based in the States, so this course is really best for Canadians.
The skills you’ll learn in this course include, but are not limited to:
- Learning the different types of investment options
- Understanding how Capital Markets work
- Knowing the different account types in Canada (TFSAs, RRSPs, RRIFs, RESPs, etc.)
- Investment planning, robo-adviser investing, self-directed investing
- How to build your wealth
Budget to Debt Freedom ($137)
While there’s a lot to learn about finance, sometimes it’s best to focus on a specific topic. The Budget to Debt Freedom course focuses specifically on how to get out of debt. Merilee is the budget mentor, who personally paid off $71K of debt in less than three years on a single income. Her mantra is that “A budget = freedom to spend.”
Merilee will guide you through some of the most difficult work upfront, such as facing your current financial situation. After all, the first step to creating an effective budget is acknowledging your starting point and having a clear goal and strategy for where you want to go. The course is valued at $2,536, but is available for a 1-time payment of $137 or 2 installments of $75.
The skills you’ll learn in this course include, but are not limited to:
- How to prepare and motivate yourself emotionally and mentally
- Strategies for building your budget
- How to maintain, reconcile, and stick to your budget
- How to begin and maintain your emergency fund
- Calculating your “debt-free date” and working towards it
Personal Finance Club ($79)
Let’s say there are two people named Kelsey and Kayla. Both Kelsey and Kayla save $500 per month. However, after 40 years, Kelsey has a balance of $365,722, but Kayla has a balance of $2,775,174.
Again, they both saved the exact same amount: $500 per month.
So why does Kayla have over $2 million more saved than Kelsey?
This is what the Personal Finance Club is all about. This online course does a deep dive into how to build wealth by investing in index funds. In case you aren’t already familiar, index funds are a type of mutual fund or exchange-traded fund (ETF). Rather than picking an individual stock, an index fund follows a benchmark index that “follows” the market as a whole.
If you’re looking to give an online financial course to someone as a gift, Personal Finance Club makes this easy. Whether you purchase this for yourself or as a gift, the account owner will have lifetime access to over 8 hours of content that you can consume at your own pace.
The skills you’ll learn in this course include, but are not limited to:
- Understanding the power of compound growth
- Distinguishing between stocks and bonds (and the benefits of each)
- What stocks and index funds to buy
- Learning how taxes work on investments
- Gaining a foundational understanding so you can invest confidently
Paige Pritchard Overcoming Overspending ($497)
What makes personal finance so hard? In most cases, it isn’t the mathematical side of the equation. Most people understand that a healthy budget means that you shouldn’t spend more than you earn.
But of course… that’s easier said than done.
The Paige Pritchard courses help you create a system that works for you. In other words, it’s not just only about the math. You need to “uncover your toxic and limiting beliefs about money,” as Paige would say. When you do this, you can transform your budget by transforming how you spend and building a healthy relationship with your finances. By the end of the course, you should have your own financial philosophy so you can stay on the right track.
The skills you’ll learn in this course include, but are not limited to:
- Uncovering your toxic and limiting money beliefs
- Developing a process to track income and spending
- Transforming your mindset to minimize or avoid impulse spending
- Tactics to use credit cards in a way that gives you benefits, not excessive fees
- Automate your money so your budget process takes less time
A Final Thought…
No matter which course you choose, I encourage you to commit to it.
I don’t know about you, but I know that I’ve sometimes bought self-help books with the intention of reading them, but sometimes those books end up collecting dust on the shelf.
Don’t let that happen to you with these courses.
If you’re researching the best online financial courses, then odds are that something has triggered a realization in your life that something has to change.
So no matter which course you decide to enroll in, I encourage you to be intentional about completing it and implementing the lessons learned in your life. Yes, feel free to go at your own pace, but be sure to hold yourself accountable!
For more accountability, encouragement, and insight, I invite you to join the Budget Mom community on Facebook where you’ll meet like-minded people with similar goals, struggles, and dreams for the future.
