I wanted to share this post from reddit with very interesting stories in the comment section: People who have surprised you with a lack of financial literacy - Reddit
Main post:
I was talking to some co-workers yesterday including a few guys my age that I thought were fairly financially savvy, they both manage side businesses and work with money for our company. I was surprised to learn that neither of them really was that literate in terms of tax-advantaged investing or just general personal finance. I had to walk them through investing in our company 401k program and the differences and trade-offs of using the Roth 401k and standard 401k options we have. One had not been putting any money into any tax-advantaged account and had simply been using a taxable brokerage full time.
I know there are those out there who want to build up a sizable investment portfolio outside of the tax-sheltered options for various reasons such as access or time horizons but it surprised me that these two, in particular, seemed to have no clue about their strategy or purpose, they were just missing out.
I want to hear some other good examples where someone has surprised you with their lack of knowledge or just general misuse of financials, I’m sure there have got to be some good stories out there.
So did you have any similar encounters with family, friends co-workers, etc?