How can we help better people with no financial literacy?

Question

TL;DR I would like to see this site start to become a better and more visible resource for people at the very beginning of the learning curve on financial literacy. Any ideas on how to achieve this?

I recently had an experience that gave me pause. I was going through a fast food drive through and the woman handling my order was asking some questions about my credit card, which is linked to a popular investment firm. I explained how the cash back rewards can be directed to things like an IRA with the investment firm. She did not know what an IRA was, and, unfortunately, the short time at a drive through window is not enough to educate someone on something so important. It would be useful though to be able to point someone like that to a "Quick Start Guide" to financial literacy.

I looked at our FAQ answer here on Meta (Frequently Answered Questions (by topic)), but even that makes assumptions about basic financial literacy. For example, we have a section for questions related to IRAs and 401(k)s but we don't have the most basic questions: what do you need to do to prepare for retirement, what are an IRA and a 401(k), and why should you care about them (if you are in the US of course)? We do have one question about what an IRA is on the SE site itself but it's asked in the context of whether it's appropriate for an Indian citizen, which would cause many (most?) to skip over it.

In short, I feel like we've gotten into a situation where there are no questions about these basics, which self reinforces: people don't find this SE site when searching for basic questions like "What is an IRA?" so they don't find it to ask the questions.

I'm also dissatisfied with the top resources on financial literacy (from a google search for "financial literacy guide"):

1. https://www.investopedia.com/guide-to-financial-literacy-4800530 : Jumps straight from How to Create a Budget to How to Start Investing without any significant discussion of saving for retirement
2. https://www.annuity.org/financial-literacy/ : Has minimal discussion of retirement saving before (predictably) stating that annuities are the answer
3. https://www.financialliteracy101.org/financial-literacy/ : Starts good but then veers into Identity Theft while completely omitting retirement saving
4. https://bethebudget.com/financial-literacy/ : Dives straight into calculating net worth and discussing types of debt and loan amortization

Although these two seem worthwhile (typical criticisms of DR aside):

1. https://www.moneygeek.com/financial-planning/resources/financial-literacy-handbook/
2. https://www.daveramsey.com/blog/what-is-financial-literacy

Without resorting to product / service recommendations, how can we start building a worthwhile (and discoverable) body of questions and answers about the basics of financial literacy?

Answer 1

Fundamentally I think the problem is one of scope - for all the good it does, SE is not exactly the best method of doing what you are asking about.

SE is really designed as a repository of information, built over time by specific questions. I see the value of closing items as duplicate, and often do so, but for the most under-informed on financial literacy, what really is needed is a specifically 'personal' touch. Building up vast libraries of information seems more aligned with technical materials rather than low-level 'barely-technical' financial basics.

So paradoxically I think money.SE adds the most value to someone's life when it answers a very specific question for them, but at the same time, the most efficient use of SE in general is with broad-strokes technical info to help someone capable of learning and seeking out answers already.

Even some of the really good ol' standby answers on this site, like Best way to start investing, for a young person just starting their career?, will only add value to someone at the stage where they are actively looking for answers, but the dearth of financial literacy in society is a problem that starts with gradeschool education. People don't ask questions to get answers they aren't aware they need or want.

'Money' can be a terrifying subject, and it is not surprising that (a) people find it hard to trust information that isn't directly responding to their immediate questions [rather than sifting through broader answers not 100% applicable to them]; and (b) people frequently get duped by questionable resources. I have often lamented that a niche career in truly basic financial literacy education [particularly getting into tax or other more technical areas] is a really hard thing to make money from compared with the value of a similar education applied to other areas [corporate finance, etc.].

Answer 2

For the same reason that Mathematics SE does not seek to teach how addition and multiplication of integers works, or why Sports SE does not tolerate questions of the form "what is cricket?".

Fundamental personal finance knowledge is exactly that, it's the very basics of the topic. Stack Exchange is predicated on users having that basic knowledge before coming here. It's like asking why universities don't teach the periodic table or the colour wheel - the students should know this, and much more besides, before they enrolled at all.