Gain the skills to manage your personal finances with Open Learn: managing budgets, debts, investments, property purchase, pensions and insurance.

With real incomes falling and personal debt at a record high, there has never been a better time to improve your personal financial skills – managing my money aims to do just that. You’ll start by learning how to compile a budget and use it to make good decisions about your spending. You’ll explore debts and investments, and find out how mortgages are used to finance home ownership. The critical issue of pension planning is explained, with guidance on different pension products.

You’ll finish by examining different types of insurance and getting practical advice on how to make rational decisions about which insurance products to buy.

After studying this course, you should be able to:

• understand how to undertake financial planning, including drawing up a budget and a household balance sheet
• apply a systematic approach to making key financial decisions
• understand loans, mortgages and other debt products and their costs
• understand the main categories of personal investments, their characteristics and the returns they provide to investors
• understand pension products and how to undertake pension planning
• understand insurance products and how they are priced