Forward Planning: Money makes us all tick

Titles like Smart Money, Your Money, Invest Money, Money Making, Only-Money, Money Homepage, Secured Money, Money Management, Unclaimed Money, MSN Money, Money.net, etc. abound now in our societies, whether in books, magazines, articles or on the Internet.

Everybody wants to talk to you about money, get into your pocket or wallet, take your money, show you how to make or invest some - or both - tell you how to borrow and win it or push you to spend - and loose it.

Some even try to steal or rob you of it, but one thing is sure: nobody is ever giving you money!
One way or another, we always have to earn it and although we all work very hard for it we are also prone, in the financial jungle we live in, to misestimating the value of our money.

We are rarely taught at home or school to understand and handle money in the proper way.
Courses about money in the UAE, like in most other countries, simply don't exist unless you specialise to become a banker, investment broker, an accountant, financial planner or an insurance consultant and need to have a good knowledge about money.

In every day life it's often difficult to deal with financial issues, especially complicated ones like investing or insurance and personal finance.

The Internet of course is a blessing for the person who wants to learn provided he/she knows what to search and how.

However, the Internet has its drawbacks: more often than never you don't know whom you are dealing with and you get a one-sided story. How to be sure you are doing the right thing?

And the absence of the human touch and contact can be rather unsettling.

Recently I heard someone I know bragging that he is doing some investment through the Internet.
Unfortunately his knowledge and experience about investing are not that great and his risks of loosing are of course inversely proportional to his expertise, not mentioning the possibility of his getting hooked at on-line investing by endlessly trying to make up for previous losses.

Of course, personal finance or money Web sites like MSN Money, the USA Today Money, Money magazine and many others are indeed a great source of serious financial information if you are expert enough to really know how to use it. But nowadays even professionals are loosing money in the market.

Beware though of all the schemes existing out there to part you from your money in one way or another from those who claim they want to 'double your money' - more likely 'their own' - to the investments scams and the recurrent appeals to unwisely use your credit card by spending what you don't have and paying a huge amount of interest afterwards, etc.

To choose a loan, the right investment or saving vehicle demands expert advice and must be associated with proper budgeting and control of your personal finance, take into account all the relevant data such as presence/absence of pension or retirement fund, and the necessity for family financial protection and security.

Without proper training you can't improvise yourself as a financial expert. We need serious financial education through governments, media, schools, work and financial institutions.

People have to understand the value of money and their own earning power. Banks for example being the only financial houses that individuals can turn to for financial support should cater to their clients financial needs and not just only service accounts and grant loans.

Saving schemes with some guarantees like financial and capital protection are needed by middle and even lower income clients and would be a great saving vehicle for short or medium terms. People often turn toward bad investment or end up being cheated because of the absence of the right investment vehicles through credible and reputed financial institutions.

We lack people's advocates here beside a few Arabic radio programmes discussing issues of concern to the public.

The Association of Consumer Protection is not active enough in protecting against financial fraud and providing financial education to consumers who need to be taught about their rights.

Some of the old concepts we received as children - "if we spend what we have today tomorrow will bring us more, keeping money is greed, the government will pay, etc." - must be replaced by the sense of individual financial responsibility which means acquiring the knowledge of how to protect ourselves and our families.