12 | A Shortcut to Financial Literacy

Here's an idea for a way to improve financial literacy quickly.

Make it easier to be literate with a mandatory cover page for all bank and investment statements.

Disclose, polish, detail, and market the heck out of every additional page, but give me one sheet that allows for apples-to-apples comparisons across firm, account type, and product type.

Here it is...

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Date Range

Beginning Balance
Contributions
Withdrawals
Dividends
Interest
Fees (broken out by investment fees, advice fees, and added features fees)
Gain or loss
Ending Balance

Portion that is cash
Portion that is accessible today
Portion that is accessible in 1 year
Portion that is accessible in 5 years
Portion that is accessible in 10 years

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That's it.

Many will argue that more detail is necessary - it's not.

I don't want a percentage return calculation - you spend dollars, not percentages.

I don't want asset allocation, cost basis, realized or unrealized gains on the cover sheet.

Leave the overwhelming and disorienting details for Page 2+.

I just want dollar amounts assigning responsibility where it belongs.

Simplicity that someone with a high school diploma could understand and use to compare to the next statement.

Instead of continuing to make rules that increase complexity and overhead, give us a single sheet that will weed out bad players fast.

No nonsense, no deflecting, just clarity and a buck that stops on Page 1.

The capability is there at every financial services firm. People to audit it every so often are there too.

Let's get started. Then let's apply the same idea to debt.