Lately, my phone has been bombarded with calls from strangers to promote financial products. I normally tell them "Sorry, I am not interested" and hang up the phone.
If the financial products are aggressively sold to me, I reject it outright. I do not want to spend any more time to learn about it.
If someone aggressively promotes a financial product, he is usually getting paid handsome commission for it. This commission comes out of your pocket when you buy the product. A good deal for the seller is usually a bad deal for the buyer. Good financial deals never come looking for you. You have to actively seek them out yourself. If somebody knows of a wonderful bargain, he is going to buy all that he can himself. The last thing he wants to do is to let the secret out. The next time you hear of a deal-you-can't-miss from a stranger, just walk away. He is somebody you better miss.
This is why I never buy products sold by the bank relationship managers. In fact, the sort of financial products they sell can be used as a contrarian indicator. In the early part of 2008, commodity investment funds were popularly sold by the banks. Commodity prices collapsed in the later part of 2008.
The next time you receive cold calls from strangers selling financial products, just hang up. Time is better spent hunting for the best deals yourself than expecting good deals from strangers.
I did have a financial planning class in high school and I can tell you that as a teenager at the time, I honestly just did not care - why would I? I was a teenager who lived rent/bill free with my parents. Money wasn't an immediate thought at the time. In college, when my scholarship covered most of my tuition, student loans online in UK and my parents graciously paid for the rest, I had no real "bills." It's not until I was thrust into the real world the day after graduation when I had to pay bills for the first time in my life, pay rent, and provide for myself that I felt the first stings of adulthood.
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