Maths abilility ‘hindering financial skills’

A lack of maths ability is hindering people’s ability to budget and casing them to come into personal finance difficulties, it has been claimed.

Chief executive officer of education firm Whizz.com Richard Marett explained that poor maths skills results in borrowers being unable to understand the consequences of borrowing money at high interest rates as they are “not understanding the effects of compound growth”.

“If you’re a person who borrows money and says ‘I’ll worry about it tomorrow’, that’s not mathematics, that’s burying your head in the sand,” he explained, adding that borrowing can spiral out of control quickly.

Those who borrow without budgeting or making a repayment plan could be putting themselves at risk of debt or bankruptcy.

According to Engage Mutual, 31 per cent of parents are still providing their offspring aged over 25 with they money as they are struggling to become financially independent due to factors such as student debt.

By Tom Musk