Two more Money Crashers articles

It never rains until it pours! Money Crashers has published two more of my backlogged articles in the past 24 hours. The first one is on financial literacy — or, where Americans are concerned, the lack thereof. It turns out that Americans get failing grades on many tests of basic financial knowledge. In one very basic test presented in the British newspaper The Guardian, only 64% of Americans could answer the five simple questions correctly. On a similar quiz administered by FINRA, the average respondent got only three questions out of six correct.

This lack of financial literacy shows in the average American's financial situation. Most Americans have outstanding debt, and significant numbers have high-interest consumer debt. Only about half of us have an emergency fund, and less than half are saving enough for retirement. In all these areas, our lack of financial literacy is holding us back.

For those who don't want to be part of these sorry statistics, this article offers a rundown of what financial literacy means, why it matters, and how to improve yours.

How to Increase Your Financial Literacy & IQ – Why It Matters

The second article is a companion to my earlier piece on the gender wage gap. That one talked about how much less women earn compared to men, and why. This one is about how much women spend compared to men — in many cases, for basically the same products.

This phenomenon, known as the "pink tax," has been in the news lately. CBS ran a story in June about how New York is considering a law to abolish the pink tax, and NPR's "The Indicator" podcast did an episode on it in August as part of a series on the gender gap. So my article on the topic arrives just in time to help you identify the products women pay more for than men — and, where possible, figure out how to pay less.

Pink Tax: 9 Things Women Pay More for Than Men (and How to Save)