End-of-course guide and round-up

Martin says a final goodbye as the course comes to a close.

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Martin Upton

Well, the team and I hope you feel you've got a lot out of this course, that you've learnt some new things, and that you feel better prepared to manage your money and to plan your financial future.

You can find out more about personal finance yourself, on the internet. And by now you should have a good idea about the search terms you should use.

We are also providing various links to Open University materials, if you want to find out more about studying personal finance or finance more generally.

The website for the Open University's True Potential Centre for the Public Understanding of Finance (PUFin) will also be providing details of further courses on personal finance planned for launch by the Open University in the near future.

Thanks, and goodbye.

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The purpose of the course has been to provide you with the information and skills to manage your financial affairs effectively.

Week 1 [Tip: hold Ctrl and click a link to open it in a new tab. (Hide tip)]  explained how you can structure and operate a financial planning model for you or your household.

Weeks 2 and 3 looked at the cash flows of household income and expenditure and at how these can be measured to enable you to create both a budget and a projection of future net cash flows in future years.

Weeks 4, 5 and 6 built towards the construction of the household balance sheet. Week 4 looked at debts (liabilities) whilst Weeks 5 and 6 looked at savings, investments and home ownership (assets). Compiling the household balance sheet provides a clear summary of a household’s net wealth and enables you to test the strength of the balance using measures like the current asset ratio.

Week 7 looked at the key issue of planning for your pension and at the different forms of pension provision in the UK. The information here should be used to check how much income you will get in retirement and whether this will be sufficient for you.

Week 8 has concluded the course by looking at insurance products. You should check your own current insurance arrangements using the information provided this week to review whether you have sufficient (or perhaps too much?) insurance cover, given the nature of the activities and risks to which you and your household are exposed.

Well done for completing this OpenLearn course on personal finances.

Now you've completed the course we would again appreciate a few minutes of your time to tell us a bit about your experience of studying it and what you plan to do next. We will use this information to provide better online experiences for all our learners and to share our findings with others. If you’d like to help, please fill in this optional survey.