ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 Taxes done? What a relief, right?<\/p>\n
For most Americans, April brings either joy (tax refund) or dread (tax payments) depending on how those tax filings went.<\/p>\n
But now that April 15 is behind us, there\u2019s another reason to focus on your financials \u2013 April is National Financial Literacy Month<\/a>.<\/p>\n First established by Congress in 2004 (Canada celebrates their version in November of each year) the month-long initiative grew out of efforts by nonprofit groups like Jump$tart Coalition<\/a> and the National Endowment for Financial Education<\/a> to promote financial education \u2013 especially for young people.<\/p>\n And the message still holds true today. As 925 Financial puts it: \u201cFinancial literacy isn\u2019t just a skill \u2013 it\u2019s a necessity.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n So who better to give us some tips on financial literacy than our own Jill Schlesinger. We spoke to her last week about areas of personal finance people may struggle to understand. Below is the full transcript of our conversation:<\/p>\n WKMG-TV:<\/p>\n April is Financial Literacy Month, a time to upgrade your financial smarts and establish healthy financial habits. CBS News Business Analyst Jill Schlesinger<\/a> is here to give us some insight into some of the most frequently asked questions.<\/p>\n Jill, a good place to start is retirement. People want to know how much money they need to retire. Is there a one size-fits-all answer?<\/p>\n Jill Schlesinger:<\/p>\n No, there is not. You knew that!<\/p>\n So, I you probably you\u2019ll hear random numbers, $1 million, or you\u2019ll hear eight times your salary. You know what? It totally depends. It depends on how much you spend now. How long do you plan to work. Are you putting money in your retirement plan? Do you get a match? Do you have a pension?<\/p>\n All of these things are factors. The good news is you can crunch the numbers. Just use one of the many online retirement calculators and you\u2019ll see exactly where you stand.<\/p>\n WKMG-TV:<\/p>\n So, here\u2019s something that\u2019s puzzling. Can you explain compounding?<\/p>\n Jill Schlesinger:<\/p>\n You know, I think that this is a word you hear. But the way it works is kind of fun to break down. So, let\u2019s say you deposit $100 in a bank, and it pays you 5% annually. And in the first year you\u2019ve got 105 bucks. You keep the money in the account for a second year, and then you\u2019re going to earn another interest payment on both the original $100, but also on the $5 that you earned in year one.<\/p>\n So that compounding means that at the end of two years, the $100 grows to just over $110. Now, there is a dark side of this gang, and you probably can imagine that the flip is that compounding interest can work against you if you\u2019re holding debt. So imagine that credit card balance that high interest rate. That interest rate keeps getting charged against you.<\/p>\n And the amount of money you owe continues to rise.<\/p>\n WKMG-TV:<\/p>\n So, it\u2019s kind of good and bad news there. Last question Jill \u2013 most retirement plans offer target date funds. What are they and should we use them?<\/p>\n Jill Schlesinger:<\/p>\n So, these are funds that allocate your money in stocks, bonds, cash. It\u2019s all according to an intended retirement date in the future. That\u2019s your target. Now, using these funds, it\u2019s not going to lower your risk. They\u2019re not moving money around to avoid losses when the markets tank. But they\u2019re really easy to use, especially if you\u2019re just starting out.<\/p>\n But before you plow the money into one, just look at the expenses of the fund. It\u2019s always there. And compare that to any low, lower cost alternatives, maybe like a couple of index funds. So, it may be better for you to just use a stock in a bond index fund than the target date fund. If the fee on that target date fund is high.<\/p>\n WKMG-TV:<\/p>\n Jill great advice. Thank you so much.<\/p>\n You can see Joe regularly on CBS Mornings<\/a> and the CBS Evening News<\/a>. For more analysis, go to JillOnMoney.com.<\/a><\/p>\n Breaking News Alerts<\/p>\n Get breaking news alerts delivered to your inbox.<\/p>\n Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 Taxes done? What a relief, right? For most Americans, April brings either joy (tax refund)…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":412822,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[14],"tags":[72,181133,176,61,60,1087,56331,174,175,5154],"class_list":{"0":"post-412821","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-personal-finance","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-dollars-and-sense","10":"tag-finance","11":"tag-ie","12":"tag-ireland","13":"tag-money","14":"tag-orlando","15":"tag-personal-finance","16":"tag-personalfinance","17":"tag-taxes"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412821","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=412821"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/412821\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/412822"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=412821"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=412821"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=412821"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}