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What you will study

This module primarily aims to:

• give you the knowledge, skills, tools and confidence to manage your money well
• provide an introduction to the social sciences, especially economics, relating them to the real world in which we live
• gently build and practise your study and employability skills as a strong foundation for your further studies at the OU and in life beyond.

The study weeks are arranged in pairs, with each pair devoted to a different topic. In the first week of each pair, you’ll read a chapter in the module textbook. This textbook has been specially written for this module and includes lots of activities to help you reflect on the material, test your understanding and apply the ideas to your own finances. In the second week, you’ll consolidate your learning through a rich mixture of video, audio clips, slideshows, activities and interactive tools.

You can use the interactive tools to understand your own finances. For example, how tax affects your earnings, how much you’d need to save to reach a goal, what the repayments would be on a loan or mortgage, and your options for building up enough pension savings.

Throughout the module, you’ll share the lives of 12 households, two each from the UK, USA, Germany, Sweden, Brazil and India, so you can compare financial experiences from across the globe and the factors that influence them.

Here is a taste of what you’ll study in each pair of weeks:

• Setting the context. An introduction to the module themes. This includes some major world trends, such as ageing populations and the march of technology, which are changing the demands on our money. You’ll look at the behavioural traits we all have that influence how we interact with our finances, firms and each other.
• Income. What influences pay, including worker power and gender issues. How the tax and benefits system affects your income and can be used to relieve poverty and reduce inequality. The way income flows between the different sectors of the economy.
• Expenditure. Why we spend on what we do, from rational choices about meeting our needs to the social factors and marketing influences that work on our more subtle desires for belonging or displaying our worth. In small teams with your fellow students, you’ll explore the world of symbolic advertising. Using cash-flow and budgeting to control your household’s spending.
• Debt. Understanding the good as well as dark side of debt. How to identify the best ways to borrow and be aware of hidden costs. Using a household balance sheet to check whether you are vulnerable to debt problems. How household debt contributes to economic growth but perversely can bring down economies.
• Savings and investments. Why low-risk products promising amazing returns simply don’t exist. Choosing the right products for different types of goals. Navigating the risk-return trade-off with strategies for managing stock-market risk. Why saving matters to the economy.
• Housing. How in many countries, homes are more than just a place to live and may be driving a wedge between younger and older generations. Using the economic model of supply and demand, you’ll explore what influences house prices and analyse different solutions to making homes affordable.
• Insurance. The role of insurance in building your financial resilience – your ability to withstand and recover from shocks and life events. The principle of risk-sharing and how it is being undermined by Big Data and other technological changes.
• Pensions. The implications for you personally and society as a whole of saving for a pension and the ageing population. How saving for the long-term means battling our behavioural traits. The way different pensions work and what that means for the choices you make and the risks you run.
• Caring and sharing. The short-term and long-term consequences of decisions about having a family and the social norms that surround unpaid work. The choices households and society face about caring for older people.
• Personal finance in context. What does it mean to be ‘financially capable’? What are the options for society if all individuals and households are to enjoy at least a minimum level of well-being? 

Teaching and assessment

Support from your tutor

Throughout your study, you’ll have the support of a personal tutor. Your tutor will contact you early in the module to introduce themselves and find out what you aim to achieve from your studies. After that, they will provide expert distance tuition through feedback and ‘feed-forward’ on your assignments and be on hand to answer your queries. Online tutorials are provided to support you through the module. Before each of the module assessments, there is a choice of online tutorial to attend, and a recording of one of these for each assessment will typically be made available. Although tutorials are optional, you are strongly recommended to attend.

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Assessment

The assessment details for this module can be found in the facts box.

Regulations