Things I wish they’d taught me at school

Disclaimer — I am NOT an expert, but I have done some research.

Now that disclaimer is out of the way I’ll crack on. In school we had random lessons like citizenship and free periods that I feel should be incorporated into the ciriculum because there is so much I’m still working out now — five years out of school.

Life lessons on subjects from money to sex education can teach kids how things actually work and would have been much more helpful I think. So many things are swept under the carpet and avoided, when I think kids would be so much better off being taught about them from a young age.

Mental health is something I think also needs to be pushed more in school and I wrote about suicide and body confidence, but this article focuses on sex education and the topic of money.

So here’s a look over some of the things I wish I’d been taught in school:

(Again I’ll stress that I’m not an expert, here is an expert on all things money)

Tax

The UK tax system is pretty complex, but schools should just touch on it to allow kids to have a bit of an idea of where their money will go when they start earning.

If you earn more than `£12,500 per year then you’ll be taxed — this is income tax. This money is automatically taken out of your wages and goes to the government to pay for things like the NHS, education and the welfare system, roads, and housing.

There are loads of different types of tax, but I think just looking at a few of the main ones would be really useful:

• VAT — tax on goods
• Stamp duty — tax on buying a house
• National insurance contributions — essentially another form of income tax

Mortgages

I’m now starting to think about this one more and more. When watching house shows I’d hear the price and wonder how people had saved up that much money. Well, it’s all starting to make sense to me now.

You save for a mortgage deposit. A mortgage is a loan for the house, so eventually you will pay it all off and own your house without a mortage. This is why people often say they’ll pay off their mortgage if they win a competition like the lottery.

A deposit for this is at least five per cent of the price of the property you want to buy. So if you want to buy…