Who we are
Financial Literacy Diaries is an education and research initiative focused on how people actually learn, internalize, and act on financial knowledge across the life course.
We exist at the intersection of economic education, behavioral research, and institutional practice. Our work asks a foundational question often left unanswered in financial policy and programming: not whether financial literacy matters, but how it is acquired, sustained, and translated into real-world decision-making.
Rather than treating financial literacy as a static set of skills, Financial Literacy Diaries approaches it as a developmental, social, and cultural process—shaped by identity, trust, institutional exposure, and lived experience.
At Financial Literacy Diaries, we center lived experience as a legitimate source of financial knowledge.
Our work recognizes that people do not encounter finance as abstract theory. They encounter it through work, family obligations, institutional rules, cultural expectations, and moments of constraint or transition. Financial understanding is shaped not only by information, but by the stories people carry about risk, stability, opportunity, and trust.
Big Ideas, Real Impact.
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Big Ideas, Real Impact. 〰️
We create space for those stories, not only as anecdotes, but also as data. By elevating narrative alongside research, we aim to better understand how financial knowledge is internalized, resisted, or acted upon over time.
This perspective challenges the assumption that there is a single, universal way to engage with financial systems. While advice and frameworks are abundant, outcomes vary precisely because individuals bring different histories, identities, and constraints to the same information.
Financial Literacy Diaries exists to make that variation visible and to help institutions design education and policy that reflects it.
If our work prompts reflection rather than immediate agreement, that is intentional. The goal is not replication of a single voice, but recognition that durable financial capability depends on whether people can see themselves,and their realities, within the systems meant to serve them.
