I'm a senior (philosophy and history major) in college and I'm graduating in a few months. Like a bunch of my friends, I don't know anything about personal finance (loans, mortgage, budgeting, credit etc) and I (we) all need help!

I wish I took a finance class but it's too late now. Everything I find online is way too dense and it's hard to sift through unnecessary information. Does anyone know of a place where I can find CONCISE information (in layman's term please) regarding personal finance?

Can't you talk to your parents or older people about this?

This is the kind of life experience you pick up by doing rather than reading online or taking a class...

And is it really that complicated? Make sure what you have coming in is more than you have going out, put sufficient money aside every month (people recommend you keep 6 months salary in a savings account and then diversify into other investments if you have the cash (most people don't)), save up to buy big purchases like cars, don't get a loan unless you have to and then check the interest rate is low and check you can afford the repayments (think: can you still it back if you lose your job?), you need at least a 5-10% deposit to buy a house plus other costs and solicitors fee and as above for the loan, only use credit cards in an emergency and pay the full balance off every month to avoid paying any interest, pay things by direct debit and don't default on payments to maintain a good credit history to enable you to get said loan/mortgage/credit card when you need, oh and you should be paying in about 20% of your salary into a pension if you're in your 20/30s.

If you are just leaving university then you really shouldn't even be thinking about mortgages, credit and loans. As ToL says above, things only get complicated when you allow them to become complicated and that happens when you spend more than you have brought in.
All you need to worry about is making sure you budget and quite frankly you should have already been taught this by your parents and by your teachers.

The advice given by ToL is good but I wouldn't touch a pension scheme with a bargepole.

My advice? Don't bother! Certainly not loans or credit cards. Mortgage? Only if one hundred per cent sure you've found somewhere you want to be for life. Budgeting - everything costs twice what you think it will!

Hi there, I have found over the years it is hard to digest all of the complex financial, legal, taxation and insurance information on a big ticket item at once and so it is easier to identify one or two key goals for the near future and then learn about that.

You do have to sift through the online sites though on your particular topic and just scan for the things you need to know immediately and then go back once you have a bit of an idea. I've put a link to a post that might help but it would be easier to provide advice on a single topic.

Many major banks I have found have fantastic online tools to help you save for a financial goal and will provide calculators to assist you in finding out what you need to set aside money for.

Even if your employer is paying 18% on top of your salary into your pension? It's free money. You'd have to be a bit mad to opt out of that in my opinion. I happily take that extra 500 quid every month.

Yeah that might persuade me. 18% ??? That is crazy!!!! No wonder companies struggle to afford to take on more employees!
I spent a lot of time working for myself so I have forgotten what it is like to have someone pay into a pension scheme for me.

Its probably more tempting now that in th UK we can cash in the entire pot so that when I die, my family get what cash is left rather than the pension company. I value freedom more than security in that respect. I hope to never retire anyway. I will always want to work and if I dont I have saved some money and the state pension will supplement that. I dont want to spend my good years obsessing over my retirement years. With my mortgage paid off and me intending to spend my latter years drinking tea, reading and writing books, my outgoings will be negligible. I reckon I will be OK.

Yep, most UK universities have this USS pension scheme for employees on certain grades. For some reason they seem to keep this quite quiet!

Employer contributions in most 'decent' schemes are around 8%, but they often match employee contributions as well to a point, so you can end up around 18%.