There are a plethora of resources avail­able for any­one seek­ing edu­ca­tion and infor­ma­tion on per­sonal finance, many peo­ple just aren’t sure where to look. Listed below are pub­lic resources that you might use to gain addi­tional knowl­edge and sup­port. A “pub­lic” resource sim­ply means that the agency is oper­ated by the gov­ern­ment. As a result, many of the resources are pro­vided free-of-charge.

Fed­eral Trade Com­mis­sion (FTC)

The FTC was cre­ated after the FTC Act was signed into law by Pres­i­dent Woodrow Wil­son in 1914. The FTC’s mis­sion is to pro­tect Amer­i­can con­sumers and admin­is­ter var­i­ous con­sumer pro­tec­tion laws.
www.ftc.gov

The Con­sumer Finan­cial Pro­tec­tion Bureau (CFPB)

The CFPB was estab­lished with the pur­pose of cre­at­ing and enforc­ing con­sumer pro­tec­tion laws, restrict­ing unfair busi­ness prac­tices, accept­ing con­sumer com­plaints, pro­mot­ing finan­cial edu­ca­tion, research­ing con­sumer behav­ior, and iden­ti­fy­ing risks to con­sumers.
www.consumerfinance.gov

Finan­cial Lit­er­acy and Edu­ca­tion Com­mis­sion (FLEC)

FLEC is a coali­tion of over 22 Fed­eral enti­ties that have united to improve finan­cial lit­er­acy and edu­ca­tion.
www.mymoney.gov

Fed­eral Reserve System

One of the func­tions of the Fed­eral Reserve Sys­tem is to pro­vide con­sumers with infor­ma­tion relat­ing to reg­u­la­tions and laws relat­ing to per­sonal finance. The Fed­eral Reserve Sys­tem also han­dles com­plaints regard­ing per­sonal finan­cial mat­ters.
www.federalreserve.gov/consumerinfo

U.S. Depart­ment of the Treasury

The Trea­sury Depart­ment is focused on improv­ing the finan­cial edu­ca­tion avail­able to Amer­i­cans by pro­vid­ing access to tools and resources that con­sumers can use to make informed finan­cial deci­sions.
www.treasury.gov/resource-center/financial-education/Pages/default.aspx

Depart­ment of Hous­ing and Urban Devel­op­ment (HUD)

HUD’s mis­sion is to cre­ate strong, sus­tain­able, inclu­sive com­mu­ni­ties and ensure qual­ity afford­able homes for all.
www.hud.gov

Fed­eral Deposit Insur­ance Cor­po­ra­tion (FDIC)

The FDIC helps to pro­tect con­sumers through finan­cial edu­ca­tion. The FDIC has a widely dis­trib­uted finan­cial edu­ca­tion pro­gram known as Money Smart.
www.fdic.gov/consumers

The Coop­er­a­tive Exten­sion System

The Coop­er­a­tive Exten­sion Sys­tem is a nation­wide, non-credit edu­ca­tional net­work. Each U.S. state and ter­ri­tory has a state office at it’s land-grant uni­ver­sity and a net­work of local or regional offices. These offices are staffed by one or more experts who pro­vide use­ful, prac­ti­cal, and research-based infor­ma­tion to agri­cul­tural pro­duc­ers, small busi­ness own­ers, youths, con­sumers, and oth­ers in rural areas and com­mu­ni­ties of all sizes. Much of this edu­ca­tion is focused on top­ics relat­ing to per­sonal finance.
www.csrees.usda.gov/Extension

Investor.gov — U.S. Secu­ri­ties and Exchange Commission

The Office of Investor Edu­ca­tion pro­duces infor­ma­tion to help you become a better-educated investor, from print pub­li­ca­tions to online mate­ri­als such as the Investor.gov web­site. It also par­tic­i­pates in edu­ca­tional sem­i­nars, offers an annual teacher train­ing pro­gram focused on finan­cial edu­ca­tion, and part­ners with fed­eral agen­cies, state reg­u­la­tors, and oth­ers on investor lit­er­acy ini­tia­tives.
www.investor.gov