31 Free Money Management Courses (Budgets, Debt, Investing)

Brush up on your money skills and build confidence by taking one of these free money management courses.

How much could your life change if you took a few hours to take one of these free money management courses?

You'd likely feel much more confident managing your money. You'd probably get a solid plan for how to take your money management to the next level. And you'd probably make your daily life a whole lot less stressful (financial stress is a thing).

Lucky for you, there are free money management courses dealing with everything – debt, budgeting, investing, financial planning, etc.

I've collected 31 free money management courses for you below about the following money topics:

• General Personal Finance Courses
• Money Management Courses
• Debt Courses
• Budget Courses
• Investment Courses
• Coupon Courses
• Financial Planning Courses
• Saving Money Courses

Use these to get on your feet, financially, and start that upward trend in your finances you've been hoping for!

General Personal Finance Courses

Were you offered a Personal Finance 101 course in high school? Didn't think so.

Most people weren't, which is why you might want to start off your free online money management course selection with a general personal finance course.

Get schooled on an overview of money subjects by checking out a course below (and be sure to check out these 14 powerful personal money management tips, too).

1. Your Net Worth

Creator: Eric Senko
Platform: Udemy
Length: 6 lectures, 32 minutes

Eric Senko takes you through a very important, general, personal finance exercise: how to calculate your net worth (here's why it might be important to track your net worth).

Lectures include:

• Intro
• Definition of Terms
• Liquid Assets
• Household Assets
• Investment Assets
• Liabilities and Summary

2. Personal Finance 101: Everything You Need to Know

Creator: Money Coach, with help of a financial advisor
Platform: Udemy
Length: 52 videos

Personal Finance 101 is three hours of content and 52 videos covering a range of topics including:

• taxes
• credit cards
• debt
• student loans
• retirement planning
• investing
• ID fraud
• saving for goals
• etc.

3. FIN 150: Personal Finance

Creator: Missouri State University
Platform: YouTube
Length: 8 parts, 18-30 minutes/part

Presented by Missouri State University, this 8-part course explains personal finance topics from consumer and societal perspectives.

Topics include:

• goal-setting
• budgeting
• credit
• insurance
• investing
• time value
• annuities
• personal finance

Each part is approximately 18 to 30 minutes.

Free Money Management Courses and Classes

Free money management courses and money management classes can help you with how to manage your paychecks, and your savings, and your investments, and your debts, as a WHOLE, rather than just looking at everything separately.

Because they're all related, right?

And the decisions that you make about one category of money will directly affect another category of money management.

For example, if you decide to pay down debt quicker, then you likely won't be adding money (or as much money) to your savings.

Sharpen up your money management skills by taking a few of these free money management courses below.

1. Personal Finance: Obliterate Debt, Accumulate Wealth

Creator: Art Carden
Platform: Udemy
Length: 38 minutes

Art Carden is an Economics Professor at Stamford University and writes regularly for Forbes.  This course is great for those who need some humor (Carden jokes that bank robbers and selling meth are out for ways to pay down debt.)

The course is 38 minutes long and covers five topics:

• getting started
• winning the market
• dealing with debt
• getting the most out of yourself
• parting thoughts.

2. Personal Finance Hacking (U.S. Edition)

Creator: Nelson Alvarez
Platform: Udemy
Length: 1 hour

Nelson Alvarez is a CPA intent on helping people wisely navigate the credit card system to earn rewards, increase wealth, and improve their credit scores. This one-hour course is on money management, with emphasis on wise credit card usage.

3. Behavioral Finance

Creator: Emma Raisel
Platform: Cousera
Length: 5 hours

Looking for a free money management course with an emphasis on the psychology of spending money? Emma Raisel is an Economics Professor and the Associate Chair of the department at Duke University.  This 5-hour, 3-week course helps participants look at financial errors many of us make and encourages us to know the psychological patterns and choose differently to enhance our financial standing.

4. Financial Literacy

Creator: N/A
Platform: Alison
Length: 6-10 hours

In this 6 to 10-hour long course, learn how to manage your money, budget, and save.  Need more value than that? You’ll also learn:

• how to how to manage a budget
• how to save for retirement
• how to set yourself up for a strong financial future

5. Money Essentials

Creator: N/A
Platform: CNN Money
Length: Unknown

CNN Money has created several money management lessons including:

• Getting Started
• Getting a Job
• Buying a Car
• Starting to Invest
• Buying a Home
• Starting a Family
• Retirement Planning.

6. Managing My Money

Creator: True Potential LLP
Platform: OpenLearn
Length: 24 hours

An introductory course that is 24 hours long, topics include:

• managing budgets
• debt
• investments
• property purchase
• pensions
• insurance

7. How to Properly Manage Your Money Like the Rich

Creator: Tom Ferry
Platform: YouTube
Length: 18 minutes

This 18-minute YouTube video will explain how you can manage your money like the rich. It doesn't matter how much money you make – it matters how you manage it.

Free Debt Courses

The thing about debt is, you often need help to get out of it (or to get out of it as quick as possible)…yet you're in debt. So, it's tough to pay for a course, right?

That's why I'm particularly excited about showing you free debt courses that should help you get yourself out of debt more quickly than the current path you're on.

Hint: download one of these free visual debt payoff charts to use on your journey.

1. Introduction to Managing Your Personal Finance Debts

Creator: Christine Williams
Platform: Alison
Length: <1 hour

This short course covers six topics related to paying down your debt:

• Introduction to Managing Your Personal Debts
• How to Negotiate Lower Credit Card Rates
• Prioritize Your Debts
• Strategy to Target Credit Card Debt
• Debt Elimination Plan.

This is an excellent course for getting the information quickly and putting it into action.

2. 5 Steps to Debt Free Living

Creator: Megan Buerkle
Platform: Crown: Founded by Larry Burkett
Length: Unknown

This video mini-course contains five steps, including:

• how and why debt happens
• steps on the journey
• the method
• living in freedom

I love that the first lesson in this course is understanding how and why debt happens so that when you finally become debt free, you don't go into debt again in the future.

3. You and Your Money

Creator: Unknown
Platform: OpenLearn
Length: 12 hours

This course, which is approximately 12 hours, seeks to educate people on the high cost of debt.  In addition, students learn to apply the financial planning model to the borrowing process.

How Can I Learn to Budget My Money? Free Budget Classes

Budgeting is one of those words that makes most people cringe…and yet, it can be just the thing that changes your whole money world.

Take one of these free budget classes, WORK the budget you create, and tell me after a few months if you agree.

Psst: don't forget to soak up all my free budget advice, learn how to budget for beginners, and grab one of these free cute printable monthly budget sheets.

1. Budget to Wealth

Creator: Allison Baggerly
Platform: Inspired Budget
Length: Unknown

Baggerly and her husband were newlyweds who were $111K in debt when Baggerly became pregnant with their first child.  She read everything she could on creating a budget, and within 4.5 years they had paid off all of their debt.

This course takes you through:

• How to avoid three budgeting mistakes
• The SECRET to freeing up more money in your budget
• 4 step framework for budgeting to build wealth

It also includes a Bill Negotiation Cheat Sheet.

2. Master a Financial Management Habit & Worry No More

Creator: Eric Poulin
Platform: Udemy
Length: 20 parts (2-3 minutes/part)

Eric Poulen, CEO of CalendarBudget, offers this one hour course that covers how to establish a budget and use CalendarBudget as the tool for your budget. There is a 20 part section on daily budget habits (each section is about 2 to 3 minutes long).

3. Budgeting Is a 4-Letter World

Creator: My Money Coach
Platform: My Money Coach
Length: 16 videos (1-2 minutes each)

This course is comprised of 16 short videos (most one to two minutes long) that cover everything you need to budget successfully, whether you're an absolute beginner or a more experienced budgeter looking to budget more successfully.

A free downloadable workbook is also included.

4. How to Create a Budget Using Microsoft Excel

Creator: Eric Harris
Platform: Udemy
Length: 33 minutes

In just 33 minutes, Harris will teach you how to create your own budget using Excel. This course is created for absolute beginners who may not have any Excel experience.

5. Balancing the Budget: Fitting It All In

Creator: Melanie D. Jewkes, M.S.
Platform: Utah State University
Length: < 1 hour

Jewkes, an Assistant Professor of Family and Consumer Sciences created this 11 page course that covers everything you need to know to set up an initial budget. Complete with graphics, this is a fairly quick read that can have you setting up your own budget in less than an hour.

Free Investment Courses – Personal Finance Courses for Adults

Investing money is not a skill we're born with. And it's probably the number one thing parents tell me they want their kids to learn…mostly because they never learned it themselves and they wish they had.

Here are free investment courses, for adults.

If nothing else, they might help you to finally understand what the heck you're looking at when you get those quarterly 401(k) statements.

1. Stock Market Investing for Beginners

Creator: John Ducas
Platform: Udemy
Length: 1.5 hours

This 1.5 hour-course starts at the beginning by answering what a stock is and moves on to more advanced topics such as the IPO process, reading a financial statement, and value investing.

This course received strong reviews and is great for anyone who is looking to learn more about the stock market and investing in it.

2. Morningstar's Investing Classroom

Creator: Morningstar Staff
Platform: Morningstar
Length: 10 minutes/course

Morningstar offers 172 free investing courses covering stocks, funds, bonds, and portfolio building.

Each course can be completed in about 10 minutes and the topics are suitable for beginners but also include advanced topics.

3. How to Start Investing for Absolute Beginners

Creator: Jalpan Dave
Platform: Udemy
Length: 1 hour

Designed for young professionals, this one-hour course seeks to dispel the confusion about how to invest and what to invest in.

Topics include how to overcome the fear of investing, how to always have enough money to invest, what is the best investment strategy, and how to use a platform.

4. Advanced Investing Manual

Creator: Unknown
Platform: Brigham Young University
Length: 45 minutes

Brigham Young University offers three different courses on investing — beginning, intermediate, and advanced. This course is advanced and each of the nine lessons takes 45 minutes to an hour to complete.  At the end of the course, students will have a thorough understanding of investing.

Free Online Coupon Courses

Did you know there are free online coupon courses? Literally, these courses will pay you dividends in food and toiletry savings over the years!

1. 15-Minute Crash Course in Couponing

Creator: Passion for Saving
Platform: Passion for Saving
Length: 15 minutes

Sign up for Passion for Savings' email list and get this 15-minute crash course in couponing.

2. How to Coupon

Creator: Jenny Martin
Platform: Southern Savers
Length: 2 hours

This two-hour course is completely free. You don't even have to give your email address! 

Topics include:

• gathering and organizing coupons
• using online resources to find deals
• effectively using coupons
• strategies for paying the lowest price at drugstores

Free Personal Financial Planning Courses

Personal finances takes planning – that's for sure! I mean, you can wing it. And by “wing it”, I mean, pay taxes without planning anything out for possible tax savings, head into retirement without doing any sort of planning, and live your month by paycheck without a real plan for how to save up more money and get away from the paycheck-to-paycheck cycle.

But by planning your personal finances? You can really start to get ahead. That's why I've included a section on free personal financial planning courses.

1. Personal & Family Financial Planning

Creator: Michael S. Gutter, Ph.D.
Platform: Coursera
Length: 13 hours

This course is 13 hours long and is approximately 9 weeks long. 

Topics include:

• personal finance
• financial statements
• managing income taxes
• building and maintaining good credit
• investment fundamentals

2. A Layman's Guide to Personal Financial Planning- Part 1

Creator: Rajiv Khatlawala
Platform: Udemy
Length: 1 hour

Khatlawala is a Chartered and Cost Accountant from India and is a published author. 

In this one-hour course, he covers:

• the starting point of wealth creation
• key concepts of financial planning
• the basic process of wealth creation.

3. Planning for a Secure Retirement

Creator: Purdue University
Platform: Purdue University
Length: 10 modules

This course has 10 modules and covers everything you need to know about, and plan for, your retirement. 

The course explores:

• social security
• employer retirement programs
• your lifestyle in retirement
• IRAs
• enjoying retirement
• etc.

4, Financial Independence Mastery Course

Creator: Christopher Rose
Platform: Udemy
Length: Unknown

Designed for professionals between the ages of 20 and 40, this course explores topics that will help you achieve financial independence before the typical retirement age.

Topics include:

• creating a personal budget and investing strategy
• aligning your spending with your values
• creating a lifestyle that supports financial independence

5. Finances for Everyone: Smart Tools for Decision Making

Creator: Gautam Kaul
Platform: edx
Length: 6 weeks, 5-6 hours/week

Kaul, a Professor of Finance at the University of Michigan's Ross School of Business, offers this free 6-week course that is expected to take 5 to 6 hours per week to complete.

You learn how to understand and apply frameworks and tools to make smart financial choices.

Free Courses on Saving Money

I'm all about saving money, and I just love that there are free courses on how to save money available!

1. How to Pay It Forward: Saving for the Purpose of Legacy

Creator: MAWMedia Group, LLC
Platform: Udemy
Length: 40 minutes

Designed by a husband and wife team, Michael A. Wright, Ph.D. and Tauyna Wright, R.N., this 40-minute course covers the topics:

• philanthropy
• wealth mindset & giving
• principles of personal philanthropy
• teaching the virtue of paying it forward

2. Slashing Expenses: A Guide to Help You Slash Your Expenses and Save More

Creator: Utah State University
Platform: Utah State University
Length: Unknown

This course, created by the Utah State University faculty, includes a 15-page packet filled with ways to slash your expenses so you have more ways to save as well as three videos.

WHEW. That's a whole lotta free money management courses to go through! Since I've given you the length of time for each, choose ones where you know you've got the time to get through (such as a <1 hour course for your lunch break this Wednesday).

And don't forget to actually IMPLEMENT what you learn. You'll start to see the changes in your life from it, which will motivate you want to learn and implement even more!