Simple Basics of Personal Finance (Udemy.com)
Learn The Fundamentals Of Your Personal Money and Finances Using Easy-To-Understand Language And Clear Examples
Created by: Ron Trucks
Last updated May 2023
What you will learn
- Understand and feel comfortable with the basics of the money-related elements of everyday life and how to approach financial aspects responsibly and confidently
- Learn the difference between banks, credit unions and other financial institutions, as well as savings, checking, debit cards, and credit cards.
- Examine borrowing money and the basics of loans for auto loans, home loans, paying for college and higher education, and more.
- We'll dig into other "Grown Up" stuff including payroll taxes, insurance, social security, saving for retirement, identity protection and more.
Course Description
In today's world, our personal financial health is vital. This course explains the basics to help you understand what's involved and how everything works. This also serves as an introduction to help relate personal finances to business finances. Using common, everyday language and "real world" experience and examples, instructor Ron Trucks makes the concepts and principals for anyone to understand and relate to, regardless of your previous financial or math experience.
Topics include:
What's the difference between banks, credit unions and other financial institutions?
Explaining savings, checking, debit cards, credit cards...
Other methods to making payments than cash or checks
Borrowing money and the basics of loans
Auto loans, home loans, paying for college and higher education
Payday loans - The good, the bad and the ugly
Other "Grown Up" stuff including payroll taxes, insurance, social security, saving for retirement, identity protection...
Enrollment in the course includes:
Customized note sheets for each lesson in the course for your personal comments and notes
Lifetime access
Free membership in our online, students-only support group thru Facebook
Lifetime discount to all other bsnsAtlas courses, materials, and learning matter
The course is also serves as a great introduction for teens and young adults in helping them start to understand life economics and how all the pieces work together, along with a general refresher looking to establish credit, finance their first home, or take the first steps of personal, small business ownership.
Instructor Details
- 4.6 Rating
916 Reviews
Ron Trucks
For over 30 years, I’ve worked with businesses of every size—from mom-and-pop shops to billion-dollar financial firms—helping them build stronger operations, better teams, and smarter strategies.
Along the way, I’ve spent more than 20 years teaching business management at the college level, working with students who wanted not just theory, but real-world skills they could use.
My approach is simple:
Make the complicated understandable - and the intimidating activities doable.
Here on Udemy, I've helped over 50,000 students strengthen their business knowledge, earning over 8,000 five-star reviews by keeping the focus on practical, clear, and real-world learning.
Whether you’re starting a business, managing a team, or just wanting to understand how businesses work, I’m excited to help you build skills that make a difference.
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Reviews
By Mark Fossey on 8/26/2026
Enjoyed the personal take on finances and there are some great tips in there for people like me who need to get a credit score or who will look to be a homeowner - only thing is that I am based in the United Kingdom so some of these US based topics will not apply to me but I am looking forward to enrolling on some of the others
By Shinichi Takagi on 9/9/2024
Throughout the entire course, the explanations were given in an easy language. Each of the modules was well-structured and easy to follow. Even though I don't live in the United States (not even an English speaking country) and it was mentioned in the introduction that the contents are made based on the US system, I learned a lot because there are many universally applicable concepts and examples etc. Over all, I'm pretty satisfied with this course :)
By Amanpreet Saini on 5/22/2024
This course is a great option to learn the basics of Personal Finance and provides with great information regarding the subject such as understanding house mortgages and if you are ready to purchase a house. Definitely recommend to anyone who is interested in learning about Personal Finance or for those that want to get a little bit of a refresher.
By Ivori Jerrido on 9/15/2023
This was a really good course. Even as a working adult, there were a lot of things I learned for the first time. I will be going back to the Borrowing Money section. It gave great information about student loans and the break down. Thank you for this course.
By Anonymized User on 5/4/2023
This course was very informative. The topics, the delivery, the information was very well received. Although some of the information on loans and insurance varies (I'm from the Caribbean) most of the information presented in this course explained a lot of the questions I had about these topics. Thanks for that!
By Hope Garza on 4/17/2023
I used to be a Customer to banks but never liked my experience without fully understanding the difference, and based on a friends recommendation I switched to Credit Unions. Never looked back. Thanks for explaining the difference.
By Malachi on 7/18/2022
I will give a 4 star from how well they do explain financing, but time to time it can get a little boring and a little hard to keep of from the 5 hour class, but all in total, it is amazing and good, it does provide stable and strong info, and it does tell you all the little things to know about financing.
By Anonymized User on 4/2/2022
Good coverage of the basics of personal finance, I want my high school senior to take most of this now and then all again, before graduating from college. I would have liked a small introduction to investments.
By Naomi Brown on 10/17/2021
I enjoyed the course immensely. I had every intention on finishing it day one, but my work schedule prevented that. The information was concise and delivered in a manner where I was able to understand it and retain what I heard. I'm glad that I found this course and the other courses taught by Mr. Ron Trucks.
By Lucas Van Balen on 7/13/2021
I wish got this course when my wife and I moved to the US about +3years ago. It would have helped understanding the basic issues like insurance and tax forms, that we learned the hard way. We got into a loop with health insurance in the Affordable Care system until we found out the hard way that there is a minimum income to qualify. It would be nice lessons on financial advice like SS, Medicare and preparing immigrants to understand the system more so if you are already a senior. I would recommend this course to anyone just moving here so they get the very basic information to get settled.
Quality Score
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Overall Score : 92 / 100












