How Long Does it Take to Learn Finance?

Aspiring to a career in finance as an Investment Banker, Commercial Banker, Real Estate Agent, or Financial Planner? Discover the timeline to becoming financially literate, ranging from six months to five years, depending on various factors.

Key Insights

  • The field of finance includes budgeting, saving, lending, and investing, with the goal of effectively managing money.
  • Becoming a finance expert can take between six months to five years, depending on the individual's dedication and resources.
  • Finance can be broadly categorized into personal, corporate, and public finance, each with its own focus and complexities.
  • Personal finance is concerned with reducing debt, budgeting effectively, growing assets, and increasing cash flow.
  • Corporate finance primarily involves capital budgeting, capital structure, and dividend policy.
  • Public finance focuses on the budgeting process and determining an entity's revenue source.

Like many aspiring Investment Bankers, Commercial Bankers, Real Estate Agents, and Financial Planners, you might want to learn finance but worry about how long it will take to become financially literate. While there are various moving parts to the financial industry, like budgeting, saving, lending, and investing, experts agree that it takes the average person between six months and five years to become a finance expert. Of course, the speed at which you master finance depends on several factors. Keep reading to learn about how you can learn finance and some resources to help speed the process along.

What is Finance?

In its most basic definition, finance is the management of money. Finance includes investing, lending, budgeting, borrowing, saving, forecasting, and studying money. There are multiple areas of finance, including personal, corporate, and public finance. 

Personal finance deals with keeping your debt down, budgeting, growing your assets, and increasing cash flow, among others. The three main types of corporate finance are capital budgeting, capital structure, and dividend policy. Among the significant concerns of public finance are the budgeting process and an entity’s revenue source. 


Read more about what finance is and why you should learn it.

How to Learn Finance

Master finance with hands-on training. Learning skills like financial modeling, stock investing, and data analysis can help pave the way to a career in finance or FinTech (financial technology).

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