And the survey SAYS…. How to work their iPods!  Now THERE is a skill that is going to lead the Gen X and Gen Y’ers to great things, no doubt!!

Back in August, I published a blog entitled “How Much Debt Does Your Generation Have?” and the statistics were taken from a survey sponsored by the Employee Benefit Research Institute. In this same survey, the 1752 or so participants were apparently also asked a series of questions designed to gauge their understanding of finances. One of the key questions asked of the participants was “how knowledgeable they are” about a list of nine different (finance related) items.

Well, we’ve already spilled the beans that the winning category was operating an iPod (40% of participants said they were VERY knowledgeable in this area). Here is a summary of the nine items and results from the survey:

ITEM        Knowledge Level:    VERY       Somewhat     NOT very   NOT

Debt Elimination/Avoidance            32%                  52%                    14%                    3%

Buying a Home                                      21%                   41%                    27%                   11%

Saving for Retirement                        15%                   47%                    31%                     7%

Buying a Car                                           32%                   53%                   12%                     3%

Doing your Taxes                                 26%                  40%                    21%                  12%

Social Security System                       14%                  31%                    37%                   18%

Sticking to a Budget                             32%                  48%                    16%                    4%

Investing Money                                  15%                  31%                     34%                  19%

Using an iPod                                        40%                 27%                     15%                  18%

I’m almost embarrassed to say it, but I’ve had — my first and only –  iPod now for over a year…. and have never taken it out of the box. I guess since the cat is out of the bag, I should admit I got it “free” for opening an account at TD Ameritrade (hey, it took a $10,000 minimum deposit to qualify; so I deserve my reward).  I truly intend to learn to use it and join the masses that are addicted to this portable mini media player, but I just haven’t gotten around to it.

So I guess it makes me a procrastinator; but, proudly, I do fall in the “very knowledgeable” category on the remaining eight survey questions. What, if anything, does this tell us about our upcoming generations; readers?

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