Financially sound to me means financially secure i.e. not living paycheck to paycheck. But I know a few people who do exactly that and they still have 740+ scores because they use credit responsibly.
@iv wrote:
@jamie123 wrote:People in general are as financially responsible as they are because of cultural and political influences. One of the most important parts of becoming an adult is taking care of your financial responsibilities. Why don't we teach this in American schools?
We teach reading, writing and arithmetic but why not the dangers of compounding interest on a credit card balance? To me, it is because of the influence from the vultures on Wall Street. They wouldn't be able to take advantage of young Americans like they have been for the past 50 years.
This again? We. Do.
Not to rehash this whole thing again, I'll just leave this thread link here:
https://ficoforums.myfico.com/t5/Mortgage-Loans/Whats-your-Real-Mortgage-Score/m-p/4205884#M178894
And on the other end of the spectrum we have this: California schools get an "F" in financial literacy education
This part is particularly revealing:
"The report, by the Center for Financial Literacy at Champlain College in Vermont, looked at how many hours of financial literacy instruction are required of high school students in all 50 states and the District of Columbia. ‘A’ grades went to Virginia, Utah, Missouri, Tennessee and Alabama, where all students are required to take at least one semester of financial literacy before they graduate."
Until we make financial literacy a mandatory part of graduation requirements nation wide, nothing's gonna change sadly. 
Oh and this comment caught my eye as well:
"Parents have to teach this. If parents have kids out of wedlock or divorce, knowing kids have far lower odds of college graduation and higher odds of prison or homelessness or minimum wage or unemployment without 2 parents in the home, kids follow that. They will choose blowing money on something fun over saving. We call kids who study a lot nerds. We dismiss models as myths and don’t give credit to kids who work hard in school knowing it takes 10-20 years to profit from it. Short-term pleasure wins. We need to teach this to kids. 40% of adults couldn’t come up with $500 in an emergency and over half couldn’t come up with $2000. No one is thinking long-term."
As mentioned above, it's as much to do with society and cultural values as anything else. Until we stop stigmatizing people who give a d@mn about their future and plan ahead as "nerds", we will continue to have this problem.
@sarge12 wrote:
@Revelate wrote:Good point iced.
sarge: I'm sort of in the same boat after I realized that kids aren't in the cards. If I didn't have my mortgage, and I werent picking up a new car, fact is my life could be sorted with a few grand a month... but in 12 years (age 55 at that point), all of that is paid off and I expect the rest of my expense profile is still going to be pretty close to what it is now, which is to say pretty low.
Good budgetting and "tight" fiscal policy = not that expensive to live, basically opting out of the standard consumer lifestyle that's being pushed at us from all sides.
Getting sorely tempted to just pickup 2 jobs for the next two to three years, throw cash at the mortgage and the soon to be car, and then just sell enough equities to cover the rest of the outstanding mortgage / auto marker, and go find something completely different to do with my life.
Actually, I could almost do that now if I just sold the condo and moved to someplace cheaper that has a good school. Hrm.
@Revelate...so you are 43, and have no kids. Why do you need an someplace with a good school??? That part of your post has me confused.
Late reply but good school = college in this case, and yeah my apologies that would be confusing in context of wider society 
.
Some place to hole up cheaply while I knock out undergrad and then sort graduate school for whatever my next career would be.
