Cheap Online Money Management Classes Guidelines

If you sometimes wish your parents or school had taught you more about money, you're in luck. While decades ago, you would have had to rely on a personal finance self-help book or a class at a community college, now you can simply take an online financial management class.

There are many well-known, reputable and comprehensive classes out there that cost money, like Dave Ramsey's Financial Peace University (prices vary, but online classes are $129) and those listed on personal finance guru Suze Orman's website suzeu.com ​($54 for seven downloadable lessons). But what if you're not up for spending extra money right now? You could take a class for free. There are plenty of free money management courses online.

Unfortunately, some of them are free for a reason. They aren't very good or comprehensive, or they are good, but they aren't very user-friendly. Still, there are some perfectly good and even great free financial management lessons to be found online. Here are several classes you could start taking now, followed by a couple of places you may want to check out for future coursework.

University: The University of Arizona

URL: http://ag.arizona.edu/sfcs/personalfinance/introduction.html​

What you'll learn: This personal finance course covers the basics, from the concept of fixed expenses to investment strategies, and it has quizzes to reveal if you're learning what you're reading. The estimated time for completing the course is 15 hours, and you can easily come back to it when you want.

University: Yale University

URL: http://oyc.yale.edu/economics/econ-252-08

What you'll learn: This personal finance course was taught at Yale, which met for 75 minutes twice every week during the spring of 2008. You can download the entire course, and if you're ambitious and committed, you can read through all of professor Robert Shiller's lectures.

If reading through a bunch of lectures doesn't sound fun, you can also find his classes for free on video through iTunes U and YouTube.com.

Now if you want to buy all the books in Shiller's syllabus – there are 12 – that's going to cost you.

University: Missouri State University

URL: https://itunes.apple.com/us/course/personal-finance/id549538984

What you'll learn: In eight video lessons of varying lengths (usually ranging from 18 to 45 minutes), you'll cover the relatively simple stuff like budgeting and the more challenging fare like annuities. Still, the subject material never gets too challenging and is aimed at people who consider themselves novices in personal finance. But if you'd like something more challenging, check out Missouri State University's class, also on iTunes, "Money, Trade and Society." You can polish that off in only 32 video courses, each lasting about an hour.

Organization: National Endowment for Financial Education

URL: www.cashcow.org

What you'll learn: You'll have to register, but otherwise, it's free to anyone. The website has coursework and quizzes as well as tools like financial calculators and worksheets. If the idea of reading transcripts of classes or watching videos of university lectures doesn't appeal to you, and you just want to brush up on your money management skills, this may be more your speed.

Organization: Colorado Department of Education

URL: http://www.cicmoney101.org/Course-Catalog/Money-Management.aspx

What you'll learn. Yes, it's at a website called CollegeinColorado.org, but you don't have to be in Colorado or going to college to benefit from its free personal finance courses, although the lessons are probably most appropriate for high school and college students and recent college graduates. The website has several comprehensive courses, including "money management," "credit," "insurance," "paying for college" and "taxes," all at the left side of the screen. If you register, you can keep your information saved and track your progress.

Places to look for free personal finance courses. EdX.org is a website worth checking out for anyone interested in furthering their education on any topic. It offers users access to more than 650 free college courses from universities throughout the world. It was founded by MIT and Harvard University, with the idea of making it easier for people to access a high-quality education.

For instance, beginning April 15, there's a class offered by the University of California–Berkeley called "How to Save Money: Making Smart Financial Decisions." Unlike the classes above, which you can take at your own pace, this is a five-week course that requires two to three hours of your time per week. You'll be watching online lectures and doing homework assignments, including looking up the fees on mutual funds and requesting a free credit report.

Starting June 15, although through edX.org, Purdue University has a class called "Personal Finance Planning," which is an eight-week course covering investment, credit, and insurance and retirement issues, among other topics. It's free, but you can spend $50 to get a certificate verifying that you took the class if that's important to you. And it may be. For instance, during the second week, according to the syllabus, some of the topics you'll be covering include "applications of annuities in the real world; theory of investment decision; trading versus investing; beta." It's estimated that you'll spend three to four hours a week on the class.

There are other websites you may want to check out to find free personal finance classes, like Open2Study.com and Coursera.org. There may be no such thing as a free lunch, and unless you get a scholarship, nobody's likely to give you a diploma for nothing. But learning for learning's sake and self-educating without spending a dime? You're free to try.