Assessment of Financial Management Strategies of Families In Etinan Local Government Area In Akwa Ibom State

The need for financial management in a country with rising inflation, increasing cost of living and financial uncertainty cannot be overemphasized. This study assessed the financial management strategies of families in a Local Government Area in Akwa Ibom State, Nigeria. The study was specifically hinged on three objectives which were to determine the financial management strategies employed by families, ascertain the level of response to financial management strategies by families and find out the factors militating against the implementation of financial management strategies by families in Etinan Local Government Area. The descriptive survey research design was adopted for this study and a simple random sampling technique was used in selecting 102 respondents from Etinan Local Government Council. Structured questionnaire was used to elicit information from the respondents. Data collected were analyzed using frequencies, percentages, means and ranks. Results from the findings indicated several financial management strategies (financial literacy education, budgeting, reduction of monthly bills, stop eating out, paying off debts, daily/weekly savings, investment, increasing retirement savings, additional sources of income, improvement on job skills, active insurance and banking) as being adopted with ‘budgeting’ ranking the highest (X=3.72) followed by ‘banking’ (X=3.45) and ‘financial literacy education’ (X=3.40). The level of responses to financial management strategies was significantly low due to a possibility of lack of interest or ignorance of the benefit of good financial management. The factors that affected the implementation of financial management strategies in order of ranking were health, size and composition of family, occupation, size of income, education of household heads and location. Based on the findings, efforts should be made to increase public awareness on the need to adopt financial management strategies so as to bring about economic growth. Also, government should create enabling environment for businesses to thrive thus creating jobs and invest in human health through active health insurance scheme to check out-of-pocket health expenditure.