Students often ask, “When will I use this in real life?” when doing math. The answers often surprise and amaze them, as math is tremendously helpful in numerous ways.
Math isn’t only useful, but it’s essential to living a long, healthy and fulfilling life. If you don’t think you need math to live well, then you probably don’t know what you’re missing. Read on to find out 5 amazing benefits of strong numeracy skills.
1. You Will Be Healthier
Sure, numeracy skills can help you solve math problems, but how can they make you be healthier? In fact, scientists have found a remarkably strong correlation between health and numeracy skills.
Studies have shown that numeracy skills help people make the right decisions when it comes to healthcare plans. The same skills can also help you make healthy and beneficial decisions on a daily basis, allowing you to prevent and avoid all sorts of health problems.
Math will also help you avoid injuries by things like reckless driving, gun usage, alcohol, and various other risks. How do you ask? Simply put, numeracy skills give you the ability to calculate risk and weigh whether a certain course of action is worth the trouble.
If you find yourself making the wrong healthcare decisions, perhaps refreshing your understanding of statistics might be the key to your problems.
The same papers also found a correlation between numeracy skills and realizing and reporting health problems. This means that people who know how to do math are more likely to spot health problems and report them in time to their doctors. This also leads to better health and longer life.
2. You Will Shop Smarter
Have you ever caught yourself wondering whether it’s best to buy one brand over the other? Was it impossible to decide? Well, numeracy skills can help solve all your shopping conundrums with the power of math.
A savvy shopper can apply basic math to find the best deals, and math makes you a smarter shopper. First of all, strong numeracy skills will empower you to compare prices and per/pound costs when browsing products. Some packages weigh less but cost the same, while others come in promotional bundles that can save you money.
By understanding percentages, you will also be able to use and combine coupons to save while shopping. Some coupons offer flat reductions or percentile reductions. By understanding when to use which, you can minimize your grocery expenditures straight away.
Moreover, good math skills, like understanding how factoring works, will also allow you to find the most cost-effective deals, saving you even more money and filling your house with the items you actually need most. Being able to calculate your recommended daily intake of calories and various nutrients, you will shop only for the food you need, reducing waste and increasing the healthiness of your meals.
3. You Will Find More Career Opportunities
According to experts, improving your numeracy skills leads to higher paying jobs. The correlation is obvious. Many people cannot get a better job because they are unable to interpret technical documents or read graphs.
Even practical jobs in industries like construction, plumbing, and transportation require a level of numeracy to be effective at.
For example, carpenters will need to be able to measure distances, do basic three-dimensional geometry and calculate the material costs for a commissioned piece of furniture. Otherwise, they might make mistakes or end up spending more money than the commission will make them.
4. You Will Budget More Effectively
Budgeting is all about numbers, so strong numeracy skills can help you master yours. With a solid grasp of statistics and percentages, your personal and professional budgets will be foolproof.
If you find yourself unable to stick to a budget, then perhaps the solution lies in learning how to calculate costs and balance them with your earnings. It sounds simple, but many people fail to grasp even the basics of how to budget effectively.
With just a simple spreadsheet you can save yourself thousands of dollars each year. Think about it, making four or five figures just by the power of math alone. It’s easy to keep track of how much you’re spending and where your money might be going if you apply basic mathematics during your shopping decisions.
Moreover, with numeracy skills, you will be able to secure better deals on financial products, lowering interests on mortgages or managing debt better.
5. Everything Will Make More Sense
With strong numeracy skills, your everyday life will make more sense. No idea how cell phones work, or why skyscrapers are built the way they are? Need to calculate fractions fast? Some mathematics will give you easy and logical answers.
When engaged in various activities, such as driving, gambling or playing video games, mathematics can help you maximize your entertainment and minimize risks. Think about it, when betting on Super Bowl or NFL matches, just a bit of numerical literacy can help you make the right decision.
Finally, strong numeracy skills will enable you to join a lot of conversations that have to do with slightly technical stuff, even if you are no expert. You will be able to discuss stuff like averages, percentages, rates of growth, and compound interests with experts and actually understand what they are saying!
Now That You Know the Benefits of Numeracy Skills, Check Out CalcuNation
Strong numeracy skills are way more useful than most people think. Here at CalcuNation, we encourage the use of mathematics in all sorts of creative and resourceful applications. We aim to help students, teachers and experts, but also laypeople make the most out of mathematics.
Save money, understand how things work, become smarter and solve mundane problems straight away, all with the power of math. Come on in and check it out!