There are a lot of similarities between the efforts to lose weight and improve your financial situation. Both efforts take discipline are well worth the work. They also take time. Just like a 30-day crash diet does not provide you with long-term health benefits, a month of financial literacy will not make you financially well for a lifetime.

What 30 days of financial literacy can do is get you on the right path. How do I know? In addition to writing the steps, I went through them myself and blogged daily about the experience. I discovered that some of the steps were easier said than done (did you notice that the expense worksheet in Step 21 has 672 boxes!?) But I also discovered that all the steps were necessary to establish a financial foundation that can be built on for a lifetime.

If you went through the 30 steps, you’ve probably had it up to here (meaning you’re neck) with budgeting, reviewing credit reports, analyzing assets and liabilities and everything else related to money management, but don’t fall apart yet! The final week is when everything you’ve worked so hard for finally comes together. Your path is clear and you have the tools and knowledge to achieve your financial goals, all you need is a little bit of drive and a fresh commitment to continue putting in the work.

If you haven’t started yet, now is the time. Don’t get hung up on the fact that April is Financial Literacy Month; every day is a good day to start on the path to financial wellness. Would it help if we called this the Financial Literacy Year? The key is that you need to make healthy habits part of your life—your every day life.

In honor of Financial Literacy Month, we created a microsite that offers 30 simple steps to financial wellness–one for each day of the month. To enrich the experience, we asked some amazing people to guest post during the month. Their dedication to financial literacy is truly inspiring! Today, Dr. Robert Duvall, President and Chief Executive Officer for the Council for Economic Education and member of the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Literacy, discusses moving forward.

At the Council for Economic Education (formerly National Council on Economic Education) we envision a world in which people are empowered through economic and financial literacy to make informed and responsible choices throughout their lives as consumers, savers, investors, workers, citizens, and participants in both our national and global economies. We look at the current economic difficulties and see it as an opportunity for all of us, as a nation, to look at how we got into this situation and work towards preventing it from happening again.

The message about the future and moving forward is a message of hope; a message of responsibility, and a message of empowerment. We believe that solutions for long-term economic stability must move forward from boardrooms to classrooms. And key to moving forward positively, efficiently and effectively is economic and financial literacy.

People are not born with an understanding of personal finance and economics. Like anything else, it is learned. The problem is that, by and large, it still isn’t being taught. A Council for Economic Education survey found that only 17 states require students to take an economic course as a condition of graduation, and only seven states require students to take a personal finance course before they graduate. We can do better. The stakes of financial illiteracy are too high to ignore.

Integrating economics and personal finance into high school curriculum requires that states and schools make it a priority, and it requires additional training and resources for teachers. Yes, some states have already begun to take steps to make sure young people are financially literate, but it is not enough. A much broader and bolder commitment is necessary. Moving forward, every state should require – or at least make sure schools offer – courses in economics and personal finance for high school students.

In the 1950s, high schools began teaching drivers’ education in order to equip young people to function – safely and responsibly – in the world. If high schools in every state can teach young people to drive, surely they can teach them to be responsible consumers. In addition, when schools teach economics and personal finance we build in our young people a sense of curiosity, an ability to think critically and we empower them to function responsibly in the world and in their communities.

Being financially literate is a lifelong process. Reaching youth is critical. Educational materials are crucial. That is what the Council for Economic Education does. Our mission is to provide teachers with the educational tools they need to help students develop the real-life skills they need to succeed and ultimately be effective participants in a global economy. But a joint effort is necessary to achieve national financial literacy - no single organization or sector can achieve the goal of providing financial literacy for all. Moving forward, working together is the only viable solution. Our young people deserve no less.

Dr. Robert Fenton Duvall is the President and Chief Executive Officer for the Council for Economic Education. Duvall has become a national, and international, spokesman for the value of improving economic, financial and entrepreneurship education by making it a core component of the pre-college curriculum. In January 2008, he was appointed to the President’s Advisory Council on Financial Literacy.

In honor of Financial Literacy Month, we created a microsite that offers 30 simple steps to financial wellness–one for each day of the month. To enrich the experience, we asked some amazing people to guest post during the month. Their dedication to financial literacy is truly inspiring! Today, the author of Finally Frugal talks about tools for success.

In cruising around the Financial Literacy Month website, I found the section entitled ‘Tools for Success‘ to be most useful. On this particular page, there are links to all sorts of helpful spreadsheets and resources, such as:

• The Income Worksheet
• Tips for Setting Financial Goals
• A Debt Payoff Calculator
• A-List Tips (featuring articles from PF bloggers we all know and love)

A big part of financial literacy is taking the time to learn about personal finance, as well as being responsible for that knowledge. Since no one knocked on my door and educated me about how to pay down debt, how to refinance my house, or how to spend my money strategically, I had to go out and find the information myself. I’m only now beginning to emerge from the fog of self-induced financial ignorance, but I’ve never felt more stable and in-control of my finances.

Each American has the same obligation to find and absorb the information, whether it’s at the public library, in the office of a financial advisor, or in the multitude of pages on the internet. Of course, with internet learning, we always have to be careful that the information we’re reading is reliable.

In addition to the Financial Literacy Month website, the U.S. government’s Financial Literacy and Education commission website is a wonderful resource. There, you’ll find all sorts of links concerning financial planning, paying for education, home ownership, and raising financially literate kids.

In my work with college students, “but nobody told me” is never an acceptable excuse for making a mistake. I’d posit that the same holds true of people who are financially under-educated. As I mentioned, no one is going to call you up one day and offer to give you, free of charge, the information you need (and I’d certainly be wary of anyone who did call with that sort of offer!)

Instead, we should all take responsibility for ourselves and our loved ones, with the helping hand of organizations like Money Management International and, yes, even the U.S. government.

Finally Frugal is a blog written by a woman who after twenty years of blindly spending more than she brought in, decided to live below her means. With her blog, she invites you to accompany her as she works to pay off debt, increase savings, and finally find financial independence!