I think you bring up a good point to consider. There are several ways to look at it,
and likely a whole range of benefits for the time, depending on the existing
knowledge one may or may not already have. If someone has very little knowledge of the importance of debt reduction, personal finances,or the basics retirement savings, the returns can be huge. For example,if someone has no knowledge of retirement investment vehicles and actual learns about a Roth IRA, starts investing in one, that short period of time could be worth tens of thousands of dollars. On the other end of the spectrum,a skilled investor may spend many hours researching mutual funds or ETF’s, and only see a small gain, if any, from all that reading. If he were to choose similar performing ETF’s with a lower expense ratio, for example, the increase in the yield of the fund could be calculated and divided by the number of hours spent performing the research.
I do think that most people would fall somewhere in between.
I also think that the benefits of changing one’s mindset, such going from a life racked with high interest credit card debt to living debt free, and focusing on building wealth and saving for retirement, the benefits could be very large as well.

Sure, it’s assumed people that spend time learning about money are more likely to achieve their financial goals, but prove it. I want to know how much it benefits me to spend each hour educating myself. How much per hour is it worth to education myself about financial matters?

Here is my estimate: If I spend 5 hours per week reading and learning about financial matters and I am gaining 5k per year more then the average person, then my investment is worth, 5K / ( 5housr x 52weeks = 260hours ) = $19 per hour. I’m not sure about this calculation, I may have missed something, but time is an investment and the value of time needs to be thought about before it is invested.

What do you think? How would you calculate educating yourself?