s or become independent young adults. But a better way to help your children understand earning, saving, and investing is to teach them such skills while they are young. This will make finance more intuitive for them – rather like giving your child a tablet when very young so they become “digitally native.”
Finance like fashion can be “in” one day and “out” the next. New approaches emerge and everyone piles into them. Then they move on to the next big thing. But some tenets stand the course of time and never really lose their luster.
It is easy to think of wealth as something that happens overnight. The media often emphasizes rags to riches stories, that stock squeeze on Redit that made someone tens of millions of dollar. Or the big kitchen table idea that went on to become a billion dollar business in five years. News sites share stories of happy lottery winners, reports that also overlook the enormous odds ticket buyers face when they lay down their hard-earned money.
f you are nearing retirement, many decisions are coming your way, from where you will live, to how you will fill your suddenly idle hours. One of the most critical retirement decisions involves your finances. Without a steady paycheck, you will be responsible for creating an income that will sustain your lifestyle.
Many Millennials, who graduated during a time of job scarcity and enormous student debt, can be forgiven for being a little skittish about financial matters. After all, in addition to their own challenges, many saw their parents’ generation struggle with layoffs, stock market losses, and the housing crisis. Still, there’s a lot that today’s 20-30 somethings (in fact anyone in their early earning years) can do to build a brighter financial future.
An emergency savings fund will help you be self-reliant and take care of bills if you have an unexpected expense or your income is reduced or eliminated without relying on credit.
You may not realize it, but by paying down your debt, you ARE saving! Actively reducing debt means you’re saving on interest, avoiding late fees, and maintaining or increasing your credit score.
One of the most frequently cited reasons people give for not saving is they cannot afford it. There may be ways to adjust priorities to find small ways to save. One way to force yourself to save is by automating your savings. It can give you the incentive you need to get started, and the process can be simple and painless. Here are four simple ideas to get you started.
If you had to choose between setting financial goals, and going to a music festival, you’d probably choose the music. But how would you pay for the entertainment? Goal setting may not be as much fun as a concert, but it helps you to save for and achieve exciting, fun and important things, like retirement or college.
Unless you track your overall spending with every little purchase, debt can ambush you. Fortunately, you can prevent it from piling up; you just need to be aware of the ways in which you spend money.
