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Financial Milestones in Your 20s

BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 1 Comment

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

We paid for this with CASH

There are many things that I want to accomplish in my life. Starting the things listed below will only make life easier for the most part. When you look at my list below, I have 11 checks so far so I'm about half way done. Some things I partially do, but decided not to say that they are a “check.”

However, I do think I'm doing good with this list, there's nothing I'd really change about what I'm doing now in order to have more “checks.”

Erika and Vanessa both shared a list of their financial milestones. Check theirs out! Below is my list:

  1. Finance a dream vacation…in cash. Check! I've paid for all of my vacations in cash. I went to Kauai in March and this was definitely a dream vacation.
  2. Pay off your student loans. I haven't paid them off completely. I have paid some though, and I plan on paying for this upcoming summer semester completely with cash. This definitely requires some saving and buckling down this summer.
  3. Automate paying your credit card bill in full. Check! I pay my bill in full always.
  4. Get rid of all bad debt. Check! “Bad debt” depends on the person, but all I have are a mortgage and student loans. I consider these to be “good” in my life.
  5. Build an adequate emergency fund. Check! Our emergency fund is currently at $15K, we do want to take this and start applying it towards debt though. Our fund doesn't need to be this high and could be better used in other places.
  6. Make your first, and last, investment mistake. I'm still making investment mistakes. I'm still trying to understand everything. I guess since I work in the finance industry, I am much more critical and analyze the market a lot.
  7. Develop a statement of cash flows. I do this in my head, but I've never written it down. Probably need to do this though. I always make sure there's plenty of cushion in our checking account so that we never bounce anything though.
  8. Max out a Roth & Contribute to your 401(k). I don't save nearly enough right now. This is something I need to work on, but I do want my debt to be gone quickly. Right now I save between 10-15% of our after-tax pay every month.
  9. Get a degree or certification that increases your earning power. Check! I'm about to get my Finance MBA. WOOHOO!
  10. Take a career risk. Never done this. I've only had 2 jobs my entire life. 5 years in retail management and 2 years as a financial analyst. Definitely no career risk there.
  11. Negotiate something. Check! I always negotiate on vacations. When I booked our Vegas Bachelorette trip for this August, I called many places and eventually got a great deal. I asked this to match a price I found somewhere else, and they even threw extras in.
  12. Earn your first side grand. Check! I've made nice side money from my blog, mystery shopping and surveys.
  13. Start a sub-savings account for an upcoming financial goal. I don't have any separate accounts, but I do think this would help since the money would be separated from the other accounts.
  14. Set a target retirement date. This isn't set in stone of course since we are still young. Hopefully around the age of 50 though. This most likely won't be a complete retirement though. I still see myself doing some sort of part time gig when I'm older.
  15. Monitor your credit. Check! I check this all the time, especially since someone stole my social security number when I was younger. Things always tend to pop up but for the most part I am safe now.
  16. Say no to a financial salesman. Check! I'm actually pretty good with saying no. My friends and bf always laugh because I can walk away so easily and not care. In Kauai, some guy tried selling us a timeshare and after about 15 minutes of him talking, I looked at my bf and I could tell he didn't want to be mean. So I told the guy no and walked away. My bf still thanks me for having no heart when we are around persistent sales people.
  17. Give just enough to make it hurt. We hardly give. We used to give around $100 a month to United Way, but we didn't realize until now that they are extremely corrupt. So we have limited this greatly and now we only give around $20 a month.
  18. Invest $1 for every $1 you spend- in progress. Check kind of. We save around 50% of our after-tax income every month, and soon this will be much more.
  19. Start a 529 College Savings Plan. Ehh not really interested in this at all.
  20. Buy a house. This is something I just added (thanks to Work Save Live). This is a CHECK for me!
How many have you completed? Any input on the list?

Goals and Extra Monthly Income Update

BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

May is my birthday month, but I'm sure you already knew that 🙂

I switched to Intense Debate for my comments last month, how is everyone liking them? Let me know! I want all honest feedback. Has it been easy for you to use?

April was good to us. Of course we had a lot of car related things to pay for (car insurance, new windshield, safety inspection, etc), we were still within our budget. We also made a lot in cash back rewards last month (mainly due to our vacation) and were able to get over $100 in cash back just for one month.

The weather was also pretty nice in April, and we barely had to use neither our AC nor our heat, thankfully! We should be having some pretty low bills for the next couple of months.

You can find my 2012 goals update here (I will not be updating this as often).

April Goals Update
  1. Reassess our budget and cut out $25. PASS.  I can't think of anything that I cut out but our gas usage, AC and heat have all decreased, and we saved over $200 last month because of this.
  2. Workout at least 2 times a week.  PASS. I've been running with my dog more and I've been doing some strength training and ab work, before and after work.
  3. Run with my dog at least twice a week. PASS. See above 🙂
  4. Sell 30 items to a consignment shop. FAIL. Haven't even really thought about this.
  5. Make an extra $500 this month. Almost PASS. See below!
  6. Start moving stuff into my bigger closet. FAIL. I think once classes are done, I will be able to do this.
  7. Get my front windshield fixed. PASS! Did this on Saturday.
  8. Spend less than $500 on food and entertainment. PASS. We were pretty frugal this month with our going out. We still went out just as much, but we would pregame, go to happy hour, etc.
  9. Eat in at least 5 times a week. PASS. And I'm still coming up with new meal ideas also! Love Pinterest 🙂
  10. Make 1 vegetarian meal a week. FAIL. We had one vegetarian dinner this month. Not good!
May Goals
  1. Reassess our budget and cut out $25. There's always something that can be cut. Just not sure what yet…
  2. Workout at least 3 times a week and run with my dog. I actually passed this goal last month! Let's see if I can keep it up.
  3. Sell 30 items to a consignment shop. This has been on the list forever, I need to get on this.
  4. Make an extra $600 this month. For the past couple of months, I've been just barely under this goal. But I feel that since classes will be over, I'll be able to do more secret shops.
  5. Start moving stuff into my bigger closet. School is over next week, so I'm pretty positive that I can start and finish this month.
  6. Eat in at least 5 times and make 1 vegetarian meal a week. This will be a goal FOREVER most likely. Something that we need to constantly be trying to do.
  7. Do great on finals. My GPA for my whole MBA program isn't as high as I wanted. It'll be around a 3.6 for all semesters combined. Is that good? What's considered a good MBA GPA?
  8. Book our Vegas hotel and plane tickets.
Blog Goals
  • Twitter followers:  Goal was for 350, I'm currently at 293. I didn't pass my goal but I still had a pretty big increase in April. My goal for May will stay the same – 350.
  • Alexa rank: Goal was to be under 90,000. I'm right at 90K right now. I would like to be under 85K by the end of this month.
  • RSS readers: Goal was for 650, I'm currently at 628. So close! I will keep my goal the same for May.
Extra Monthly Income in March
  • Ad links/Sponsored Posts on my blog –$325
  • Surveys -$9
  • Mystery Shopping -$126
So I actually made $460 extra last month!
How did you do in April? Any extra income?

Having a Sibling Move In

BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

My sister has been begging me for months to let her move in. I have thought long and hard about this and this wasn't the easiest decision. You would think it would be easy since she is family, but there were so many things to think about.

  1. How would this affect our relationship? Could something bad happen from this?
  2. How would my mother react, would she feel abandoned?
  3. The privacy issue.
  4. Would she be dirty? Loud? Crazy? Annoying? I haven't lived with my sister in over 10 years.
  5. What if it didn't work out?

We were also thinking no because we have really enjoyed our privacy of not living with other people. Yes we have lived together for 5 years with only around 6 months of having a roommate, but going back to old ways will be hard. But this is something that I can get over, not a huge deal.

But we decided to say yes because of everything that she's gone through. My sister and my boyfriend get along well, and I get along with her better than I used to, so I'm not worried about that. It was actually the boyfriend's idea to have her move in ASAP because of all of the problems that have been happening lately where she lives now.

Anyways, I plan on charging her around $200 a month for rent. I can't decide if I want to do that or charge her around $100 plus 1/3 of the bills (gas, heat, cable, etc), so that she can get a better feel of how expenses are and how her use can fluctuate by month. What do you all think? I'm leaning just towards the fixed number so that it can just be easier every month. 

Honestly, I just want to give her a nice place to live that will bring her life back to normal and that's why I said she could move in. She hasn't had a home cooked meal in forever (except when she comes over to my house), and I would like to fill that void that she has. I guess I will be trying to be more like a motherly figure. I want to help her with basic things in life that she should know about.

I do hope that us living together will help our relationship. Yes I know this is a far stretch because usually roommate situations do not go well, especially with friends and family. However, I haven't lived with my sister since I was about 12 – so she was only 8 (I moved out at 12 and moved in with my dad), so we don't have a really strong relationship there.In the end, I'm extremely happy about her moving in.

I'm sure most girls dream about having that GREAT relationship with their sister, and this is most likely my chance at that. We've never been close, but now we just might be. I would love to call my sister my best friend.

Have any of you ever let your sibling move in? How did it go? 
Do you have any tips for us?

 

Work-Life Balance and My Life

BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Between working 45 hours at the office every week, taking 12 credits in my MBA program this semester, blogging and doing homework, I don't have a lot of free time.Then you also have to through in the fact that I have a house and it doesn't clean itself. Oh and my dogs can't open the backdoor or take themselves for a walk.

Even with all of this, I love my life. I like to be busy but once my life slows down after this summer (I'll be done with my MBA program), I will definitely enjoy the tons of extra free time that I will have. Yes of course I'll still have work, but getting back around 25 hours a week from not having classes and homework will be nice!

When I'm done with my MBA, I know for a fact that I'll still find ways to keep busy. There are so many things I want to do around my house, and possibly start another blog.

I attribute the fact that I can balance my work and life (and school), 
due to having a good work-life balance.

Also, I still find plenty of time to enjoy life. Yes, I may not have as much time as before, but I never feel like I'm crazily running around (except right now of course since finals are starting soon). The BF helps a ton around the house also, so this helps balance everything as well.

Lately, I have also been trying to go to bed earlier, and waking up 30 minutes earlier than I usually do so that I can have more personal time in the mornings. Not having as hectic mornings has definitely helped out. I don't get a ton of sleep, but instead of going to sleep around 1:30 am, I now try to be bed by 12  to 12:30 am. This is something that I can definitely still improve with though. But right now it's hard since I don't get home from class until around 10 pm, so it's hard just to go to bed right after I go home.

Thankfully with my job, work stays at work. We don't ever have to bring it home. This helps a lot with my work-life balance.

I've also been trying to schedule my posts ahead of time. Usually I just type it up the night before, but on Sunday I managed to type around 2 weeks worth of posts. It was all stuff on my mind and it seemed like the ideas couldn't stop flowing!

Limiting my time online is also another big thing. I spend way too much online. I'm addicted, it's sad. I can't stop reading blogs and looking and Pinterest. Lately I've just been setting the computer down far away from me and surprisingly that has been working.

Here are my tips to have a successful work-life balance:

  1. Create a schedule and set goals. Your schedule needs to be realistic and flexible to allow for anything that might pop up. Now I'm not saying you necessarily need to make an extremely detailed schedule where you say “from 8 am to 9 am I will be …..” I think you just need to have a general schedule of what you will do on certain days. You also need to decide what needs to be on the schedule and cannot be changed.
    • This could be your family dinner every night, your sleep schedule, whether or not you think partaking in a certain activity is needed, etc.
  2. Make a to-do list. I have several lists in my phone and it feels nice to be able to delete one whenever I'm done. It also helps me to prioritize and realize what needs to be done. This way nothing is forgotten.
  3. Put personal time in your schedule. This needs to be done immediately. Having a schedule with no personal time is not the best schedule.
  4. Don't go crazy when something might not go exactly as planned. There will be things out there that ruin your schedule, but don't let them take over your life. Just move on!
  5. Tackle larger things in life first. I always like to knock the biggest tasks on my list first (such as writing my 16 page paper). This makes the rest of the list seem not as intimidating.
  6. Don't try to do everything yourself. The BF helps out a ton, which I believe he should. Just because I'm female doesn't mean I should do all of the household activities, and honestly, I suck at cleaning.
How do you balance work and life? Is it vacations, personal time, or something else?

Mystery Shopping – Make Extra Money

BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 20 Comments

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Mystery Shopping - Make Extra Money BestmarkMystery shopping. Many of you have emailed me and asked me the question “what is mystery shopping” and have been wondering how I am making money through mystery shopping.

I usually make around $150 to $200 a month from mystery shopping.

Side note: If you are interested in the many other ways I earn extra money, check out my Extra Income page on my blog.

I use mainly Bestmark for my mystery secret shops. I'm not sure what other companies are good and reputable mystery shopping websites, but I know for a FACT that Bestmark is a legitimate mystery shopping website, so you can trust me when I say that.

Last month I didn't make too much because not a lot of “good” shops were offered in my area. Lately, I've been a little more picky with the shops that I sign up for also.

What I consider a worthwhile shop for ME:

  1. Either an online shop or phone call shop
  2. If I have to drive, it's close to somewhere I'll be
  3. Something I'll use. I love doing Estee Lauder shops because I always love free makeup.
  4. Restaurant shops, because I have to eat, of course.

Of course, what's worthwhile to you and me might be different. When I first signed up for mystery shopping (sometime last summer I think), I literally signed up for everything. I made decent money, but it wore me out. The amount of surveys that you have to do is so repetitive that it makes you want to throw your computer at the wall.

Sometimes surveys take just a minute, but sometimes they literally take an hour. Restaurant shops usually take a little longer than others because usually you are grading every little detail.

Some examples of mystery shops I've done include: 

  1. Restaurants. This ranges from cheaper restaurants where I'm reimbursed for around $30 worth of food, all the way up to nice steakhouses where I get $100.
  2. Dealerships. Bestmark has a ton of dealership shops available, but I only have done the phone call and scheduling services online secret shops.
    • I usually do about 4-5 of these a week and these are the easiest shops. You don't have to drive anywhere and the surveys literally take one minute. And you get paid around $5 for them. Although recently they've lowered the payment to only $3, and there's a ton more work involved. I had to cancel around 3 or 4 shops because they didn't make it clear enough about the amount of work that I signed up for. And for $3, I'm not really willing to do too much.
    • They also have dealership secret shops where you go in and pretend you want a car. These usually pay around $20. This is something I've never done, and they have plenty of these available for everyone to do.  I've never done this because car salesmen scare me. I'm not ready for thousands of annoying phone calls and I'm afraid that I'd be stuck in a dealership for an hour while trying to run away from the salesperson.
  3. Retail. I mainly do Estee Lauder. I've done a lot of these. I've gotten foundation, lotion, toner, face wash, concealer, lip gloss and so on, all for FREE! And these aren't sample sizes, I've probably gotten over $200 in stuff, plus gotten paid around $10 on top for each shop as well.
    • I've also done a couple of Best Buy shops. These are easy too. You just survey a certain department (takes like a minute), and then you can just buy something small like a candy bar so that they have your receipt for proof that you were actually there and performed it. Best Buy shops usually pay around $13. Not a ton, but the Best Buy is along the way home from my work so I just pop in.

 

Bestmark Mystery Shopping - Make Extra Money

This is a mystery shopping check from one week's of mystery shopping.

The highest paid shops I do are usually for restaurants. I've done a couple of nice restaurants where I had to eat over $100 worth of food. Crazy!  I've also seen Hotel mystery shops, but they've never been on a good day for me, so I've never been able to sign up.

Also, if you find that you cannot do a shop that you sign up for, all you do usually is contact your scheduler and say you need to reschedule or cancel. Try not to do this too often though. These schedulers will remember you, and if you're good to them, they will give you good shops, so remember that!

Mystery shopping money will NOT make you rich. I want to make that clear. It's just a nice form of side income, where I can get things I want for free! What I make from mystery shopping, I add to my vacation fund. So it's a nice little addition every month.

If I want to eat at a nice restaurant that I would usually go to, then YES I would love to do a secret shop there. Those are always the greatest shops because you are paid to have fun.

Do you secret shop such as through Bestmark? Any tips?

Also, if you join Bestmark, please say I referred you! My ID is MO4999. You can join Bestmark by clicking here.

 

If you are new to my blog, I am all about finding ways to make and save more money. Here are some of my favorite sites and products that may help you out:

  • Cut your TV bill. Cut your cable, satellite, etc. Even go as far to go without Netflix or Hulu as well. Buy a digital antenna (this is the one we have) and enjoy free TV for life.
  • Start a blog. Blogging is how I make a living and just a few years ago I never thought it would be possible. I earn over $30,000 a month online through my blog and you can read more about this in my monthly online income reports. You can create your own blog here with my easy-to-use tutorial. You can start your blog for as low as $3.49 per month plus you get a free domain if you sign-up through my tutorial.
  • If you are still in college, I recommend you check out Campus Book Rentals. This website allows you to get your textbooks for cheap. I almost ALWAYS rented my textbooks and it saved me a ton of money!
  • Lower your cell phone bill. Instead of paying the $150 or more that you spend on your cell phone bill, there are companies out there like Republic Wireless that offer cell phone service starting at $5. YES, I SAID $5! If you use my Republic Wireless affiliate link, you can change your life and start saving thousands of dollars a year on your cell phone service. I created a full review on Republic Wireless as well if you are interested in hearing more. I’ve been using them for over a year and they are great.
  • Sign up for a website like Ebates where you can earn CASH BACK for just spending like how you normally would online. The service is free too! Plus, when you sign up through my link, you also receive a free $10 gift card bonus to Macys, Walmart, Target, or Kohls!
  • Save money on food. I recently joined $5 Meal Plan in order to help me eat at home more and cut my food spending. It’s only $5 a month (the first two weeks are free too) and you get meal plans sent straight to you along with the exact shopping list you need in order to create the meals. Each meal costs around $2 per person or less. This allows you to save time because you won’t have to meal plan anymore, and it will save you money as well!
  • Look for coupon codes. I search for coupon codes for everything. Today, I have two for you. I have a $20 Airbnb coupon code and a free taxi ride with Uber. Both are great services that I have personally used.
  • I highly recommend SoFi for student loan refinancing. You can lower the interest rate on your student loans significantly by using SoFi which may help you shave thousands off your student loan bill over time.
  • Answer surveys. Survey companies I recommend include American Consumer Opinion, ProOpinion, Pinecone Research, Opinion Outpost, Survey Spot, and Harris Poll Online. They’re free to join and free to use! You get paid to answer surveys and to test products. It’s best to sign up for as many as you can as that way you can receive the most surveys and make the most money.
  • Invest. There are no guarantees when it comes to investing, but you should always start sooner rather than later. If you are looking for a good investing platform, I recommend Motif. Motif Investing allows individuals to invest affordably. This approachable investing platform makes it easy to buy a portfolio of up to 30 stocks, bonds or ETFs for just $9.95 total commission. Plus, you will receive up to $150 for FREE when you use Motif Investing when you sign up under my link.
  • Use Swagbucks for your online searches. Swagbucks is something I don’t use as much, but I do occasionally earn Amazon gift cards with very little work. Swagbucks is just like using Google to do your online searches, except you get rewarded “points called SB” for the things you do through their website. Then, when you have enough Swagbucks, you can redeem them for cash, gift cards, and more. You’ll receive a free $5 bonus just for signing up today!
  • Try Digital Voice. Another one you may be interested in related to Swagbucks is Nielsen Digital Voice. Digital Voice is a part of Nielsen, which I’m sure you’ve heard of. All you have to do is surf the web and you may be able to start earning money.
  • Try InboxDollars. InboxDollars is an online rewards website I recommend. You can earn cash by taking surveys, playing games, shopping online, searching the web, redeeming grocery coupons, and more. Also, by signing up through my link, you will receive $5.00 for free just for signing up!
  • Find a part-time job. There are many part-time jobs that you may be able to find. You can find a job on sites such as Snagajob, Craigslist (yes, I’ve found a legitimate job through there before), Monster, and so on.

Goals and Extra Monthly Income Update

BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - Leave a Comment

This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.

Already Tuesday, woo hoo! Today I'm doing a recap on my long list of goals. I have one problem with goals though.  I tend to completely forget about them until I do my goal recap posts. Uh oh, what's the point of goals if you never look? Hopefully I start checking in on my goals more often.

Also, I switched to Intense Debate for my comments. What does everyone think of them? I prefer it, but I will switch back if it's not as user-friendly as I think it is. You don't need an account or anything to comment. Let me know what you think!

March was a good month for us. We were good with our food budget and cooked a lot. We plan on cooking a lot in April as well. Our heat and electric bills went down due to super nice weather. But it's going to be a hot April most likely. The past couple of days have been around 90 degrees, so we've had our air conditioning on.

You can find my February goals list here, and my 2012 goals update here (I will not be updating this as often).

March Goals Update
  1. Finally pay off my car. PASS. I paid it off completely! Read about it here.
  2. Save an extra $10 a day for a new camera. ??? Haven't been keeping track. Not too worried about this anymore.
  3. Reassess our budget and cut out $25. FAIL. I can't think of anything off the top of my head.
  4. Start and finish homework before it's due. PASS. Doing pretty good with this!
  5. Workout at least 3 times a week.  FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL FAIL. How many more times can I say this? I've been running with my dog at least once a week, but not much more than that.
  6. Sell my stuff to a consignment shop. FAIL. I didn't do this. I think I did most of my selling in February, but none in March (I might have that backwards, not sure). I need to get rid of more. There are so many things that I do not wear.
  7. Take a picture of my insane closet for you all. PASS! I made a post on my ridiculousness.
  8. Make an extra $500 this month.  PASS. I made just around $500. See below for more detail.
  9. Move shoes to my new closet. FAIL. Nope. Haven't really started my closet yet. I need to put bookshelves together and clear out all the trash in the extra bedroom.
  10. Don't spend any more money on clothes than what I sell. PASS. I believe I only spent around $50 on clothes this month. I have a horrible memory though, so if I'm wrong, yell at me.
  11. Get my front windshield fixed. FAIL. I HAVE to do this month though, so I know it will be done.
  12. Have loads of fun while on vacation! PASS PASS PASS. Had loads of fun! Need to do a recap.
April Goals
  1. Reassess our budget and cut out $25. I'm sure there's something we could cut out… Our cable contract is up soon, so I'm going to call soon and get them to lower our rate.
  2. Workout at least 2 times a week.  I keep failing at this. But I have so many reasons for why I need a good body for the summer. Memorial day, vacations, Vegas, pools, and so on. I want a nice stomach!
  3. Run with my dog at least twice a week.
  4. Sell 30 items to a consignment shop. I need to do this and get rid of a lot more, but I feel like with a number, I am more likely to think about it.
  5. Make an extra $500 this month. I've been good with this so far. While it'll be nice to someday make more, right now I seem to be stuck at $500.
  6. Start moving stuff into my bigger closet. I've been horrible with this. I have bookshelves and everything ready, but I've been lazy. I will get this done this month.
  7. Get my front windshield fixed. See above 🙂
  8. Spend less than $500 on food and entertainment. This is a hard one for us. We like to go out but we should just invite people over more often.
  9. Eat in at least 5 times a week. We've been pretty good with this, but need to keep it up.
  10. Make 1 vegetarian meal a week. We eat meat everyday. We need to change this. I think this is a good start.

P.S. Check out other bloggers' goals as well. Savvy Financial Latina posted hers as well. Let me know if you want me to add your goals link to this post!

I also want to start hitting more blog goals, so I'm going to start listing them out so that I can keep track easier. These are amounts that I would looove to reach by the end of April:

  • Twitter followers:  Goal is for 350, I'm currently at 233. I don't know why I waited so long to make a Twitter account!
  • Alexa rank: Goal is to be under 90,000. I'm currently at 112,000.
  • RSS readers: Goal is for 650, I'm currently at 564.
Extra Monthly Income in March 
  • Ad links on my blog -$426
    

  • Sponsored posts -$0 
  • Surveys -$6
  • Mystery Shopping -$53
So I actually made $485 extra last month!
How did you do in March? Any extra income? 
Money in my 20s
 BY Michelle Schroeder-Gardner - 37 Comments  
This post may contain affiliate links. Please read my disclosure for more info.
Happy Friday everyone! This week went by pretty quick for me thankfully.  I have a pretty packed weekend (but it's mostly fun stuff) so it should be a good one!  I hope everyone has a great weekend also.
I believe that how you behave in your 20s with your money can definitely change everything. If you start investing, saving, paying off debt now, then you are preparing yourself for retirement at a great time.  Compounding definitely plays a huge factor in starting young also. If you save $1,000 a month for the next 40 years, then at 6% interest you will have
$1,968,572
But if you wait to save until 20 years later and save $2,000 a month in order to catch up, then after 20 years at 6% interest, you are only at $935,825. BIG difference right? The time value of money definitely plays a big part in this, so the younger you can start, the better!
There are many things that I'm doing now to prepare myself for my future. This involves, my spending habits, budgets, schooling, my career and so on.
What I'm doing:
  1. Went to college and graduated with two undergraduate degrees. This helped me a lot when I was applying for jobs and I also feel more rounded (even though both degrees were business related). I wouldn't be able to be in my field without my degrees.
  2. Working on my MBA. This will help me with my career and also a higher salary with more opportunities.
  3. Secured a good career. My job is very stable and will if anything grow by an exponential amount. There aren't too many people who do what I do.
  4. Advancing in my career. I'm working on my credentials and I should have them this summer as well. I just have to take one more test and turn in sample reports (these are extremely long). I need to start working on my sample reports soon.
  5. Live within my means. This one is different from the others that I just listed. Living within my means is something I do, but also something I could work on.
  6. Paying off my debt. This is a big one! I hope to have my student loans completely gone by next year and then my house to be paid off in less than 5 years from now. WHOO HOO for goals.
I also have a fully funded emergency fund. My job is pretty secure, but you never know if something might come up. With an emergency fund I don't have to worry as much and worry about living paycheck to paycheck.
One thing I DO need to start concentrating on more is investing. I know a decent amount about investing and finance (I am a Finance MBA major and I work in the financial services industry), but I'm still unsure of how exactly I want to allocate all of my investments. And until I'm positive that I understand everything (hey I have an investment mind just like Buffet, maybe one day I'll be a billionaire, ok probably not), this is kind of hindering how deep into investing I'm getting.
Another area I would like to work on is getting a more stable side income. Maybe blogging? I'm still not sure. I have so many ideas floating around in my head though.
Of course there are many things I want to do in my 20's also. I don't want to look back on my life and feel like I missed out on anything. As I've said this whole week, I budget and watch my spending so that I can do the things I love in life.
In my 30s, I'd like to do a lot of things. It just seems so crazy to think of myself 10 years from now! I'd hope to have a family, no debt, great investments and lots of world travels. In my 40s? Not really sure. I haven't thought about my life that far ahead honestly. I would hope to be able to retire early though.
What are you doing to prepare yourself for your future? What do you wish you would've done?
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