The Working Girl's Guide to Finance
As we slowly approach the holiday season and new year, it is time to start thinking about those pockets. If you are anything like us, this year was very hard and really did a number on your savings. Those five year plans may now be pushed to seven years now & that may be a little troublesome. No fear, SIMP IS HERE. While things may seem a bit crazy now, they will get better. Weigh the positives of the situation - you have a job, simple. If you don’t you have a job be thankful that you have a savings account to pick at. It is that simple.
As we start to prep those vision boards for how you want your life to look this year - make sure your finances align together. We sat down with Jhakiri Brooke to discuss tips on everything money. He is a Financial Advisor based in NYC, that specializes in every spectrum of financial planning. Jhakiri’s priority is to help build suitable savings and create safe investment strategies in his community, especially young adults.
If you are trying to get your life back together you for sure need to read this.
The Three Ways To Look At Your Money AS A WORKING GIRL
Debt essentially has a snowball effect. If you don’t monitor it, it will start off small and begin to rapidly increase. Many people have the idea that they’ll swipe their credit card and pay it off as soon as they get paid but that does not workout. What happens when the debt you accrued in a short amount of time has outgrown your paycheck? You begin to panic and get overwhelmed when you have to stop using it. Save for your wants so you don’t have to rack up bad debt. Be patient, pay it down gradually, and stop swiping!
Understand good debt Vs. Bad debt
“Bad debt” consists of tools used to buy depreciating assets; an auto loan for a car, a credit card for miscellaneous purchases, and personal loans for things that shouldn’t be debt financed. “Good debt” consists of tools used to put your life in better perspective; things such as student loan debt to possibly increase your income, a mortgage to buy your own home or to possibly invest in real estate, and lastly a business loan to make up for the lack of funding you have to launch that business you’ve been working on for years.
Don’t be intimidated by student loans, there are so many different options that you may utilize to decrease the payments. The main focus you should have is, “how can I bring down my interest?” Consider refinancing. You don’t want to aggressively pay down student loan debt because it halts you from saving in other areas as well.
Consider debt consolidations and refinancing
Often, many individuals have debt all over the place and have no idea how to manage. The easiest thing you can do is consider consolidating all of your debt in one place so you’re not making payments to multiple creditors.
Balance transfers with credit cards are an example of consolidating without harming your credit score. Essentially, you open up one credit card with a large limit and transfer multiple credit card balances over to one. Now you have 0% APR for one year and can attack all of your balances at once.
Building Your Saving Accounts
I truly believe that building your savings account is the most important piece in this article. Many people do not have a savings account. They believe that saving in a checking account or in cash is the best way to go. That’s only because they don’t understand interest. When having your money in cash or checking you lose out on interest that could have been built on your savings. Interest is so important when it comes to saving because you want to understand how much your bank is crediting you for being an excellent saver. The current national interest rate on savings is about .01-.09% that’s essentially a penny for every $1,000 you have in the bank. That sucks, you want to make sure you’re utilizing a bank that’s averaging about 1.0-2.0%, which is about one dollar for every $1000 you own. You surely want to make sure you have different savings for different things. So make sure you keep your money separated.
You will need an Emergency Fund, a Goal Fund (house, travel), and an Investment Fund. The best way to save is by treating your savings account
Finding Creative Ways to Make Your Money Work For You
The only issue with having all of your money in a traditional or online savings account is you’ll never be able to beat the inflation of the dollar. Remember when your favorite bag of chips was $ 0.25? Those days are long behind us due to inflation. Inflation is the rise of prices in the products we know and love. While the price of these products increases, the value of the dollar we use decreases. In simpler terms, the money in your bank account is not keeping up with the price of the products you purchase day to day. With that, we must find creative ways to diversify our dollars to make them grow.
That takes building an investment portfolio that works for you. Think about what you’re investing for and when you want to reap the benefit of your investments. Many people are afraid of the stock market and can’t save for the real estate market, but there are so many different tools to use.
Mutual Funds - they provide exposure to the stock and bond market without you having to put all your money into one business. Therefore, there’s less risk for a pretty decent return.
Real Estate - saving enough money to purchase a property will provide you a lifetime stream of income. You are paying rent to a landlord, why not become the landlord and have someone pay you rent?
A side business or a loved one’s business you believe will grow
Individual Stock - Yes, the stock market is extremely intimidating, but the wealthiest people in the world have tremendous success in making smart decisions with investing in some of the largest companies you know today.
Retirement Accounts (401K,403B,457,IRAs, etc) - Having a sound understanding of your retirement accounts will put you so far ahead of your peers. Don’t just sign paper work, make sure you understand what assets are backing your retirement accounts as well as the tax ramifications associated with withdrawing money from retirement accounts. You want to make sure you don’t outlive your money, and your job sponsored programs are a great start. If you’re entrepreneur there are retirement accounts out there you should consider looking into.
Remember what you don’t spend today will be spent in the future. Keeping up with the trends is fun but buying your property and having a bomb life in the future is even better. Invest in yourself first!
