The Things They Don’t Tell You About Money

I normally don’t do follow up posts because, well, I tend to email readers right back, BUT I had a few people email me asking the transition period after University. It helps that my brother just finished his Undergrad, and looking to settle in the phase of his life where he can’t describe himself as a student anymore.

We all know that time. The moments where we stumble over our words when describing how life is treating us. Some of us might have been lucky and gotten a job right after university. Bonus points if that job is actually in your field, but that’s not the norm these days.  I know so many of us who not only made mistakes during school, but right after as well.

Who can blame us, really? Most of us don’t move back home after school, and all of a sudden yourself in the position to fend for ourselves. Oh, grownup world!

There is so much that we just don’t know. I had the pleasure of spending the day with a personal finance blogger friends two weeks ago, I was amazed to hear talks of mortgage rates, and housing prices around the dinner table. When did we become these people? Why were we not these people earlier in life?

Things that they don’t tell us about:

 

You need insurance for EVERYTHING! It’s not just your car anymore. We need to make sure we have renters insurance for our stuff, life insurance for our, well, life; travel insurance when you leave the country. It’s amazing how valuable having protection like that is.

Bank accounts do matter! We don’t really pay attention to where our money is stored, but the truth is that it does.

Investing is fun! Yes, I said it. Investing is like gambling, but well researched gambling. The best thing you can do for yourself is learn your risk tolerance, and investing in a diversified portfolio with that tolerance in mind will make your life that much easier.

Saving is smart! No, really. Spending our entire paycheque on a vacation or buying really shiny things can only get you so far. Having a nest egg in your bank account when you need to take a few months or a year to find yourself will allow you to not feel the pressure to work in the dead end job.

It’s the little things that you don’t get taught, but you need to learn along the way.

What have you learned that you  didn’t know when you were younger?

 

One Comment

  1. Investing is fun, that’s how I got into personal finance and now I’m a financial planner. I was working at a bank while studying French in university and I became so addicted to the world of investing that I changed my major to Economics. Great post.

Comments are closed.