Real Smartness Is About Money-Smartness!
Money | September 3, 2009 at 4:16 amHey college students! Did you know that real smartness is about money smartness? As you might think smartness is not about wearing those impressive pair of designer clothes and walking out on the streets and getting attention from passers-by and friends. These days smartness means much more. Gone are the days when parents would fund you and you’d have a whale of a time partying around with your closest connections getting everything that you desire in this world within minutes as though your parents were Aladdin’s jinn!
Now you’re a grown up individual and must understand how difficult it is for your dad and mom to get that buck for you. Well, you might argue that you’re a rich guy and your parents don’t work that hard, but if you ask your parents you’ll come to realize that its their hard work and frugality that is paying off in the present times. You should know that money wisdom is your tool to a secure future. Money wisdom involves learning how to put your money to the best possible use. It includes being financially literate as well as to know how to live a frugal lifestyle.
Know the ABCs of Financial Education
I’m simply shocked to hear from the Sun Sentinel report that America, the most developed country of the world, has about half of its youth financially poorly literate! Do you know what that means? It means that you don’t know the basic financial makeup of your country and the financial tools that are available for you to better utilize your money and multiply it. What’s alarming is that even some highly educated techies are not financial savvy! Are you aware that currency depreciation takes place during inflation? Do you know what the current recession is all about, its present situation and how you, the common American, is going to be affected by all this. Do you know anything about stock markets and that even non-business people can also buy them? Forget all that-do you know how to use your credit cards properly or make profitable bank investments? Well, if your answer is no to all these questions like 2/3 of your contemporaries its time you brushed up your basic financial knowledge.
Well, you might say, who cares? All this crap doesn’t mean a thing to me! Let me tell you why you need to be financially literate. Tomorrow when you’ll step into the professional world, you are expected to know at least the basics of the money markets. Commonsense takes you only halfway through your dealings but not the complete path. If you want to buy a new house or a car you should be well conversant with bank loans, and best interest and insurance policies. Well, let me quote another example. The idea of earning big excites you, doesn’t it? You’re going to earn big, but what are you going to do with the money. Simply let it pile up in your salary account or channelize it to high revenue generating areas? With money management education you are empowered with the knowledge, tools and resources to put your money to the best use possible. Can you show me a rich guy who you know who is not financially literate? Well, you might tell about a rich friend who has inherited property from his parents but is not financially literate. For this I’ve got to tell you that this friend of yours is going to lose all his money if he doesn’t know how to manage it well.
I hope with this I’m able to convince you about the importance of educating yourself financially. Nowadays, there are a lot of banks, financial institutions and websites offering courses on financial education. You’ve just got to find out from your college information bureau or financial literacy websites about all this. Join a course and it’ll do you good. Quicken Online, Thrive and Wesabe are some of the websites that can really help you around with managing your personal finances especially if you belong to the credit card bankrupt clan!
Lead a Money-Smart Lifestyle
How do you lead a money-smart lifestyle? First of all, I’d like to clarify that being money smart does not mean you have to cut up on all your fun and entertainment. Enjoy, but in a money-smart way! So don’t’ run away now! This message should keep you on this post a bit longer to read how. Here are some simple tips that you need to follow to save that extra buck which you can use later to buy something worthwhile like your own dream car later in life. Besides, these tips will also help you in building up your monetary security in life independent of your parent’s protective coverage.
- Educational scholarships- Always study well and try for educational scholarships. This will greatly help in supporting your college education. You can take the help of your college counselors or professional educational counselors on how to make your way to getting the best scholarships possible. Start on this early, not at the last moment when admissions start because by then already the scholarships might have been decided upon by the college authorities.
- Textbooks frugality – College texts are pretty expensive. Buy them only when a new book is an updated version of the text and if you think you cannot share it with anyone else. Otherwise you can buy old textbooks from college seniors and share books with friends . Join libraries. The internet is a sea of information. Use it to the best possible extent. Don’t miss out on book fairs and discount sales. Keep yourself informed about these always and avail them. Don’t depend upon campus bookstores entirely. They may be selling books at a fortune. On an average, students spend around $900 annually on study materials. So you know where you’re spending more. Online rental portals like Bookrenter, Campus Book Rentals and Chegg are offering books at 70% rebate
on retail prices for usage for a semester. You can also borrow books from seniors but if they don’t have with them you’ll always find plenty on Amazon and EBay. - Use free Office Software – If you’re a user of spreadsheets, electronic documentation and presentation software, you might be most probably using MS office for various purposes. But you know that MS office is a expensive software costing about $120. Why don’t you go for Google Docs or Sun’s Open Office instead? They are free and will serve your purpose. After all, you don’t need to use them like a professional for college projects.
- Make lifestyle changes- cook your own meals, take a bus ride instead of taking your dad’s car to college to save fuel, buy some prepared food, and compare prices to find the best places where you’ll get stuff free. Go for movies and entertain yourself but always stay within your budget.
- Open a local bank account or join a credit union- If you’re an outstation student open an account with the bank at your campus because that will save you the money of using an outside ATM at a fee. The average expenses of using non-local ATMs last year was around $3. 5 per transaction. So on an average even if you use the ATM twice a week, you’ll be spending $ 28 a week merely on transaction fees. You can save up on all this.
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To be financially prudent we should be able to make the most suitable and successful savings and investment decisions
We should save for your retirement in a manner that we are most comfortable with and which encompasses our attitude to risk, your financial situation and your beliefs
Be confident that you and your family are adequately protected against life’s ups and downs
Be reassured that your liabilities (such as a mortgage) are structured in the most cost effective manner .