Monthly Archives: February 2010

Money Stories: Financially Independent

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This is a guest post from Avi, who graduated high school last year and decided to take a year off before heading off to college. He found a gap year program in Israel which includes traveling around the world. So far his stops have been to Greece, Bulgaria, and Morocco, and by June will include Spain, Turkey, Germany, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, and India. During his time aboard, he’s found it difficult to adjust to how he spends my money for two main reasons.

The Currency

The exchange rate in Israel is about 3.75 shekels to a dollar, and this difference really threw me off at the beginning. I just couldn’t adjust to it and it made me hold back on a lot of purchases (I’m not spending 20 anythings on a burger!). I was sort of intimidated just by the fact that the unit of currency was higher than a dollar, so every time I paid for something, I always felt like it was a bigger hit than it actually was.

There was an upside and a downside to this: on the one hand, I was saving money by buying cheaper things when I could, but on the other hand, sometimes I would skip out on an experience or a purchase just because I didn’t want to give up so much money.

Controlling My Own Money

This is also the first time that I’ve really had to take care of my own money, and pay for all of my expenses by myself. During high school, I never really spent too much money on anything besides an occasional meal out or a movie with friends. Here, I had to live an entire year on my own money, which scared me a bit.

I wasn’t so willing to spend an extra five dollars (around 20 shekels) on every meal, because that would add up. I wasn’t sure if it was so worth it to take a bus and pay for transportation for a night out, when I could have just as good of a time locally. I wasn’t as quick to make a purchase that I know I didn’t really need, like getting an extra meal or snack here or there just for the sake of eating.

This had a similar upside and downside: I was definitely saving money on this, but was I also missing out on enjoying myself?

Letting Loose

I came to a point where I realized that I shouldn’t worry myself over these kinds of money concerns. I don’t have to worry about expenses such as rent or cable, and I don’t have to worry about paying off student loans yet. All I am spending is my spending money, so I should probably do some spending! Obviously, I still need to be smart about the way I spend it, but I’m here this year to have experiences that I’ll likely never get a chance to have again.

I shouldn’t waste my time worrying about the little amount of money I’d save from holding back on a snack or the money I’d save by walking instead of taking a bus. That just stresses me out and I lose more than the few dollars I gain. I shouldn’t let it in the way of what I can do here. I shouldn’t let it make me miss out on an opportunity.

Since this realization, I have gone skydiving, treated myself to a nice expensive meal every so often, traveled around Israel, bought myself souvenirs from around the globe, and seen and experienced some unbelievable things. I’m happy to say that I’ve learned a lot about personal finance (however basic) this year, but more importantly, I’ve learned that it’s more important to take every opportunity I can and to experience as much as I can than to save a little bit of cash.

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Best of the Rest: Happy Hour Edition

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This week I attended a happy hour with a bunch of other personal finance bloggers in the area. It was very nice to meet them and talk about stuff for a few hours that just about nobody else will listen to. I wasn’t able to talk to everyone, but next time I’ll make more of an effort to spend some time with the ones I didn’t get a chance to this time. It was nice to meet everyone, I can’t wait until next time!

Here are a few of their recent articles that I really liked. Not necessarily from the past week, but my favorite posts from some of the bloggers.

J Money is the man, and I got the idea for my Personal Finance 101 post from his post Why Do Schools Teach About The Stock Market?

Me In Millions had to leave early, but I really liked her post I DO Care What People Think. I agree with her 100% and I think we need to spend money on the things we care about. Otherwise, what’s the point of saving and saving without spending?

Brian from My Next Buck got a guest post from Shawanda of You Have More Than You Think (both in the DC area) in Friday Financial Foul Ups: How Financial Knowledge Can Hurt.

I spent awhile talking to the mind before Engineer Your Finances, and it was nice getting to know him. I liked his post First, Set Age To Retire. Second, Set Age To Die. I like his last line: Plan for the worst, hope for the best.

I had lots of time to Mrs. Micah of Finance for a Freelance Life and was able to learn a lot from her. Check out her post Preparing a Cash Flow Statement – Textbook Personal Finance.

Paranoid Asteroid talked about The Value of Preventative Maintenance. I don’t mind the dentist all that much, but I know how frustrating it can be to have to pay for something that could have been avoided!

And one other, who I didn’t get to meet yet:

I liked MapGirl‘s post Strategizing the Future resonated with me a lot. I like the idea of saving up instead of paying off debt, and her situation is the perfect situation for that.

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What The Olympics Taught Me About Personal Finance

Written by in Retirement
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I am completely obsessed with these Olympics. When I get home, I plop myself on the couch and sit for house watching whatever is on. I like sports where I can yell at the TV rooting for my team.

On Sunday, I was able to do that in the Nordic Combined, as an American, Johnny Spillane, and two others raced for the finish line, with Spillane winning the silver medal by 0.4 seconds and missing out on gold by the same amount.

Short track speed skating is another fun sport to watch, and watching Shaun White snowboarding last night was nothing short of fantastic. And hockey should be fun this this next week.

I don’t consider myself a big snowboarding fan, but watching the men’s finals on Monday may have changed my mind. Unlike the luge and ice skating, the final consisted of just four athletes, who started from the top at the same time and raced down the hill for the medals.

I watched two Americans try to get medals, but when Seth Wescott fell behind by a considerable margin, I considered him out. There was just no way. But to my surprise, he began a furious comeback, cut corners, passed two competitors in the air, and climbed all the way back to take the lead and held on at the end to take home the gold.

What does this have to do with personal finance?

A lot of people don’t bother funding their retirement when they are 22. Many don’t when they are 25, either. And some put it off until they are 30 or 35, too. After all, why put away money for something 30 years away? That’s a long time from now, and there is a lot of time to catch up, you know, when we earn more money.

The point is that it’s never too late. You may be behind, but there are always opportunities to make a comeback and if you try hard enough, reach your goals.

It starts with getting the company match on 401(k) contributions, continues by opening an IRA, and finishes by fully funding both plans for many years.

So if you’re behind, don’t give up hope. Renew your investing intensity. It may not be easy, but it is definitely possible and with enough effort, you can achieve even your wildest dreams.

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Personal Finance 101

Written by in Money
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J Money at Budgets Are Sexy wrote yesterday about why schools teach about the stock market. It got me thinking about my personal finance education.

During my senior year of high school, one of the school administrators came into our class and began to talk about finances. I didn’t realize it at the time, but what she was really talking about was personal finance.

She spoke about balancing our checkbook, not going overboard with purchases, and using credit wisely. Most of the advice she gave was vague (what does using credit wisely mean? I didn’t even know what mistakes I COULD make!), and parts of it didn’t apply (What is a checkbook??).

Back then, I was interested in saving my money instead of wasting it, but I didn’t realize exactly what college would be like. I didn’t know that eating out can get expensive, that going out, new clothes, and video games would all be coming out of MY bank account. None of that applied to me in high school, and this lecture didn’t help get me on the right track.

In college, I took three economics classes, two accounting classes, and one finance class. I remember very little from those classes, although I do remember learning about supply and demand. What I didn’t learn was how much money I would need, where that would be coming from, and that credit could be your best friend or your worst nightmare.

I didn’t know anything about student loans. I didn’t know the first thing about retirement, and I had no clue why I would be doing any long-term investing. I was focused on making $2,000 in the summer so I could survive the year without running out. And for me, running out meant running out. I didn’t even know how to get a credit card, and I’m glad, because I definitely didn’t know what 19% APR meant.

If I could speak to the high school class of 2010, I would say:

1. If your parents are going to be paying for any portion of your college tuition, go home and thank them. They spent a lot of time working so you could live a great life, and you should appreciate that, even if you don’t understand that they gave up vacations, a nicer house, and a fancy car.

2. Learn about credit. Here is a nice first resource: Credit Series. Try and build your credit throughout college if you can. If you skip that reading, at least know that you will hurt yourself if you open a credit card at a football game in order to get a free t-shirt.

3. Set up a budget. Figure out what is most important to you and spend your money on things that make you happy. You will quickly realize that you don’t have enough money for anything, but you can stretch your dollar enough to have money for what you really want.

For those in the 2010 college class, I would give them this advice:

1. If you choose to start work now, work to get out of debt quickly. Compound interest will hurt in a few years. But if you get out now, it will be your best friend and retiring at 45 could be a real possibility. If you hate doing homework now, think about how nice it would be to be able to stop working 20 years before everyone else.

2. Build a Budget – Find out how much money you will need to pay for necessities. Sign up for Mint.com, keep track of your finances, and make a budget in a few months. Save 20% for long-term goals and spend 10% on whatever you want (travel, video games, going out).

3. Open a Roth IRA. Don’t worry about trying to time the market or earn 20% a year. Doing that is like playing poker online. You COULD do great, but you could also lose your money quickly. You don’t want to risk your money like that.

I think it’s a big problem that students are forced to learn hard lessons on their own. While it’s nice to learn technical skills, it wouldn’t be hard to create a class where students learn the upsides and downsides of money and the basics of budgeting, credit, retirement, interest rates, mortgages, and the like.

I found my accounting class extremely boring. I KNOW students would rather learn about topics that apply to their lives. Believe it or not, college students like gaining knowledge, and if they are provided with classes that interest them, they will be much better off in the future.

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