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Before You’re 30: Steps To Real Financial Independance

If you’re reading this, you’re probably somewhere in your early to mid-20s. You’re starting to make your own money and maybe even starting to see a little of it become disposable. We know that you might have all kind of costs that demand a big chunk, but that extra could help you become truly financially independent. Here are the steps you could take.

image of American coins - the importance of saving

Picture by Jeff Weese

Stop using your credit like a cookie jar

Half the country’s millennials have never checked their credit score. That’s a shocking fact, but the fact lies on those who failed to teach them about credit. When you’re young is when you’re most likely to ruin your credit. It’s time to stop using those open lines of credit unless you’re prepared and able to pay them off now. When it comes time to buy a new car or a house, you’ll be thankful.

Start dealing with debt

If you’ve already dipped your hand into that cookie jar one time too many, it’s likely you have some debt to deal with. Start learning debt elimination strategies and plan your approach to it. Stop charging things to your credit cards and cut out some of your luxuries to start paying more than the minimum.

Financial Independence - nest egg image

Picture by Pixabay

 

Building a nest egg

There are no two ways about it, you need to start saving right now. It’s easy to blow through your free money before you have the chance to save emergency funds. The trick is to put the money into savings, first. 15% of your income should be going to building those funds. They’re essential. Failing to save them could mean getting into a debt spiral or even falling bankrupt due to a financial emergency.

Get protected

Other financial emergencies can be taken care of without much heartache thanks to your insurance. By the time you’re thirty, there are some policies you need to be taking care of. If you have a car, you need auto insurance. If you have a place, you need property insurance for at least your contents. Disability insurance is an important confirmation of the fact that life is uncertain and we don’t always know how able we will be to work. Life insurance is needed because as uncertain as life is, you don’t know when it might end. You don’t want to put your loved ones into hardship because of your failure to prepare.

Retirement options - saving for the future image

Picture by Unsplash

Time to start preparing for retirement

No, thinking about retirement isn’t for older people only. The sooner you get started on it, the better it’s going to be for you in later life. Talk to your employer about 401(k)s so you can start saving automatically from your income, or an IRA or Roth IRA if your employer doesn’t provide 401(k) contributions.

Start investing

Roughly 20-30% of your whole income should go into financial preparation. After you emergency savings, debt relief, retirement, and insurance payments, you’re pretty much protected. If you have any extra cash after that, it’s time to start building it. Look into learning about building easy, set-and-forget investments to begin with. As you start building a portfolio, start learning how to manage it more actively.

The clock is already running. Make sure that in ten years from now you’re not in the same financial situation you’re in now. Lay the groundwork for a truly successful future.

 

How Saving Young Can Add Up Over A Lifetime

In times like these financial conversations are more common than ever. They are particularly important for those just starting out in their careers. The young generation of today has entered a battered workforce and economic turmoil. This article will discuss the importance of saving in your youth.

Compound Interest

Einstein is known for making the statement, “There is no greater force in the universe than compound interest.” This is certainly pertinent to this subject matter. Saving doesn’t have to be a matter of high salaries or inheritance, it is more important to have a disciplined steady approach. Someone who saves $100 monthly from age 25 to age 65 will have saved a total $48000.00  in 40 years time. These figures assume no interest gained in those 40 years.

Now here is where compound interest takes over. Now lets take that same scenario; $100 a month for 40 years assumed a 6% interest rate annually. Over that period of time your total would now be $200,144.82. Quite a stark difference you might say. Now let’s try to do this scenario with a 10% return; that would give us a total of $637,678.02! Your starting to get the picture now.

But why is it important to start early? Well simply put, your money will grow the most when it has the most time to compound. The example above is certainly impressive, but what if that same person started saving when they were 45 rather than 25? With the 10% annualized return they would have $76,569.69. A nice figure but nowhere near the $637,678.02 over 40 years. This should illustrate both the power of compounding and the importance of starting early. To compute your own scenario visit this compound interest calculator.

How do we find the interest?

So after exploring the scenario above you may be wondering how you achieve these rates of return. There is no simple answer to this. Currently interest rates on certificates of deposit and money markets are near 0%. These are the safest types of investments, but they do not provide much of return these days. The other options are stocks and bonds. These securities can be complicated to make money on even for an experienced investor. The best bet for a new investor would be a mutual fund.

A mutual fund is a collection of stocks and bonds that provide an investor with more exposure to the market. Instead of just buying one stock the investor holds shares of a fund, this fund can hold hundreds of stocks or bonds. This provides more diversification for the investor and more safety overall. Historically growth stock mutual funds have returned an average of between 8%-12% annually. For more information on investing options, check out Morningstar.com.

David Spader is a freelance writer and blogger who usually looks at savings account deals over at SavingsAccount.Org. His most recent review looked at the best saving account rates.