Adulting Is Hard, But These 5 Steps Can Set New College Grads on a Path to a Rich Life
A focus on three key habits — paying yourself first (through retirement and emergency savings), paying attention to your career (by learning and networking) and paying it forward (by investing time in your community) — can help get you there.
College graduation season is approaching, so a lot of new professionals will soon hear this timeless financial adage: Pay yourself first.
It's simple and smart. Make saving and investing a priority before everything else claims your paycheck. But it's only part of the picture.
Building a strong financial life often comes down to three habits that reinforce one another: Pay yourself first, pay attention to your career and, eventually, pay it forward to others.
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Here are five things for new college grads and young professionals to pay attention to right now.
1. Start building for retirement
Retirement seems super far away when you're just starting out. You might wonder if there will ever come a time when you really won't be working — or even wanting to work.
But one day, you'll want to have options, and that's what retirement is — the choice to work or not work, to scale back or try something new or be choosy about when or how you earn money.
Options and choices require a nest egg. The bigger it is, the more options you have.
Start by fully participating in your employer's 401(k) or similar program, contributing at least as much as your employer will match.
If your employer doesn't offer a 401(k) or other retirement plan, you can open and fund an IRA. A good general rule is to save the first 10% of your gross income.
When you intentionally set aside money for the future, you form a powerful habit of paying yourself first and living within your means.
You won't miss what you don't have to spend, and you'll quickly learn to love the power of compounding as you earn interest, not just on the principal invested but on the interest.
When you start early, you don't have to save crazy amounts to make up for lost time; you just have to be consistent.
2. Set aside cash reserves
Plan for the unexpected because the unexpected always happens. The car breaks down. Your friend decides to get married on a moment's notice in some expensive destination. You buy a house and the roof leaks during the first hard rain. You lose your job.
Start your emergency fund now. Aim to have at least three months of living expenses covered, then keep going, because as life goes on, the emergencies only get bigger.
Once you've set aside money for retirement and contributed to your emergency reserves each month, you're free to spend whatever lands in checking — after rent or mortgage, car payments, student loans, utility bills and other essentials.
Adulting is hard. It gets easier, especially if you're disciplined and focused on what matters.
It's pretty liberating to know exactly how much money you have to spend on whatever you want. Some adults never get there.
3. Keep learning
If there's something you want to learn how to do, do it. It could be that you want to pick up a new hobby — do it. Learn how to play tennis or take up knitting. I'm a big believer in having hobbies outside of work and family that feeds your soul.
You could even take classes through your community college, which is what I did when I was fresh out of college — and it changed my life.
After graduating with a journalism degree from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, I thought I'd be the next Katie Couric. Instead, I landed a bank job in my hometown, Charlotte, North Carolina, the banking capital of the South.
I wasn't a financial adviser then, and I just wanted to know what to do with my very first 401(k). I found a class at a local high school run by the local community college.
I loved that class so much — and it showed. The teacher suggested I become a financial adviser, so I entered the financial adviser training program at the bank where I worked.
Later this year, I'll mark 20 years as an adviser. I still use what I learned in that class — empathy and appreciation for how we are all on our own financial paths.
I met a widow who had never written a check before — a foreign concept for my generation and the ones that have followed. You never know what you'll learn, who you'll meet and how it will change your life — perhaps for the better.
4. Take time to network
Get to know your co-workers, other people at your company as well as other people in your industry and in your community. You must take the time and be intentional.
Just as with investing and saving money, you have to start early and be disciplined so that it becomes a habit and doesn't feel too outside your comfort zone. If you don't do this, your professional world will be small and stay small. That's no way to grow.
As one of my friends likes to say: Nobody will ever care as much about your career as you do.
Get out there. Make coffee meetups and lunch dates. Join professional organizations. Invest in your professional development. You and your career are worth it.
5. Invest in your community
Pay it forward by volunteering for causes and organizations that matter the most to you. Not so that you have something to put in the volunteer work section of LinkedIn, but because it will make you a better human — and strengthen your community. It might be something you wish later you had more time to do.
If you're afraid of a long-term commitment, start small. Plenty of organizations offer one-off experiences — from stocking food pantries to visiting older people in senior centers.
You could work the polls on election days, foster dogs or join the Meal Train committee at your church.
As you find what you like, you can choose where to focus and if you want to devote more time by joining a board.
Take the time now, and as with saving and investing money first, you won't miss it. Everyone thinks they're busier than they are.
Bottom line: By being intentional with your time and money early in your career, you're investing in a rich life for your present self, your future self and the people and things that matter most.
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