I'll just come right out and say it, I'm not the best with money. If
you came to me for financial advice, I would highly suggest you run in
the opposite direction and go pick yourself up a book by Suze Orman
or some other financial expert. However, if you'd like someone to
believe in you, someone to push you towards your passions and dreams,
someone to encourage major change in your life... well then, by all
means, come talk to me!
But this post is about money.
I read a blog post on Get Rich Slowly today (yes, I do actually think about my finances, at times) entitled How My Net Worth Went from $-40,000 to $285,000 in Five Years. I think there is some great advice in this post. The major bullet points are listed below:
- We minimized our housing costs.
- We paid ourselves first.
- We lived well below our means.
- Any additional money was saved.
- We aggressively paid down debt.
- We invested our savings for the long term.
Notice anything particularly unusual about this tale of financial success? I do. I notice a lot of WE.
This particular story begins when a young couple graduates
university. One 1/2 of the couple carries $50K in school and car debt,
while the other 1/2 has $10K in cash, which is where the -$40K figure
comes from. They aggressively followed the tips listed above and 5
years later, they amassed quite a healthy chunk of change.
However, what about those of us who weren't so lucky to graduate
college and have a partner around to share all of our expenses,
encourage us to stay on track budget-wise, and absorb 50% of our
debts? What about those of us who chose to spend our 20s living in
large cities that we probably couldn't afford, traveling the world,
moving a lot, and generally experiencing life?
Well, there's plenty of blogs and blog posts around for us... but still, I think the advice given above should clearly state: Get a boyfriend or girlfriend in college and stick with them!
I'm off to go roll some change...
As you may have heard me mention before, Tiny Choices is a super blog about all the tiny choices one can make to lessen his/her impact on the environment. My friends Jenn and Kari started this blog just under a year ago, and have amassed an incredible amount of research, anecdotes, reviews and challenges. They've shared a lot about their own tiny choices as well as encouraged TC readers to share theirs. You can share YOUR perspective by taking the Tiny Choices Survey today!
