
Top 3 Financial Tips for your 20s
Top 3 Financial Tips for your 20s
Congratulations! You’ve survived your teenage years, finished higher school education and graduated with professional skills, confidence and a zest to conquer the world. All the hard work, resilience and many life’s highs and lows have been successfully mastered but how confident are you when it comes to money and finances in your 20s?
Here are the 3Cs (Career, Cash and Credit) to consider in your 20s.
1. Career
Always strive to improve yourself, gather many life experiences especially the people and relationship skills to skyrocket your chances to get the career you’ve always dreamed of.
Whatever your career choices are, it’s what you do with the money you make now that can really set you in the right direction for a financially rewarding life.
When you start a job, there are many financial decisions to make like understanding your salary details. Understand what your entitlements are, be wise when it comes to making superannuation fund choices and be interested in how your super money is invested.
In your 20s, you have an incredibly powerful ally: TIME. This means you can afford to go for growth and invest in areas where there are maximum opportunities for your money to grow in value.
Take an interest in how much you get paid, how much tax you pay and whether your super is appropriately invested.
As you progress in your career, don’t go too crazy in spending all you earn but learn how to invest and have fun at the same time. Don’t waste the opportunity of time in your 20s as you only get older and older and time flies by quickly.
2. Cash
You’ve just landed for your first job, the money is rolling in and you hardly have any expenses to pay for. Life is not just good, it’s great. So, whilst life is great, and you have great earning power with few expenses to take care of, try to get an addiction to savings.
Save as much as you can whilst you can. In your early 20s, it may not seem too obvious why you need to save but when things like getting married, buying your first home or becoming parents are next in line to what you want in life, all these life milestones cost a lot of money.
Whilst cash is abundant, learn to save and invest it. You can enjoy your earnings but don’t forget to pay yourself first and be smart about investing your cash for growth.
If you want to splurge then do it but learn to save for it first. Get into a wise financial habit of setting goals, saving up for them and take this mantra with you for the rest of your life.
Being in your 20s, you are responsible and mature enough to take care of yourself, financially. Don’t rely on the Mum and Dad Bank, and set up an emergency fund, and tuck this away for a rainy day.
3. Credit
Don’t get caught up in over using ‘plastic money’. It’s so easy to tap and go, and now, it’s even easier to pay for things as your smartphone becomes a payment device. Every ‘tap’, ‘beep’ and ‘scan’ is a financial transaction that does need to be paid for.
Temptations and distractions abound so it’s really important to get your debts under control. Especially for university or higher education graduates, you have the HECs debt to pay off so use your earnings to pay it off as soon as possible and restrain on the use of credit or plastic money.
It’s a given, these days, that credit cards are essential life tools used in everyday transactions to pay bills, to purchase groceries and so on. So, be aware of your credit limits and don’t go over the limit. Be disciplined to pay-off your credit card payments within the interest free time and don’t be too haphazard with it.
Remember, you’re going to need access to credit to buy a home and other big life expenses, so be smart with how you use credit now.
Life is fun and exciting in your 20s and it should be. Just learn to be smart with financial choices around Career, Cash and Credit.
Do you need to further assistance with planning in your 20s? Our professional advisers can point you in the right direction.
Talk to a Dome Financial Adviser in Charlestown, Tamworth and Hunter Valley.
The information contained on this page is for discussion purposes only and is not intended to constitute financial product advice. It does not take into consideration any persons objectives, financial situation or needs. You should consider its appropriateness in light of your circumstances and consider seeking professional advice relevant to your individual before making a decision based on any information on this page.
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