I was incredibly blessed to have the opportunity to play college football. Even more blessed for it to pay for my 4 year degree. I chose a degree in finance because I've always liked money. Making it, saving it, spending it. I love the way it makes the world work. How supply and demand laws affect everything. I was disappointed when I found, in the world of finance, there are really only 2 routes you can go without a masters. Financial Planning, or Sales. I'm sure I'm missing something, but if you start your job search on Google or LinkedIn with the words "entry level finance" 90% of the results are Financial Services or Sales. These are solid entry level careers. I think the best skill someone can acquire is sales. I just always had a problem with having to sell something before I was able to try it myself. How can I sell solar if I don't have solar panels on my house? How can I sell window cleaning if I don't care what my windows look like? Some people have the skill to just make the sale without thinking about the other persons financial situation, but I don' t have that skill. I care too much about if it's the right purchase for Betty, or Frank, or Joe and not if I can close this customer as fast as possible. Luckily I found a way to combine sales and something I believe in, but that's another blog post. This isn't a post about why you shouldn't get a finance degree. It's actually the opposite. I think everyone should have at least a minor in finance. What it lacks in career advancement it makes up for in financial literacy. I knew the importance of investing early, budgeting, insurance, taxes, real estate. Things that most people don't get into until they're married with a kid on the way and realize they don't have a big enough home. But if everyone had a finance degree we wouldn't have any doctors when we get sick, so instead I will attempt to give you the gist. (This is not personal financial advice. These are general guidelines that work for me. Consult a financial professional for advice on your specific situation) Understand the difference between assets and liabilities. Assets have monetary value, liabilities are what you owe people. There is also such a thing as depreciating assets. These are what you need to avoid. The first thing that should come to mind is a car. You buy a car for $20,000 and after a few years you need a different one. When you go to the dealership are they gonna give you $20,000? Heck no. You'll be lucky to get $15,000. (Unless you bought in 2020, then you probably made $10,000 somehow but we won't talk about that). This scenario isn't all that bad. A $20,000 car is actually a pretty solid price in my opinion of cars. It's how much I paid for my truck. But a very real scenario for some people is to go and get a massive loan to buy a brand new Ford Raptor for $90,000 (liability). They drive it for a year, realize they can't afford the payments, and when they go to sell can only get $70,000. But they still owe $75,000 on the truck. So you have to pay $5000 just to sell the dang thing! That's an extreme example but I need to get the point across, they lost money to drive the same places that my $20,000 truck takes me that's paid off.
Now that you're nice and scared let's talk good assets. Appreciating assets! Houses, stocks, gold if you're into that. The housing market is very correlated with inflation. And I don't think you need a degree in finance to understand that inflation is almost always happening. So imagine if you have a paid off car and used those same payments to buy appreciating assets. Bought a home in a good area, maxed out your Roth IRA, start dollar cost averaging into some dividend paying stocks.
There is no one plan that fits all. I can't sit here and post saying "do this" because your situation is different than everyone else. But this is the first post of many to help you craft your own plan. To start, get a pen and paper. Write down all your monthly expenses to get an idea of your monthly "burn rate". That will give you an idea of what you have leftover to invest. Until then, follow the twitter for more tips. Have a good week.
-Isaac Johnson
@imisaacjohnson
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