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By Helen Chevreau, Hub Staff
Wedding Bell Blues
After reading this new post from Broke Millennial, I feel lucky to have been spared the first few years of the “wedding apocalypse.” At 24, I have yet to have any of my close friends or relatives tie the knot, and now I know that in addition to being thankful for this budgetary hall-pass, I should really be taking this extra time to start saving for “other peoples’ weddings.” I know I’ve got at least another few years before I will need to start paddling the wedding wave, but knowing it’s something I will eventually need to factor in is important.
Millennial Illusions
The pressure to have our lives together has, I would assume, always been a very real and stressful issue for millennials. Since the onslaught of social media “dream lives” we see on sites like Pinterest, Etsy, Apartment Therapy etc., it’s extremely easy to fall into a pit of expectations that no normal 20-something should be expected to live up to. This is a huge issue I’ve found with becoming a grownup. We see snippets of peoples’ lives and we want our lives to look just like that, but we forget what it’s taken for them to get there.
This is discounting the fact a lot of that enviable content has, in fact, been manufactured for the sole purpose of getting us to part with our hard-earned-cash. This new post from Gen Y Planning is the exact pep-talk/ reminder we need to keep ourselves on track financially. So when you start contemplating that next big purchase, remember that long term financial independence will be more rewarding than the 2016 matte-black Beemer you just had to have.
Just Keep Saving
I know, I know: it feels like every time we turn around there’s someone else telling us we need to stick to a budget and that saving is so much easier when you create dedicated accounts for each item you’re saving up for. I figure, though, that if we hear it enough, eventually it’s going to stick.
This new post from The College Investor is another reminder of the importance of having a well-stocked emergency fund. It shows us that even when we think we have our finances under some semblance of control, unexpected costs can and will emerge to try and trip us up. It’s our job as savvy millennial finance whizzes to be prepared for these costs so we can hop right over them and keep on our trail to findependence.
Good Debt?
It’s a common question for debate: are credit cards good or evil? This new post from Dobot not only reminds us of the necessity of credit cards and accumulating good credit, but shows us how to go about creating good credit. The logic is straightforward: if you don’t use credit cards, you don’t have credit.
Though this might sound appealing to many in-debt millennials, it’s actually a real issue, and will be detrimental down the line. As the post states, it’s extremely important to start building good credit early, before you need it, because once it comes time to get a loan for a big purchase (home, business startup), it might be too late. If you’re applying for a loan and have never developed your credit, the bank will probably not take the risk of funding you.
The problem with credit cards arises when people begin overspending on them. It will take discipline (more for some than others), but this post helps us out by sharing an excellent strategy for credit-card use: pretend it’s debit. If you only spend what you know you can pay off, the spiralling that can often occur with credit-card debt is significantly reduced. And remember: always pay the entire bill each month.
Helen Chevreau is a student teacher, blogger and global adventurer. She also happens to be the daughter of Hub CFO Jonathan Chevreau. She has a B.A. in English and has been blogging for four years. Her next stop is Scotland for postgraduate studies in education.
