Dealing with money after college

Back at college I had to take a few Economics classes. At the beginning of the first course the Professor started off by saying "The basis of the study of Economics is that human wants are insatiable".

I didn't believe it. Living on a student's budget I contemplated the immense starting salaries of (gasp) $18,000 a year (this was 1977), and I couldn't imagine how I could ever spend it all.

We've probably all run across the "laws" that state that the work you get assigned expands to fill the time you have, or your possessions expand to fill your storage space. It's probably also "true" that for all too many people your spending expands to first your take home pay, and then to your credit limit.

Unfortunately, the only instruction most people ever receive in personal finance is watching several thousand television commercials a year, all with the same message "Buy now. Buy even if you don't need it. Buy even if you can't afford it".

There is a lot of good financial advice out there, but you do have to go looking for it. Suze Orman (sp?) has a show on PBS that's good for the basics. The best book I've run across is a classic from the 1920's "The Richest Man in Babylon". In a nutshell, learn to tell the difference between what you need, and what you want. Buy all your needs, but only a small percentage of your wants. Save at least 10% of your take home pay.

Or, as Dickens wrote:

"Annual income one pound, annual expenditure nineteen shillings and sixpence; result happiness.
Annual income one pound, annual expenditure one pound and sixpence; result misery."
Mr Micawber, Nicholas Nicholby, by Charles Dickens

Re: Dealing with money after college


I can't really address your other questions since I went to college in the evenings after work in an adult ed program.

The best advice I ever got though was to take a small portion of your salary starting with your very first paycheck and put that into a long term savings plan. Each and every time you get a pay raise you increase the amount of that deduction from your paycheck.

You don't have to start with much, the key is consistancy. Start with a $25 allotment every 2 weeks. If you get a 3% pay raise increase the allotment by 1% of your pay. Do that every time you get a pay raise for the rest of your life.

Once you get settled and start having recurring bills to pay you need to setup a savings account and build it so that you have enough to cover 4-6 months bills in case you get laid off or have a short term emergency where you can't work.

Once you have those you can start considering use of an IRA and/or 401K if you have one to build your retirement savings.

It's tons easier to start small now and build up than it is to build up your savings later on in life in a hurry.

I would like to participate in cash compensated focus groups as well as cash compensated clinical trials in NYC, Philadelphia, Baltimore, or Washington, DC.
Anyone out there with reccomendations? Thanks for any informations.

Any information on participating in focus groups or cash compensated clinical trials?

World--

Your posts are not on topic and you probably will not get an answer on this thread. Can you start your own thread to ask your own question?

Go to the top or the bottom of the page and click on "New Topic"--then enter your heading and your question.

The best advice I received was from my mom - some one with only a measly high school education. She told me never charge more on your credit card than you can afford to pay off the following month. So many friends of mine got over their heads in credit card debt. One friend had such high balances that she could barely pay the minimum amount and she had no other bills as she lived at home and did not have a car loan.

Another piece of good advice is to invest in your 401k as soon as one is offered to you. At that young age it is difficult to realize that you will one day need that money as retirement is so far away, but the advantages of invested young are huge.

an old german saying is : "spare in der zeit dann hast du in der not " - "save in time, so you will some (money) when you need it". ... but we used to make fun of it by saying : "spare in der not dann hast du zeit dazu" - "save when you are in need, 'cause you'll have lots of time now". ... seems to me a lot of people want to wait 'till they are down and out before they want to start saving. hbg