Here’s a reminder to fresh graduates: life after school is never easy.
You will have bills to pay, obligations to fulfill, and work to do. Managing your money is probably the single most important skill you need to have in life but will never learn in school. The first thing to learn is the art of saving money and how to be financially savvy.
Here are four tips from BPI Management, Inc. for uninitiated college grads who wish to start their adult lives the right way.
1. Get a decent job
Working to support yourself sets you up for independence and maturity. Having a source of income and being productive are essential. It’s the beginning of your relationship with money as an adult. Of course, others may have entrepreneurial inclinations. So whether it is a job or a business, the idea is to have the means to earn.
2. Keep a grip on your finances
If you’re living independently, you will be paying for your own food, utilities, rent, and other things you never worried about when you were still studying and living with your parents.
Learn how to spend wisely, and clearly identify needs and wants so you can fine-tune your budget. Make a habit of listing your expenses to make it easy for you to track where your money goes. Knowing how much you spend in, say, a month, is important to help you create a realistic budget that works for you.
3. Start investing
The easiest way to make your money work for you is through investing because saving money alone is not enough to secure your financial future.
There are many options for investments. One good way to invest is through mutual funds. These are professionally managed funds invested in a portfolio of various financial instruments or assets such as shares of stock of companies and bonds.
Various investment products could yield high returns for your money. These days, you can start investing in a mutual fund with as little as P5,000. The important thing here is to invest regularly. College graduates are in that sweet spot in their investing life cycle because they are young, and they have a lot of time to make their money grow.
4. Enroll in an automatic investment plan
The effort of setting aside a portion of your savings monthly to your investment may be a struggle at first.
To make investing easier, enroll in a Regular Subscription Plan. This way, you can schedule your monthly contribution to your investment for as low as P1,000. Further build your wealth through a non-hassle transaction, as you can easily enroll in these automatic savings schemes. This way, you save and invest a decent amount without feeling the financial burden.
For more information about ALFM Mutual Funds, and how to start your adult life on the right financial footing, visit www.alfmmutualfunds.com.