A lot of people could definitely relate in the above scenario; and you can be one of them. Your life after graduating college may not be about rainbows-after-the-rain and endless possibilities; it can be about living paycheck-to-paycheck, dreadful student loans, and no decent-paying job in sight. When you find a career where you’re making decent money, you can be one of the people who feel like they’re seeing none of it.
Financial literacy has nothing to do with finding a job or a college degree. When it comes to people dealing with money, you’ve probably seen two kinds: people who make less than you do but were able to put away more, and people who make much more than you do but still have nothing at the end of the day.
You never want to work the next years of your life with nothing to show for it, right? So start going out of your comfort zone and learn aggressively; and begin investing moderately. Your 30-year-old self will thank you if you start taking actions now for the benefit of your future. Oakmere Advisors based in Singapore and Tokyo is going to share some pointers with you, so you better read it and start imagining what your future will look like.
Point 1: You should invest
You want your future to be in your hands, right? That’s why you need to invest. Perhaps, you envy the generation of your parents or grandparents wherein a person can retire and live off his pension by having only one or two jobs in his lifetime. But now, everything has changed. It’s not enough to simply save money. In this generation, you’ll probably hop around jobs at least six times in your lifetime, which means your retirement is in your own hands.
Point 2: Before investing, be determined to learn more
In particular, you should learn aggressively and invest moderately. Learning about your options and the details will help you when you’re prepared to put your dollar in since a lot of people in their 20s get started with hardly any assets. Dealing with taxes is the most crucial area that affects every investment no matter what you choose to invest in. Never avoid it; but instead, accept it and learn, because it’ll be the difference between gaining the rewards of your investments and watching your hard work gone in seconds.
Point 3: There are different forms in investing
Just to be clear, this is not related to the distinction between commodities, currencies, stocks, and real estate.
Taking actions such as saving money, paying down debt, and reducing your spending can all lead to a better life. You should create a thorough plan to put yourself in the best position when the right investment comes. Before making an investment in your future, make sure that the foundation is set.
Point 4: It’s better to put ego aside in investing
The following is based on a recent research found by Oakmere Advisors, which tells the difference between men and women in investing and how it affects their success.
There’s a great possibility of people overestimating their own skills and predictions for success. Men are more overconfident than women, making women more rational investors. You know what drive investors to trade? Research says they’re ego, emotion, and greed. And you’ll highly destroy value the more you trade. Men often believe that returns are more highly predictable and rely less on their brokers. They also expect higher possible returns than women. Many financial advisors say it’s generally simpler to influence a man, to play in his insecurity, ego, and overconfidence. What is the most profitable strategy? Be rational and don’t let your ego run into you. Rational investors are likely to increase their expected utility by only trading and only purchasing information while overconfident investors lower their expected utility by trading too much and they hold unlikely beliefs about how high their returns will be and how exactly these can be estimated. In addition, they expend too many resources on investment information.
Point 5: Focus on your actions
Some things are needed to be done before putting your money into an investment vehicle, such as increasing your income, managing your income and debt, saving money, and reducing spending habits. Make sure you’re focusing your efforts in the right places. Everything means nothing if you’re paying a much greater percent interest rate on your credit card than the percent you make each year on a stock.
Point 6: Put different ideas into place
You shouldn’t only rely on your experience when it comes to investing. You should also consider talking and learning from other people’s experiences. You need to choose experiences from different people and see how they work for you. Adapt those experiences into you and your situation. Be open to trying different things.
Point 7: Before putting any money in, have a plan
The most important part in investing is planning. It’s probably easy to make one good investment; however, it requires planning to turn that good investment into another, and another, and another. If you’re not ready for the word “retirement”, begin with small steps, like buying a cheap home or having a few thousand dollars in your savings account. Then proceed to bigger goals.
Point 8: Don’t over-complicate investing
Use your daily behaviors to reduce all the complicated terms and numbers to its simple essentials. If you’re used to buying a $5 coffee in the morning, then you should be prepared to leave that habit. Save that $5 a day and it will surely add up. Try it for a month and you’ll have a hundred dollar or more in your pocket.
Point 9: Timing can beat location every time
“Location is everything” according to an old saying about real estate. It can be partly true; but oftentimes, timing is more important than anything. All forms of investing should have the right timing. Putting money in a fantastic property or stock at the wrong time in the market could be all for nothing. You should put money in an average property or stock at the right time.
Point 10: Don’t risk it all
There’ll be many people who will surely disagree with this point; but as a person in your 20s, you’re too young to lose everything. Oakmere Advisors wants to share an interesting thought of a certain individual who compared investing with baseball. He said that you don’t need to hit home runs to win. Some people will sit there and swing for the fences each time they’re at bat. It’s possible that they’ll get lucky and hit a homer; but they’ll also strike out a lot. All you have to do are a few solid plays and before you know it, you’ve scored a couple of runs and won the game.
