Chill Maadi

When I was younger, the plan for my future was pretty straightforward. You go to high school to learn, get good grades, and get into a good college. You go to college to get good grades and then get a good job. After that, just circle the mouse wheel until retirement. OK, that last part about the wheel was my own addition but that basically was my “job” as a kid. That plan worked for me and it’s the path many people have walked with great success, but it’s not the only path.

With the government looking at additional regulation on the for-profit colleges, I started to wonder again whether college is “worth it.” In general, it is. However, recently with all these for-profit schools, a lot of people are going to college unnecessarily. They’re being promised things that the schools can’t deliver. They’re being sold something they don’t need, depending on what they want to do, and they’re only buying it because we’ve put “college” on a pedestal. In this Devil’s Advocate post, I explain why you might want to skip college.

Most Colleges Don’t Teach Skill Trades

Colleges are good at teaching things best learned in a classroom or a laboratory. Philosophy, chemistry, physics, mathematics, psychology, and such. They are not as good at teaching skill trades like being a mechanic or a welder or a fisherman. For skill trades, you are better off going the route of an apprenticeship or a vocational school that specializes in that skill trade.

If you go to college and get a degree in business only to graduate and become a fisherman, you’re wasting your money. That’s not to say a degree in business is bad for someone who is a car mechanic, but you don’t need to spend all that money and four years in a classroom when all the skills you need to learn are best learned hands on in a shop. A fisherman should, if he or she chooses to, go back to school for a business degree if it makes sense. But he or she should not go simply because everyone says he or she should go.

Not Everyone Finishes College

This entire post was inspired by this article in the New York Times that is advocating that some people skip college. One of the scariest bits of information they shared was a projection from the Department of Education. “Perhaps no more than half of those who began a four-year bachelor’s degree program in the fall of 2006 will get that degree within six years…”

Let’s say 50% of people complete the program within 6 years, that means 50% of people don’t finish and are paying for something that they won’t ever receive. That also means that a percentage of the people who do finish will be overpaying, since it will take them longer than the stated four years. What’s amazing about that statistic is that it screams one pivotal idea – not everyone is suited for college.

The problem is you can’t expect kids to know this because they haven’t been to college. They haven’t charted out their futures. That’s why you really need to rely on an honest and capable high school guidance counselor to help you decide what you should actually do.

Opportunity Cost of 4 Years

The average cost of college in 2009-2010 is $26,273 a year for a private college, $7,020 for a public college according. That means over four years you’ll have spent over $100,000 at a private school and $28,000 at a public school. When you consider the opportunity cost of not working for four years, coupled with the $100k/$28k actual cost, a college graduate is very much deep in the financial hole. Now imagine the value today!

According to data from U.S. Census Bureau, the average high school graduate makes $30,400 a year. The average bachelor’s degree makes $52,200. How long does it take for the college graduate to catch up considering they’ve paid $100,000+ and haven’t been pulling a salary for four years (totaling $121,200). It takes a long time.

You Can’t Afford It

Student loan debt figures are at all time highs. Why is it socially acceptable to tell people “you can’t afford that Maserati” or “you can’t buy a 10 bedroom home” when they can’t, but not OK to say the same about college? Why is credit card debt so bad when student loan debt is good? People are graduating with a hundred thousand dollar student loan debts, which can’t be discharged in bankruptcy, and saddling themselves with multi-hundred dollar loan payments.

You should not go to college if you cannot afford it. This would be different if we weren’t surrounded by horror stories of student loan debt. These are stories of graduates who can’t find jobs and must meet a small mortgage payment each month. You hear about a philosophy major with $50,000 in debt and no job prospects. The reality is that they shouldn’t have gone to that school to pursue that major… it wasn’t worth it and they couldn’t afford it.

If you’re choosing a major that has a low starting and low career pay, you will spend the next 30 years paying off loans. The only way how people I know pay off loans for education or social work degrees is through government assistance programs that forgive a certain portion for every year of “service.” It sucks, but it’s true.

You Don’t Want To

Remember when you were a kid and your parents told you to eat your vegetables? You probably fought them but you eventually ate them. You did it because your parents knew what was good for you and you, as a kid, didn’t. Perhaps they’re doing the same thing with college, telling you to go because it’s the right thing to do. They want you to go to college because it does, in many cases, give you an advantage in the workforce. They want you to go because they can tell their friends that you are going to college. But you should only go if you feel like that’s the best option for you.

You shouldn’t go to college because your parents want you to, or because your guidance counselor wants you to, or because your best friend is going and you want to be with him or her. You should go, and put yourself on the hook for tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars, if it’s the right decision for you.

(Photo: walkadog)

A financial plan’s foundation includes:

• handling your living expenses comfortably,
• keeping adequate emergency reserves,
• protecting yourself and your family with insurance and
• making investments to help reach future goals.

Financial planners recommend saving at least 10% of your take-home pay. (And that’s if you start saving for your retirement in your 30s; the longer you wait to get started, the more you’ll have to save.) You should put this money aside first thing each month so that you won’t be tempted to spend it. Budget your expenses around what’s left.

Create your own emergency fund to cover unexpected expenses, such as sudden illness, or major car or house repairs. A reserve of two to six months’ of living expenses can prevent the need to dip into your savings. Set aside a small amount each month and keep it in a bank savings account, money market fund with check writing privileges, or other readily available place.

Insurance is designed to protect you from major financial losses such as death, disability, large medical expenses, or loss or destruction of your property. Choose the type(s) and amount of insurance that provide(s) the most security for you and your family.

In short, before you begin investing you should:

• make sure your income exceeds your expenses
• set up an emergency fund
• secure adequate insurance
• consider owning a house (mortgage interest is tax-deductible)
• consider buying a tax-deferred Individual Retirement Account (IRA)
• bring your debt repayment under control

Getting Started

The first step toward a sound financial plan is to determine where you are financially and how you got there. Look at your net worth – the difference between your assets and liabilities – and cash flow – the money flowing in and out of your wallet and checking account. Also take account of:

• your personal assets and liabilities,
• your health and happiness,
• how you spend your time, and
• who you can turn to in the event of a crisis.

Your plan should enable you to do what is important to you.

Net Worth = Assets – Liabilities

To calculate your net worth, list all of your assets, including:

• cash on hand,
• investments,
• the market value of possessions like your house, car and furnishings,
• Social Security and other government benefits, and
• employer-provided benefits, such as group life insurance or profit-sharing programs.

Your liabilities are the amounts you still owe lenders for mortgages, car and student loans, and any credit card debts. Subtract your liabilities from your assets and you have your net worth.

Next figure your cash flow, or budget. Use a budget sheet to list everything that contributes to your monthly income and expenses. Any income above your outgoing expenses can go toward building your financial future. If your expenses are greater than your income, however, you would be wise to eliminate some unnecessary spending or increase your income. Financial planners recommend looking at net worth and cash flow at least once a year so you can quickly adapt to changes in your financial situation.

Where does this leave you? To evaluate your overall financial situation you must first Identify short-, medium- and long-term goals. Short-term goals could include buying a home computer, taking a vacation, or continuing an education. Buying a home or sending your kids to college could be medium-term goals. Achieving financial independence, planning your retirement or starting a business could be long-term goals.

You do not have to commit money to your goals all at once, but you do need to prioritize them. By saving for long-term goals early, your money has more time to grow and compound and you will end up with much more in the long run.

Not to get into a political debate or anything, but I thought this would be a great example of the need to have an emergency fund saved up.

I was never very hasty about saving money in case disaster struck, but I started the habit because everybody recommended it. Truthfully, I didn’t really need the emergency fund during my college years and you probably feel that you don’t need it now either.

But guess what? Get that emergency fund habit started because eventually you will need emergency money! You never know when. You never know how. You never know what for. But, you will need a stash of cash one day and you’ll be happier if you started now with small bits of money.

My habit of regularly saving a set amount of money for my emergency fund is really paying off now.

My teacher union (You did know that I’m a teacher right? Five years of college plus two years for my masters degree and a teaching credential. Whew, I’m all educated out!) is getting ready for a strike in the next few months. Nobody knows how long the strike will last. It might be a day. It might be for 17 days. It might be for months. During the strike, I will be walking that line and not receiving my regular paycheck.

Instead of freaking out, I am mildly worried. My rather casual attitude toward my emergency fund means that I only have $4,000 in there instead of $10,000, which is my goal. However, even my small emergency fund will allow me to strike without being anxious about my lack of income. The same cannot be said for some of my colleagues.

Trust me, I will be putting all my extra money into my emergency, or strike, fund in the next few weeks. Just in case.

What about you? Even though you feel that you won’t need that emergency fund now, get it started with a small montly deposit of $20 or $50 now. You’ll save up a small bit of cash and, more importantly, get into the habit of saving money.

Where can you save this money? Well, I have to entice you to come back to read frugal101 some how, don’t I?

The end of the year is fast approaching. Soon you’ll be bellying up to your Thanksgiving feast and perhaps playing chicken with other holiday shoppers in some mall parking lot. Of course, you may be thinking about your holiday shopping already. And if you’re smart, you’ll also start working on your financial plans for 2018. It’s never too early.

Here are three simple things that you should do for your finances before year end.

1. Make a financial plan for the upcoming year.

There is no time like the present. Never put off tomorrow what you can do today. I am sure that you have heard all of these clichés before. These sayings may be old but they are true. Now is the time to formulate your financial plan for next year.

Although most of us tend to think about budgeting as a weekly or monthly exercise, you can benefit from making an annual spending plan, too. After all, some expenses (like those holiday gifts) only come around once a year.

Here’s how to do it:

Make a list of your monthly income and expenses from the current year. Be sure to include every expense including the small ones like entertainment. You can then make a projection for next year’s budget from the current year’s expenses. Look for areas where you can trim excess expenditures to increase your bottom line. The total amount of money left over can be used to pay down debt or to start investing.

While you’re at it, craft a plan to reduce your debt in 2018. Find one or two credit card bills or student loans that you can totally pay off before the year is over. You want to finish each year in better financial shape than the previous one.

Feeling ambitious? Take the time to make a five-year financial plan.

2. Review your investment portfolio.

Smart investors buy and hold, but they don’t just “set and forget”. Periodically, you should re-balance your portfolio. The end of the year is a perfect time.

Review your investment strategy over the past couple of years and see how it worked for you. Were you too aggressive or too conservative in your investing? Did your portfolio outperform the market as a whole? You may think that you are a master investor, but if your performance lagged the market, then you may need to look at picking up an index fund.

Check over your portfolio and rebalance if necessary. Make sure that your asset allocation plan is still in line with your goals. You may find that your portfolio mix has shifted dramatically during the year. It only takes a few minutes to get your portfolio back into balance. You should also update your contact information and beneficiaries. Save yourself the headache of making these changes in the New Year.

3. Increase your contribution amount.

Did you know that your investment contribution amount should never stay the same? If you are contributing the same amount to your retirement plan as in 2014, then something is wrong. Every year that passes you should increase the amount of money that you contribute to your 401(k) or IRA. Your company may have provided you with a raise over the past 10 months or an end of the year bonus. A portion of this money should be applied to your retirement portfolio.

At a minimum, try to increase your contribution 1% every year. Although you shouldn’t miss 1% every time you add it, over time those small increases become 5% and 10%, which means a big long-term boost to your investments.

Don’t have a retirement plan? Open one!

Well that’s your hit list for the end of the year. I hope that this helps you in your wealth building goals! If you start tackling some of these now, you’ll have a few less To-Dos on your list when the New Year rolls around.

What’s better than saving some money? Saving money without really noticing that you’re saving money. How do you do this? Take a look at some of the less important things in your life and see if you can cut back. Or, take a look at some of the things you take for granted and cut back. Or, just trim something you don’t even use much anymore but still pay for… all these things can be removed to save you a little bit of money without you noticing one bit.

1. Cancel that Netflix Account.

How many movies do you really watch? Cancel that Netflix account and instead go with something like Redbox where you pay $1 a night (often times free with a promotional code) and save yourself that $20-$30 a month you’re paying now. I know I’ve been at my friends’ places and seen the same Netflix envelopes month after month.

2. Drink more water.

Get a water bottle, fill it up and drink from it during the day. Get used to drinking water and you won’t drink more expensive stuff like soda and coffee. Get used to drinking water and you’ll likely eat less, cutting out those expensive snacks. Get used to drinking water and improve your health, which means less in health care costs down the road that will be difficult to quantify. As a corollary, when you go out to eat, ask for water instead of your beverage of choice. This is a directly quantifiable savings because do you really want a $2 soda?

3. Visit the library.

Books are expensive and I’ve done a scientific experiment that has definitively proven that the only reason why you would ever buy a book is so that you can put it on your bookshelf to prove how educated you are. Seriously, I have done such an experiment because I know that after I read through a book once, there is a 99.99999% chance that I will never open it again and thus the only logical reason to ever buy a book is to show off. Okay, I’m being facetious but let the library be your bookcase and not only will you save money, you’ll save space, and even some trees. DVDs are available at the library too… so you can scratch off #1 too if you just do #3.

4. Switch to CFL.

Switching to compact fluorescent light bulbs will save you huge on your electricity bills since the bulbs use about a quarter of the electricity of their regular light bulb equivalents. Now, the bulbs will be more expensive but the lowered electricity bill plus the longer lifespan overcomes the initial price hit without minimal cost to you.

5. Reduce phone, TV, internet or just threaten to cancel.

Do you really need 23094820394238 minutes on your cell package? How about 290384029 channels? Heck no, I have like 500 channels and all I watch are ESPN, The History Channel, and maybe Oxygen (okay, not really Oxygen); but if you don’t want to give up all those options, consider just calling up your cable company and demanding a better rate. Verizon is coming into the neighborhood soon so I think I’ll be calling up Comcast and asking them to reduce my rate or I’m jumping ship. Either way, paying less for the same service is certainly an invisible way to save money!

If your finances are not just messy, but causing anxiety attacks, then it’s time to go into EMERGENCY mode. If you can no longer meet the minimum payment or you are continually forget payment for one credit card or another, it’s time to go into EMERGENCY mode. If you are dead serious about getting rid of this dead albatross around your neck and you want it done quick, then you might consider some of these EMERGENCY measures.

However, I want you to understand and accept that there are some financial situation that you can NOT handle on your own. These are rare, but they exist. If your health or well-being is jeopardized by your financial situation, then please seek professional help.

f you think you can handle it on your own and you are committed to, then read on. NOTE: I’m not a kind person. I don’t kid around. There are some harsh ideas in here, but if you are now in a financial emergency, then you must treat it like an emergency.

Emergency Debt Management

• Know Thy Debt: Gather all your most recent credit card and other debt statements together. List them by name, type, total balance, and minimum due. You need to know the monster you are fighting before you can fight. Are you able to make the monthly minimum payments? Then KUDOS! You are in a good place. If not, then find out why. If it’s a matter of simply not having enough money, then don’t worry, continue reading, you will get ideas on what to do to get enough money to meet the minimums.
• Least to Greatest: Arrange your debts from the least to greatest according to the outstanding balance. Different folks have different suggestions for how to arrange your debt, but I know that the younger we are, the more impatient we are to kill these debts. Arrange your debt from least to greatest so that you can get rid of the smallest debt quickly, see immediate progress, celebrate, and be motivated to work on the next smallest debt.
• Negotiate Lower Interest Rate: It’s time to call the credit card company and ask them nicely to lower your interest rate! The higher your interest rate, the higher your minimum payment and less of your money is actually working to lower your balance. You want that interest rate to be as low as possible, single digits or even zero percent. Call and ask for the supervisor immediately. Don’t bother with peons. Nicely ask for a lower interest rate. State that you are having difficulty meeting the monthly minimum payment (truthfully or not) and rather than defaulting, you want to be able to continue to pay. Threaten them with moving your balance to a competing credit card company who offered you a lower interest rate. You will usually get a lower interest rate simply by asking nicely. There are companies who are just HARD! You may have to follow through on your threats by transferring your balance elsewhere. If you have room on your other credit cards, call them up and see if they’ll give you a deal if you transfer your balance to them. If you don’t have room, then you’re out of luck. Since we are in EMERGENCY mode, chances are, you don’t have the credit-worthiness to apply for another credit card in order to transfer the balance. Don’t apply for a new credit card, that’s just more trouble down the road.
• Pay the Minimum: Yes, pay the minimum! No matter what, pay the very minimum on all these credit cards. If you had called up the credit card companies and convinced them to lower your interest rate, then there is a little breathing room. Do not slack off, pay the minimum on all your cards at all time! Arrange for automatic payment through your bank or through the credit card companies. I’m assuming here that you have the funds necessary to meet the minimum. If you don’t, read on for more suggestions.
• Pay MORE than the Minimum: The idea here is NOT to maintain your debt, but to get RID of your debt. You will have to pay more than the minimum! Where are you getting the extra money? You already have it! When you negotiate a lower interest rate, your minimum payment is lowered as well. The difference between your new minimum payment amount and your old minimum payment amount is what will get you out of hot water. Every month, pay all the credit card companies the new minimum amount, but heap all the “extra” money, meaning the difference between the new and old minimum amount, on your smallest balance credit card. The extra amount will quickly add up and KILL that small credit card. Then, take all your freed up money, the difference between the old and new minimum PLUS the minimum payment on this now defunct credit card, and apply it to the next credit card on your list. THAT credit card will soon be gone because you are. Do you see where we are going with this? Without need new sources of income, using just what you have now, you are going to systematically kill off one credit card after another.
• Pay EXTRA: In order to really get rid of your credit cards quickly (and for some people, quickly means in five years), you will want to apply extra money to the balance. Where will you get the extra money from?
• Hold a garage sale:  Gather all the stuff you purchased using your credit cards and sell them! I kid you not. Sell all those books, clothes, toys, extra T.V.s, radios, computers, programs, everything that is not absolutely essential! We are in a financial EMERGENCY and we don’t want to stay there. Sell everything that’s not essential. You will easily make hundreds of dollars because we young’ins just love to gather crap that we don’t need. Sell textbooks online. Post on craigslist.org. Hold a good old fashion garage sale. Clear out the lovely, yet useless furnitures. Bookshelves, gone. Extra lamp you don’t turn on more than once a week, gone. The five backpacks that you don’t use, gone. I won’t be surprised if by doing this, you have enough money to kill one credit card immediately!
• Live a STERILE existence: Yes, it’s time to live the life that you actually can afford. You are probably in this mess, same as me, because you want to live the life to which your parents accustomed you (or should have). Now, it’s time to live the life that you can afford. The sad fact is, you CAN’T afford much! And with credit card debt hanging over your head, you can afford even LESS! This is motivation enough to get rid of credit card debts so that you actually have MORE money to spend on yourself! No more luxuries! No more movies on Friday nights. No more dinners out, period! No more lunch at the nearby fast food joint. No more manicures. No more hair-cuts. No more shopping, obviously. These are all things you CAN’T afford. Really, think about it. Were you ever able to pay for these things with cash or only with credit card? If you haven’t got the cash, you can’t afford it. If you have the cash, but you can’t pay the minimum on the credit card, then you can’t afford it. If you have the cash, can pay for the minimum on the credit card, then use most of the cash to pay down the credit card, and maybe treat yourself once in a long while. Just remember, YOU CAN’T AFFORD IT! Don’t fool yourself or your friends into thinking that you can. You can’t.
• Get a JOB: Yup, time to get a job in order to pay the debt monster. Even if it’s only babysitting one day a week, it’s a job that will bring in extra money to help pay down the credit card debt. And know that this money is NOT for you to spend. You’ve already spent this money when you used your credit cards three years ago. Time to payback what you owe. Maybe keep a small percentage, say 10%, for yourself, but otherwise, send it off to the credit card companies immediately.