Learning to handle your finances wisely and responsibly is an ongoing process that requires your time and attention at every stage of your life. Personal finance is a big-picture event, not just a day-to-day or month-to-month process.
When you’re just starting out, learning to budget and make your money last can be a daunting process—especially if you’re not earning as much as you’d like to be. You have bills to pay, student loans to repay, a car payment to make, and that long weekend at the beach you and your friends are planning.
By learning the basics of personal finance now, you position yourself for financial success later in life. You’ll have money to put aside for retirement, to help your kids with their college costs, and to live comfortably into your golden years.
This book provides a base to help you get started with saving money, paying back what you owe, and establishing a favorable credit history. It helps you understand how to stretch the dollars you have and put something aside for your future. When you finish the last part, you’ll have a basic, sound understanding of how your personal finances work in various stages of your life. You won’t quite be an expert, but you’ll have a lot more confidence when it comes to handling your money and building a financially secure future.
How you handle your personal finances now affects nearly every aspect of your life in the future, so it’s essential that you get started on the right foot.
How This Book Is Organized
We wrote this book in five parts:
Part 1, Your Financial Foundation, discusses how a good foundation can be your start to a successful financial future. Understanding what kind of bank accounts you need and getting a handle on your income and expenses helps you get an overview of your finances and learn to manage them with confidence.
In Part 2, Building Your Credit, we discuss credit cards and how to use them properly. What you do with your credit card or cards can be helpful or detrimental to your future credit score. Using your card responsibly and paying off your debt each month helps your credit score and makes it easier for you to borrow money in the future. Fixing your credit once it’s been damaged can be very difficult, so it’s important to build good credit from the beginning.
If you’re saddled with student loans, you’re by no means alone. Paying back all that debt can put a lot of pressure on your budget and make it difficult to think about saving. Part 3, Paying Off Your Student Loans and Debt, shares some strategies you can employ to pay less on your loans and have some money left over to pay off credit cards or start your emergency fund.
Hopefully you’ve found a good-paying job that offers benefits. The job market is improving, but many people still find themselves in jobs for which they’re overqualified and not making as much money as they would like. If you’re in that position or are unemployed, Part 4, Your Money and Your Career, gives you some tips for stretching your paycheck or using your unemployment benefits wisely.
Starting to save money when you’re young can help ensure your financial comfort and stability for the future. As you learn in Part 5, Your Savings, even small savings can add up when they’re invested wisely and have time to grow. To get your money working for you, you’ll need to know the best kinds of accounts for saving and ways you might invest your money.
Throughout your life, it will be necessary for you to spend money—sometimes a lot of money. Part 6, Big-Ticket Purchases, is where to turn if you’re planning to buy a new car or a house in the future. In these chapters, you learn what you should be starting to think now and also discover the best ways to accomplish your goals. And once you’ve made a major investment, you’ll need insurance to protect it.
As we discuss in Part 7, Relationships and Money, your financial situation is tied to your personal situation in many ways, and your life circumstances affect your financial circumstances. Being single has different financial implications from being married and having children. It’s important to understand how your financial situation changes along with your relationships and learn how to keep your money safe and working for your future.
Retirement probably seems like a different lifetime at this point, but the years pass quickly and it’s important that you start thinking now about your future, as we cover in Part 8, Looking to Your Future. Investing money now in an employer-sponsored 401(k) plan or individual retirement account (IRA) gives your money time to grow and provide a comfortable retirement.
At the back of the book, we’ve included a glossary of terms, a list of further resources you can use to continue your financial education, and some other helpful forms and worksheets.
Throughout the book, you’ll find sidebars that provide additional information. Here’s what to look for:
Definition
The language of personal finance can be a bit daunting. These sidebars give you clear explanations of some of the financial jargon you’ll encounter.
Dollars and Sense
These tips offer practical information and suggestions to keep you in control of your personal finances.
Money Pit
Be sure to read these cautionary notes. They could keep you from making some common mistakes regarding your personal finances.
Pocket Change
These snippets of information on a variety of topics give you something to talk about at your next cocktail party.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the many people who provided time, information, and resources for this book. Especially, we thank our editors at Alpha Books and Gene Brissie of James Peter Associates.