Financial Opportunities for Young Adults - 190

Welcome Money Buddies to this week's episode of Money Talk. This week we're talking about building a plan, recognizing opportunity, and taking a listener question. I'm your host, Skylar Fleming, and let's get talking. Welcome back to my second straight solo episode, episode 190, and we're quickly approaching episode 200 and I would love to do an a MA or ask me anything type episode where we talk through questions that you have for me. They can be financial or not. Whatever you want to ask, I want to answer it. We do have a listener question to talk about today, and you're gonna love this one. It's a perfect question for so many of you listening. You don't want to be YOLO with all your money, but you also want to have some fun in your budget. So I'm excited to share some personal stories about how my wife and I balance this one as well. With episode 200 coming up, I wanted to make sure to prep you all to get your questions in. You can Text them to me, you can email them to me or submit them on social media, I'll make sure to include them. I need a lot of questions, so please send them my way as soon as you can. I am also going to be using episode 200 as a great episode to update everyone on what the podcast is all about. It'll be a great one to share with your friends and family who need a money talk and that is still 10 weeks away though, and we got a lot of money talks between now and then. Don't be afraid to share this episode and get the money talks started. In this episode, we're talking about real financial opportunities for young adults because figuring out money in your twenties shouldn't feel like decoding a secret language. We'll cover why financial decisions can feel so difficult, how to build good money habits even on a small income. And smart ways to invest when you're just getting started. Plus, we have a great listener question so stay tuned for that. And if you're feeling overwhelmed by financial advice or unsure how to make a plan that actually fits your life, this episode is for you. The money talking points for this week are one, how can a financial planner or coach help you? Two, how can I avoid being afraid of money? And three, why are financial decisions so hard with those money talking points in mind? Let's get talking. We'll start off with the first one of how can a financial planner or coach help you? A financial coach or planner can help you by beginning to understand where to get started. There are so many different areas of personal finance and so many different things that you can do with your money. Someone who's seen it all or knows a lot about finance can help you get started. And With me recently completing the CFP Education and exam requirements, my mind is full of different opportunities that each of us has at our disposal. Working with a professional can open you up to that world of possibilities and you don't have to learn all of it. It can bring you clarity around your financial goals and make it easier to achieve them because there are so many things that we're trying to juggle. There's student loan planning, there's future college planning for kids there's all sorts of different things we have to juggle. Budgeting, saving for vacations, paying rent, saving for our bills, saving for maybe a future car or a future e-bike purchase. But working with a professional can get you on the right track. Perhaps you need somebody to push you in the right direction to help you a professional can also help you with that. They can be your accountability partner. Or money buddy And I think that is the key thing here. Is it the path that you want to be on? That's where a professional can help they can help you get where you want to be a professional that tries to push you down a specific route that is probably best for them in terms of commissions, maybe someone you want to avoid. Make sure to work with somebody who is going to look at all the different aspects of your financial life and consider the different angles you can take With all those different things going on in your life. A professional can also help spot patterns and other trends that you may have gone blind to or that you may just not know about. This happens in my wife and i's personal finances. We will grow a blind spot to spending in a certain area. Then if we take a different perspective or look through various reports on our spreadsheet, we can notice a trend that we want to squash. Now, a professional can come in and do that for you as well. They can help you find those trends that you didn't realize were bogging down your cash flow and your personal finances. But what would it mean to you to have someone dedicated to your personal finance and they're in your corner with you helping you move forward? So consider how a professional can help you in that area, whether it's a full on financial planner or a financial coach to help you with budgeting. But the second money talking point here is, how can I avoid being afraid of money? Well start simple. Start with some basic tracking to gain a clear understanding where your money's actually going. This can help you get started and take money head on, or you can avoid being afraid of money. By starting early, confront the fear of budgeting a paycheck by doing it one paycheck at a time. Don't try to figure out everything that goes into personal finance from. Budgeting to estate planning all at once or right away because that is overwhelming. Start small with something that's simple like understanding the one credit card that you have, or if you have a few, start by understanding just one of them and making sure you're paying it off and avoiding interest on that one. Then make it a goal for the next month or two, and then move on to your next card and slowly build this confidence because it's gonna be exponential. So much more in our finances and in our life is exponential than just compound growth. And then you can move to understand where your income is going. You can sign up for something like my budget, coach with me and connect your accounts, categorize a few months of expenses, and you're off to the races. But start small and don't feel like you have to figure this all out at once. You don't have to figure out how to invest, how to retire, how to get insurance, what type of insurance, how to save on taxes, business taxes, how to do your taxes, and much more all at once. Leave that to other people to help you figure it out. When you actually come up to that bridge, you've heard the saying, we'll cross that bridge when we get there. For some reason in personal finance, everyone wants to cross every single bridge right away. And you don't have to do that. I know money's important and it can be a big stressor for people, but you don't have to cross all of the bridges right at once. The term baby steps, it's a thing for a reason and it works for a reason. You take one small step at a time, and I like to tell people, figure out how to do something when you get to it. That's how I handle our money. Now, when something comes up, that is when I want to learn about it. If it hasn't come up yet, there's no reason for me to learn about it yet. If this section resonated well with you, Start by tracking your expenses for just one week. No fancy tools. Just write it on a piece of paper and start with that one simple step, and then review it at the end of the week. Maybe you can introduce a tool to help you track it easier so it's not as manual. Then you can work on your credit card, and then on some investing. There's so many steps that you can take. To do better with your money, but just do'em one step at a time or else you're gonna get overwhelmed because there really is so much to do. The third money talking point here is why are financial decisions so hard they can be so tricky. And why? That's because like in the last money talking point, there is so much to learn and a lot at play. There's emotions, relationships, mental health, physical wellbeing, appearance, and all of those have many other things within them. Let's take relationships, for example. You have your family, you have your friends, your coworkers. Those are all relationships that can influence how we spend money. And that's not even the limit. Since eating out is one of the major pain points in everyone's personal finances. Let's break it down on why those decisions can be so hard to deal with. You just woke up and you're ready to go for the day. How are you gonna spend money on food? We're just gonna talk about food for one day. Do you have enough food at home to eat? Do you have breakfast food? Because that can often be an area that gets overlooked. Do you need to go somewhere on your way to work? Are you going somewhere expensive? Are you. Going out of your way, so now it's costing you more time. There's a lot of things that go into this decision beyond money, but especially the money aspect of are you spending more money than you really need to because you aren't planning ahead of time. So now we're through breakfast, right? Maybe it doesn't have a relationship impact, but lunch certainly will. Coworkers, what if your coworkers want to go to lunch? Now there's. A relationship factor at play of spending your money in order to maintain your relationships with your coworkers. Now, let's move to dinner. What if your parents say, Hey, do you want to go out to eat tonight? Or, Hey, what if we get take out and watch the football game? Now there's another relationship in play with a financial decision. That's why this can be so difficult. Now let's move into physical health. so many restaurants give you way too much food. Here is the great strategy. Only ever eat half when you go to a restaurant and take the other half home and have leftovers. My wife and I recently went to Texas Roadhouse. the appetizer and the sides that they brought us early, that was enough for dinner. I was ready to go after just that, and it would've probably been, I don't know. 12 bucks maybe, and that was plenty of food. But then they brought us the rest of the dinner and we immediately cut it in half so that we wouldn't eat past that point. Set it to the side of the plate so that it's out of your normal cutting and eating zone, and then save it for later. Or even a better strategy is if you're going with two people or four people, order half the amount of meals of the people there and then just eat family style and share, cut it up and split it up. And that is what my wife and I are probably planning to do. If we go back, just order one meal and split it. It is expensive. The money reason itself is that eating out can be so expensive, and you just heard me talk about all these other relationship dynamics at play, whether it's family, friends, coworkers, and then there's your physical wellbeing, there's your emotional wellbeing, and being tired and worn out after work. There is so many things that can go into making your financial decisions so hard. That's why we have to be prepared. That's why we have to make a plan before the decision happens. Are we going to sacrifice relationships at work by not eating out? Are we gonna sacrifice our health by eating out? Are we gonna sacrifice our money by eating out? There's so many things that can go both ways. Maybe it's not a financial sacrifice, but it's a physical sacrifice because it's so bad for you and it's so much food. That is why financial decisions can be so hard, and that's again why it is so important to make the decision before you have to make the decision. And then it's a whole lot easier to use your clear head space to plan ahead and write it down. That's how you're actually gonna stick to it. You've heard me talk about written plans enough on this show, and that does it for the money talking points today. Now I want to talk to you about some of the opportunities that each and every one of you listening has ahead for you. There's some great questions and great points coming up here, so make sure to stay tuned. Let's get into the rest of this episode where we're gonna be talking about some financial opportunities for each and every one of you. So let's start off with. What is the first thing that I should do with money once I have a steady paycheck? This one's gonna be a fun one. If you have any feedback, please send it my way. I'd love to hear it and talk about it on a future episode. But what do you do when you get that first paycheck? Well, you need to save one months of income. That's the first step for me. This buffer makes it so nice. It makes it so much easier to actually budget and you get outta that paycheck to paycheck cycle. This strategy alone has helped me and my wife. In so many ways, extra savings, it's easier to budget. We don't care about payday. I don't know when my wife's next payday is. We will just randomly see the deposit show up in our account. And can you imagine not having to worry about when your paycheck is gonna show up? That is what having one month's income saved can do for you, because then you use the next month to refill that and budget based on it. Another thing to do when you first get that steady paycheck is to track your expenses. See where your money's actually going and figure out the holes in your plan. It's easier to plug them when you're first starting out, so if it's your first paycheck, track where the expenses for that first paycheck go. If you have years of behavior entrenched in your spending, it can be a lot harder. It's still possible, but it's harder. My wife and I recently recognized we were spending way too much on Amazon, so we implemented an Amazon cart day with a reminder every Friday where Where we would go check our Amazon cart and we would say, do we need what is in here? And often or not, I think there's only been one day where we kept one item in the cart. Everything else we just hit delete because we realized, oh, it doesn't really matter. I was just thinking about it in the moment and the ease of Amazon allowed me to put it in the cart and I would've bought it if we didn't have this reminder set up. So consider something like that. It's kind of a. One week rule instead of a 24 hour rule. Another thing to do with your first paycheck is start setting up an emergency fund. Now, a 401k match is also a great option here if your work has it, because that 401k match should be coming out before you get your first paycheck because if you have nowhere else you're investing. So let's say you're just starting out your first paycheck, your first steady job, and you have nowhere else you're investing. The 401k match is absolutely the place that everybody should get started because it's money that your employer is giving to you. That has the potential to grow so much. I am so grateful for the employer matches that I was able to take advantage of very early in my career because that money just continues to compound and grow. And now the next thing to do is to figure out some goals and write them down. You've heard me mention it already in this episode at least once. Write down your goals. Now what do you do if your paycheck isn't steady? Let's say you're working some sort of a sales job and there's commission coming. Well, let's try to stabilize it. You're gonna wanna stabilize your money by using only part of it to average it out. Let's say you make$130,000 a year, but it comes in big waves. So commit yourself to a budget of only 7,000 per month, and then when it's high, save the excess and when it's low, use that excess to build it back up. That is how you can stabilize it and live on a monthly budget or a monthly income when your income isn't necessarily stable on a monthly timeframe. That's just something to consider there, and I know that could be a huge help for people who are living on an unstable income, really get it figured out because if it comes in waves, it can be so easy to spend all of that$15,000 in the month that it's really big. But then in the month where it's only$3,000, you don't know what to do and you don't know how you're gonna pay for rent. So just pick a number that is less than what you make a month on average and go less than that so that you automatically have some savings being built up as well. And your lifestyle learns to live on less than you make. And that is the way to grow money is make sure you're at least living on less than you make. And make sure to try to stabilize your money. And that does it for some quick tips that you can do with your first paycheck or once you start getting a steady paycheck. Next, I wanna talk about what opportunities lie ahead. If you're just getting started, well get this. You're just getting started. You still have the opportunity to change your career. I've completely shifted from public relations and marketing to financial planning and personal finance, and that is because I am still young and early in my career. Now, the other wonderful opportunity that you have. Is to invest early. The earlier the better. You can retire early. If you start very soon, even in just a simple low cost index fund like VOO or VT, I can get you started and get you to a point where you can retire early. Because starting soon is the biggest superpower that anybody in their twenties has. If you're a young adult and you're somehow listening to this at 18 or 19, you have an absolute superpower that is gonna make you one of the richest people ever if you're able to start early, it's gonna help you out so much, and you'll be able to budget without having to cut back on fun. Why do I say this? Well, if you're just getting started, you don't have those behaviors entrenched, like I mentioned earlier in the episode. But this is also because you will know how to keep it within your means. My wife and I, we are very fortunate to be in a situation where our income has gone up, but we already know how to live within our means. So we're not trying to catch up on debt that we've made. So we don't even know what the trips that would go beyond our means are like, and that means those are still fun. Camping is still fun for us because we haven't pushed the boundaries on super expensive resort trips and things like that. We still have fun weekends, nearly every single weekend in the summer, and that's because we plan ahead and we can continue to use our recreation and vacation budgets Since we are not going to places as often in the winter. We can use those recreation and vacation budgets every single weekend in the summer and not have to worry about it. But we also know what is a good target on a monthly budget in order for us to live within our means. So since we started early, we're now able to benefit tremendously from being able to enjoy our money whenever we want, and use the budget for fun. The other thing that is a great opportunity for you is money talks are a whole lot easier in the future when you have money because you know how to have money talks when you don't have money, so then you can be on the same page and have some similar goals and some similar things aligned. When you start talking about money. When you have more, it makes it so much easier and makes it a fun problem to have because of some decisions that we made earlier. My wife and I are getting to decide what we want to do with our HSA savings. And we don't have to worry about healthcare costs because we saved so much money into our HSAs right away. And it's grown with the stock market rise in the last few years. My wife was able to get a letter of medical necessity for massages because she gets headaches and stuff and massages helps with those. So she gets this letter right, and we have enough growth in our HSA that she can get a monthly massage for free. It's just gonna continue to grow and she will pay for the massages based off of the growth and the HSA you might be saying, oh, I would love to do a massage every single week, but that's just so expensive and that would eat into our budget. With some early decisions that you can make right now, there is so much potential to avoid those. Oh, we can't afford this decisions down the road just because of investing and savings and growth on that money. And if you're wondering, how do you use an HSA to grow like investments? Please reach out to me. I have a great system set up that I'd be happy to share. To any of you listening, I would love to help more people set up their HSA savings as an investment account instead of just a spending account. But the ultimate opportunity that you have if you're just getting started, is freedom. Imagine being 35 and knowing that you could take six months off work because 10 years ago you started investing a little at a time. Think about that. You probably can't think about it because maybe you are too young to To quite visualize what 35 would be like, but even just visualize five or 10 years from now and taking two weeks off to go on a trip of a lifetime because you started investing a little bit at a time and now you're more confident that you're going to be able to retire. and you don't feel like you have to keep up with this train that's leaving you in the dust and you're able to avoid debt because you started earlier, and I know I'm talking a whole lot about just getting started and started earlier, but even if you are maybe older, you feel like you missed that boat, just consider yourself as getting started now. Sure. Maybe you won't be able to take that six months off work at 35. But you could take it at 45. There's still so much time wherever you are in the journey. Now, this next question that we're gonna talk about, this is a great one that plagues so many people, young and old. Should I focus on paying off debt, building savings, or investing? Well, it all depends on the interest rate. There are a lot of great guides out there on interest rate versus age. But it also depends on your aversion to debt. There's some emotional and behavioral reactions to debt. Some people completely hate it and want it to be done away with. Some people are completely okay with it and are okay with having a ton of debt. Neither option is good. To be honest. There's not a good point where you should have no debt or there's not a good point where you should have a ton of debt. There should be a good balance in the middle of there. Sure you can be just fine without any debt in your life, and I would argue that most people would be better off if they just completely avoided debt, but you can also use debt to help you do better with your finances. I have talked before about the 0% credit card that we got to pay for my CFP education and now we've easily saved up the money and it's just sitting there earning some interest, waiting for that payoff date to come up. That's a great way to use debt. We also use debt to pay for Rebecca's PA school. That's a great way to use debt because there was a 0% interest rate due to some COVID. Forbearance when we signed up and now we've been able to refinance her loans, which is gonna save us thousands of dollars over the long term. And now that leads me to talking about whether you should pay off your debt or not. If the interest rate is over 7%, you should probably focus on paying that off, but it does depend on your age. As you get older, that interest rate decreases usually about a percent every 10 years or so. But we were able to refinance Rebecca's student loans so that all of her loans are now at a rate below 5%, which means we're just gonna stick to our payoff plan and not increase it anymore. we can deploy the money elsewhere. That will earn a higher interest rate over a much longer time horizon than the five year plan we have to pay off these loans. So we struck a balance between paying off the debt and investing, and guess what? It's not just minimum payments or a ton of money. We found a point where we were putting a little bit extra. Towards all these student loans and being able to pay it off a little bit sooner than the five year mark that these loans were talking about. But we weren't putting so much money into it that we weren't able to invest. There was a balance. We're comfortable with paying them off in about four and a half years, maybe down to four if there's some generous work bonuses or a tax refund or things like that. But we don't wanna pay'em off in a year or two. And forego investing our money now that has 20 years to grow. There's so much time that that money has to grow, that it's way more valuable. You do have to strike a balance. Each and every one of you listening has to defined a balance of where you lie on debt. Are you completely pay it off? Are you team so much debt? It's all debt. I live life on a minimum payment. Either way, you should probably try to find yourself somewhere in the middle of that. It doesn't need to be a hundred percent investing and no debt or 100% paying off debt and no investing because money needs to go to both directions. Find a balance. Right now, we put a lot more money towards investing and building our savings, and because of compounding, we know that that money has way more power if we put it in right now, than just paying off our debt that will go away in four to five years. So of course, the great answer. It depends. It depends on your situation, and I would love to talk with each and every one of you listening. If you need help finding that balance in your finances and figuring out a debt payoff plan, use the link in my show notes to schedule a money, talk with me Next, let's talk about how do you think about student loans as a young adult? Is this an opportunity or a trap? Well, I think student loans should be avoided if possible, but maybe not a hundred percent. We used them in PA school because it was far too expensive. But we used them as minimally as we could, and there could even be an argument if you're just starting out in college and you're in your first year or two or three, there's a great argument for potentially taking on the loans, even if you have the money to pay that year of college, because there are subsidized loans, which is a 0% rate while you're in college because the government pays the interest, so to speak. Now you can just save the money elsewhere. I probably wouldn't invest it because that's a short time horizon, but even just a high yield savings account earning. Three or 4% is gonna give you a little bit of extra money that you wouldn't have had if you would've just paid for college outright. So there's definitely some strategy that you can use with student loans, but you want to avoid keeping them for the long term. Now we have a plan with my wife student loans, and this is what you should have too, make a plan for each and every one, each and every semester. We took a lot of loans because of the 0% interest rate due to COVID, but we were ready to pay them off as soon as interest started to accrue. don't be afraid to take them if you need to pay for college. Don't take extra just because you have access to them. If you need them to pay for college, then use them. I know there's scenarios where you have to use'em to pay for living expenses as well while you're in college, but you probably know if you're in that situation. But the key thing here is don't rely solely on them. See about getting a job, working some extra while you're in school. It's kind of meant to be a sacrifice, You know your own situation and how you have to really use the loans, but that also means, you know, when you're relying on them too much and when you're taking on extra loans just for the sake of having money, that's maybe just fun spending money, you know, deep down. Next. This is another key question. How can I invest when I don't have much money? And this applies to young adults, old adults, very old adults. How do you invest when you don't have a lot of money? Well, one of the places that I like to start, honestly, and maybe it's a little counterintuitive, but an HSA say you have a high deductible health plan through your work has a low premium because it has a high deductible. Maybe you don't go to the doctor a lot because you're young and you don't really need to. But that annual care is covered through an HDHP. Well, if you don't have a lot of medical expenses, an HSA can be a great place to get started with investing. If you're on your parents' plan and they're on a high deductible health plan and you're not claimed as a dependent, You can actually contribute to the family Max, which is a huge deal for getting that money invested. open an account with fidelity if you're eligible to contribute. And then if you're not sure, let me know. I can help you get this figured out and then invest it in a low cost index fund like VOO or VTI choose the ETF versions to save on taxes and potential fees, but that moves me into the next point is regardless of where you're investing, use low cost index funds. An ETF is an index fund that trades like a stock throughout the day, unlike a mutual fund that only trades once per day. So consider things like VOO and VTI. If that's the only sort of investment you learn about, you're gonna be fine. Put your money in there and then learn. When you get to the point that you need more diversification at a hundred thousand or$500,000, You may hear me. You mention those numbers and you're thinking to yourself, how in the world will I ever get to half a million dollars? You absolutely can through these low cost index funds. The next account that you may want to consider is a taxable investment account. It can be a solid tool when you're in a low income tax bracket. there are still some tax advantages to the most basic investment account that you can contribute whatever you want to. You can get tax free gains if you're in the bottom capital gains bracket. My wife and I took advantage of this in 2024 and we got a ton of tax-free income. And we reinvested it right away to raise our basis for free so that we can continue to do this in the future. It's called capital gain harvesting, and it's a very real and very awesome strategy that everyone should try out. Plus, the next highest rate above 0% is only 15%, which is still lower than most other tax brackets for ordinary income. and then finally, a great account to start out with is the Roth IRA. When in doubt, choose Roth. That's my idea and my philosophy. if you're just getting started, you're not hitting the income limit to contribute, but just keep that in mind as you start getting more and more professional jobs with higher and higher incomes is, there are some restrictions around a Roth IRA, but the key thing with a Roth IRA is the money's gonna grow tax free. You hurt me tax free. Take the earnings out at any time if the worst case scenario were to happen. No penalties, no taxes, but you don't want to touch that money because you want it to continue to grow tax free. Because tax free money is what we all want. We don't want the government having their hand in the cookie jar. We want to have all the cookies. Nobody likes when they're cookies get stolen and suddenly the cookie jar is just crumbs at the bottom. So avoid taxes and go with a Roth account. People will literally convert their traditional IRAs to a Roth IRA, just to avoid taxes. That's how big of a deal it is. So if you can contribute to it directly without having to do all these conversions and stuff, do it. Contribute to a Roth IRA. If you're feeling comfortable with your money and you have a budget under control and you have some savings in the background as an emergency fund, your next thing needs to be opening and funding a Roth IRA. But that does it for some investing when you don't have a whole lot of money. That's some great tips there, so make sure to share those with a friend and go and have a great money. Talk about that one. next. Let's talk about one of the key differences that gets asked about all the time. What's the difference between a Roth IRA 401k index funds, and all of those different terms and the alphabet soup of retirement that you hear get thrown out here and there. Well, Roth, let's start with Roth. Roth is a name for an account that will grow tax free. You put the money in that you've already paid taxes on, and then it grows tax free, no taxes when you pull it out. retirement accounts do have rules for when you can pull the money out, so it's not all tax-free, rainbows and sunshine, but it's a pretty perfect setup. There's always ways to get money without being old and in traditional retirement, So don't fear that your money is locked away forever. There's some great and easy ways to get it out without the penalty and avoiding taxes still. Now, what is a 401k? Well, a 401k is a qualified retirement account that most every employer can offer. Most 401k plans will come with an employer match. This is the thing that you need to take advantage of every single time. Without fail, you do not wanna miss out on the 401k match, even if it means cutting back on other things. Do not miss out on the 401k match, especially if you're in your twenties. That 401k match has. Practically infinite earning potential because it's extra money that your employer's planning to give you, that you're taking advantage of, and then you're getting it in the market with those low cost index funds growing and growing for your future. Now, what are index funds? Well, an index fund is a collection of stocks. The s and p 500 is the 500 largest companies. It's a collection of the 500 largest company stocks. The Total World Index is just as it sounds, a collection of the total world stocks. These funds are so safe because they contain so many stocks and they are self-cleaning. This is a term that you'll hear throw out a lot around index funds. Is this self-cleaning nature, say Apple or Microsoft, one of those companies that's right up at number one in the s and p 500. let's say for some crazy reason, they go all the way to zero overnight and become worthless. Well, if you had money in Apple stock itself, your stock and your money invested in that company goes to zero and you lose it all. Now, if it's in an index fund, they just fall out of the index fund and somebody replaces them. And yes, there would obviously be adjustments to the value of the index fund as a whole. But it's not gonna go to zero. It's not even gonna come close. So you don't have to worry so much about all your money completely disappearing if you're invested in broad index funds because you're invested in so many different companies. This is all my wife and I use and we couldn't be happier with it. I'd love to talk. If you have questions about index funds, please let me know on. We still have quite a few questions here, and this episode is rocking and rolling. So if you like these solo episodes. Please let me know. Send me an email, send me a text. Let me know how you like listening to these, and if you have any specific questions that you'd like to see me cover on the show, please let me know those as well. But next we're gonna talk about what good money habits can I start building right now? I'm gonna list these off. There's the 401k match. We already talked about that. Start investing small amounts. Now the 401k match can be a great way to start investing small amounts. Start living below your means now. That's a great one that you need to learn now so that you stop overextending yourself or never overextend yourself. Make sure you're spending less than your income. Some months, my wife and I spending, it's higher than our income for that month, but that's because we planned and saved over the previous months where it was way lower than our income, like our Hawaii vacation. We did not make enough money for that one single month for that vacation, along with the rest of our living expenses. Once we got home, we used months and months and months, honestly, over years to save for it. So we really were living across our means. If you average it out across time. We've always been living below our means. Now, the other great habit is make sure you are paying off your credit card each and every month. This will avoid so much compound interest that does not work in your favor. Avoid credit card debt like the plague. You should stay far, far away from it. Speaking of credit cards. Next question is how can credit be a tool and not a dangerous trap? Well, the rewards can be great and extremely enticing, but cashback is also a great reward. You do not have to get into credit cards to hack every single which way that you can in order to. Spend a bunch of money just to get free rewards because as soon as you start letting the interest pile up, that's when rewards are not worth it. They're not a great tool to extend your means and live beyond your means. They are so, so easy to do that, limits can be through the roof. Don't even pay attention to them or even come close to them. Have your own credit limit called your budget. That's how you can avoid the dangerous trap. Credit cards can be a really fun tool that allows you to take fun trips on rewards. But they can also be a great tool for keeping track of your spending in one place and then just paying it off once a month. They can also be a great tool for keeping fraud away from your checking account, but there's a lot of good things that are quickly negated by credit card interest. The second you start paying credit card interest, that thing is nothing but a profit center for the credit card companies and nothing but a chain and ball around your ankle until you pay it off. So make sure you avoid that dangerous trap by paying'em off every single month and avoiding interest. But next we have a listener question from Jasmine. This next question is fantastic. We're gonna be talking about overall, how can you build a plan that actually fits into your lifestyle? Well, listener Jasmine from Austin, Texas submitted the following question. They said, hi, I'm Jasmine from Austin, and I'm in my mid twenties trying to figure this money thing out. I want to be smart with my finances. I'm saving a little, trying not to rack up credit card debt, but I also want to enjoy my twenties. I'm not trying to yolo everything, but I also don't wanna live life like a hermit just to hit some abstract financial goal. I love traveling, going out with friends, and just living life. How can I build a financial plan that keeps me on track without making me feel like I have to give up everything fun and exciting right now? Well, thank you, Jasmine for that awesome question. And if you're listening at this point and have a question, please send it my way. You can text it to me and I will definitely cover it in a future episode. But yes, this is a great question. So what do you do to live life now? You wanna make sure that you actually work these things into your plan. Like Jasmine mentioned, she loves to travel, so that needs to be part of her plan, not outside of it that she just does with extra bonus money. Don't ignore the things that you want to do and then be bummed out when you don't have the money for them. But also you need to be realistic. When you truly don't have the money for these fun things you want to do, understand that sacrifice may be necessary. Understand that it's okay to save for things. And not do them right now and do them later down the road. but again, the key thing is to write down your plan. Figure out the things that you need to be saving for, and write it down so that you know exactly where your money can go when you get extra money or when every single paycheck comes in and you need to budget it. Then you can make sure the important things are taken care of first in your plan, and then you know exactly where to allocate that money. And this goes for Jasmine and for the rest of us, again, extra emphasis on writing things down. Have a list of directions for your money. Think of it like a map or a GPS for your money. It makes it a whole lot easier to say no to something when you can see what your money needs to be doing. So I'm gonna bring it back to what we talked about in the beginning. Take it one piece at a time. Start small and learn as something comes up. Don't try to learn it all at once or you're destined to fail. It's not very fun that way. Learn it one step at a time. But thank you so much to Jasmine from Austin for submitting this question. That was a great one. If you have any questions, please submit them using one of the links in the show notes and I'd be happy to cover them on the show. We got two final questions here and two things that I want to cover is potential financial opportunities for each and every one of you listening. The next one is, how can I set myself up for long-term success? A couple quick hitting points right here. Start investing small amounts. Now, we've talked about that already. The money is going to grow into being more money than you can ever make in a single year, or that you can ever invest. You're gonna see your money fluctuate up and down more than you ever put into the account. But investing now can be one of the greatest things that you can do for long-term success. Understand how to set up a budget now, and that can help you as well when it comes to making more and more money, And then especially have that written plan in place so that as you get more and more money, you know exactly where to go with it, where to send it, where to invest it. And even better now is that if you start planning, you'll be able to invest little amounts now so that when those big amounts start coming, they won't be as scary because. if you suddenly start working a very high paying job thinking you need to invest money, it's gonna be really hard to funnel away$20,000 worth of investments if you've never funneled away$200. So start with these small amounts. Start investing now. Start budgeting now, and then be ready for the paychecks to get bigger and bigger as you get older. And that is how you can set yourself up for long-term success. Now, the final thing here, what mistakes do people usually make in their twenties with money? I got 10 quick hitting mistakes that you can avoid. I'll share my number one at the end, and I'll talk a little bit more about it, but I'm gonna need a text from each and every one of you listening, which mistake are you trying to avoid the most? Okay, here we go. One, living beyond your means huge mistake. Two. Waiting too long to start investing. Three. Feeling like investing is scary. Four. Not having or not sticking to a budget. Five. No emergency fund. Six, leaving the 401k match on the table. Seven, minimum debt payments. Eight. Comparing your finances. Nine. Misusing or avoiding credit or debt and 10 rushing into big purchases like cars, homes, and that is my number one thing. Huge purchases can be a big drag on your finances. Maybe you're not ready to buy a home. But you feel like you need to get one. It's okay. You can continue renting. You probably don't need a car. An E-bike may be good enough for you, especially if you're in your twenties and can take a little bit of extra time to commute or you'll learn to love an e-bike. Rushing into big purchases is one of the big mistakes that people can make in the 20. Rushing into big purchases is one of the main mistakes that I think people do a lot of. Early in their twenties. It can really hinder their cash flow and really hinder their money. But there's a bonus one here, not asking for help. That's another big issue that can happen with money. And you can ask for help by going to Money Talk Show slash chat. And reach out to me fellow money buddies. I'd love to have a talk with each and every one of you. Which mistake are you? Trying to avoid the most, send me a text and let me know. But that does it for today's episode. Thank you so much for listening. Each and every one of you Money Buddies out there, we covered a lot from how to stop feeling afraid with money to what it really looks like to invest with just a little, and how to build a financial plan that actually fits your lifestyle. Remember, you don't have to figure all of this out at once. Start small, track a paycheck, save one month's income, learn as you go, and then when things get confusing or overwhelming, that's exactly where a financial coach or planner can come in to help. I've been there. I still use all these strategies in my own life, and I'm always open to talk to every one of you and help you get on the right path with money. Whether you're saving your first thousand, paying off debt, or just trying to enjoy your twenties without financial guilt, you are not alone. And if you need someone in your corner, I'd love to be a part of that journey with you and you can reach me anytime at Money Talk Show slash chat. Thank you for listening to today's episode. The best way to stay up to date and connected with All Things Money Talk is to subscribe to the podcast and sign up for my email list. Head over to Money talk.show and submit your name and email right there on the homepage. You can also use the contact page on my website to send me any questions you might have. And if you're looking to get started with creating that budget we talked about. I'm a partner with my Budget coach, which is a platform that connects me, your coach directly to your budget. and we can get started with budgeting right over there. The link is in the show notes. And remember, the best way to learn from today's episode is to go and have a money talk about today's topic with a fellow money buddy. Thank you for listening to this week's episode of Money Talk. I'm your host, Skyler Fleming. Have a great week.