Adulting 101: Post-College Personal Finance

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After college, we students are thrust into the world of adulting. In adulting, many are faced with several responsibilities — including managing personal finances. Personal finance is any money that you make, save or pay your bills with. It’s a topic that most college students don’t have a full understanding of. This is important because in life after college, personal finance is one of the most important responsibilities a person will have.

But don’t worry, VALLEY is here to help! We have gathered information from Wells Fargo to create a roundup of the best financial advice.

Build an Efficient Budget

One of the most important ways to easily manage the money that you make is through a budget. Once you get a job and start to earn money through your hard work, you have to start prioritizing what you need to spend your money on versus what you want to spend your money on. One way to help with this organization is by acquiring a budget planner or system. A budget planner can help you be more organized with the way you spend money by planning out how much you need to spend on your bills, your groceries or even how much money you can spend on a nice night out. 

Set Financial Goals

Setting financial goals allows you to keep a track of how you want to manage your money. By setting goals, you can have a good time frame of how much money you need to reach a potential goal. For example, let’s say you want to buy a new car in the next few weeks. With that established time frame, you know that you need to start saving up for that new car. With saving up for this new car, you have created a priority and have started to keep track of how much money you want to save each week from what you’ve earned. 

Build a Cash Reserve 

A cash reserve is an amount of money that a person has for emergency funds. This is a really important tip because you never know when an emergency is going to occur. According to Wells Fargo, by gradually setting money aside into a savings account each week, you will typically have enough money to cover living expenses of up to three months for any financial emergency. 

Start Saving for Retirement

It’s never too late to save for retirement! Retirement may seem like the last thing a person might want to hear when starting a new job, but it should be the first thing most newcomers to the workforce should hear. By starting early and saving for retirement, you have a head start on acquiring enough money to live comfortably after working at your job for so many years. Go through your company’s retirement plans and see which one is the best fit for you.

Go to the Sokolov-Miller Family Financial and Life Skills Center

Penn State’s Sokolov-Miller Family Financial and Life Skills Center is the perfect resource for graduating seniors.  At the Family Financial and Life Skills Center, students have many resources that help them learn earning, saving & investing, spending, borrowing and protecting under financial literacy. Other useful resources include seminars, workshops, the MoneyCounts webinars series and the mentoring program.

Share your personal finance tips with us, @VALLEYmag, on Twitter!

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