"Got a little plan to get the bread and boss up..." -Boogie, "Came Up"
W I S D O M (click the link to get some knowledge kicked to ya)
Now y'all, I want to put a disclaimer that I haven't finished watching the video I linked above, so if he says anything problematic past what I viewed, then it will be removed immediately, and I apologize. HOWEVER, thus far all I've heard is FACTS.
Baby, so let's do a breakdown of currency and its importance to your well-being. For one thing, I know we don't like the idea that people with large amounts of money have an ungodly number of advantages over piss poor people. And this isn't even getting into third-world poverty. I'm talking the difference some bands can make just here in America. I don't think we even realize that. To begin, for any of the people that read and follow my blogging journey, I appreciate you tremendously. I also realize I may have readers that are from all walks of life, so I'm going to start making this a little more diverse and not just speaking to the people that are in my age range and basically at my stage of life. That being said, since we're discussing financial literacy, I will link later on in this entry jobs that require licenses or certifications and no college degree. (Oh yeah and that give you a livable wage. Imagine that.)
For starters, most of my peer group is either in their first semester, second semester, or second year of college. I'm sure practically all of us get a student refund from taking out loans that we will be paying off until we're ninety-three or dead. (Unless of course you have a full ride, then this doesn't apply to you. OR if you do another thing that's actually very smart and don't actually
spend your refund and instead use it for school.) How many times have we just completely blown that student refund? I mean we get the money in our hands and forget what it was like the week before deciding if we're going to pay our phone bill or put gas in the car. I mean, come on, we've all done it. I get it. "Life is short." No, not really. It isn't. In the words of Chris Rock, "Life is
not short. You will probably
not get hit by a bus, and you will have to live with your decisions for the next forty years." I'm paraphrasing, but that's one of the absolute most memorable lines from "I Think I Love My Wife." He's right. We have to STOP excusing our poor money management and financial illiteracy.
***
After beginning this entry, I sat on it for a couple of weeks because my schedule and attention span just wasn't allowing it to be written, but I want to go ahead and get this out now because I actually advised a friend on some things dealing with money the other night. Most of it came from my own mistakes and things that were not explained to me, so I wanted to make sure I was able to pass the information along to someone else.
Credit
Credit is not half as complicated as it's made out to be. It's basically comprised of three major factors: credit utilization (how much credit you have compared to how much of it you've used. Let's say you have a credit card with a $500 limit. You want to utilize only $100 or less of that limit at one time.), credit inquiries (applying for loans or cards), and your average age of credit (how long in total your accounts have been open). That's it in a nutshell. Having credit cards isn't harmful. Having ten credit cards and maxing them all out, however, is.
When you apply for loans for say a car, they're going to be looking at all these factors in addition to your income. Your income has to be able to support paying the loan back. Everyone needs to have a job and a Credit Karma account. Periodt. I don't care if you're working at McDonald's. If you play your cards right, you can STILL have a good time and manage to flood your savings account, which leads me to my NEXT point.......
BUDGETING (50, 30, 20 RULE)
Whether you're getting paid weekly or biweekly, you know about how much you're bringing in every month. I know it varies, especially when working hourly jobs. I doubt any of us are on a set salary yet, BUT if you know your work habits (Ask yourself, "Do I always volunteer to leave early?" "Do I accept extra shifts when they're offered?" "How many days per week am I usually scheduled?"), you will know how much you'll have to play around with. Let's start with a weekly budget.
Let's say every week you make about $218. In a month, you make $872. Let's say you live at home and aren't required to pay any bills. All you're responsible for is putting gas in your car and paying your phone bill. Cool. Some of you are weirdos that rent your phones, so I'll do a budget appropriate for you all.
Phone Bill: $120/monthly Gas: $35/weekly.
In total, your bills for the month add up to $260. Okay. That means if you saved half of each check to put toward your bills, it would only require two weeks worth of HALF your check and a small portion of the third week's check. Boom. Your bill money is utilized and/or placed away. You don't have to worry about your phone going off. Your car is gassed. There should be a good bit of money in your savings account, AND you can still have some fun in moderation, which leads me to my NEXT point.....
Make Sure The People Around You Have Similar Financial Goals
I'm a huge advocate for people living their lives the way they want to as long as it is not harmful to themselves and others, HOWEVER, you can't really expect to fight off the urge to withdraw all the money from your savings account if every weekend you're making plans with people that don't exactly want to Netflix and chill, mmk? If you're hanging out with people that you know are going to want to smoke, you've got to put in. They want to go to a movie? Everybody's gotta buy their own ticket. They want to go to the club? There's an entry fee......and none of those things are painful on the wallet individually, but together they add up.
QUIT IMPRESSING PEOPLE THAT ARE BROKE
I shook hands with one of the richest men in Louisiana a few months ago. Lived in a mansion. Beautiful lawn. Was riding around his property on a damn golf cart. You know what he had on? A raggedy t-shirt and some Levi's. THRIFT SHOPS EXIST FOR A REASON. THERE ARE GOOD SALES IN STORES REGULARLY. MOST OF THE SHIT IN YOUR CLOSET PROBABLY JUST NEEDS NEW ACCESSORIES TO GO WITH IT. Also stop RENTING your phones. That's so stupid. Flexing for the Gram is cute now, but when you want to retire in your forties, I imagine looking back on those pictures won't reimburse that check you ran up back in the day. Be yourself. If yourself isn't good enough, then work on that. No material thing will make you a better person.
YOUR FANTASY SELF IS SUCKING YOU DRY.
Is Your Fantasy Self Toxic?
I linked the video that put this notion into perspective for me, and it's been really helpful. I have a lot of anxiety and hang-ups on a lot of things. Um, I have a habit of thinking my best self is in the past or the future and not realizing my best self is in the present because I'm the one that can actively decide to be better than what I once was so that tomorrow I can continue that trend. I love you, bees. Also, be sure to check out my mixtape! I released the first half on SoundCloud. I didn't really know how SoundCloud worked, so I didn't upload the tracks in the correct listening order, but I'd love if you listen to it. If it sucks, let me know in my
email. It'll be linked on my
Other Writings page since I wrote everything on it. Other than that, I don't have anything else going on. I will try my best to be more active with this blog because I'm not quite ready to let it go. I feel like this is still a really important platform for me, and I don't want to abuse it.
---Dree
Oh yeah, here are those
jobs I mentioned.
