Money Is Everything: Personal Finance for The Brave New Economy

249 Pages·2015·2.061 MB·English

by  Amanda Reaume

MONEY IS EVERYTHING
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MONEY
IS PERSONAL FINANCE
FOR THE BRAVE NEW ECONOMY
EVERYTHING
AMANDA REAUME
With a Foreword by Dan Acland
4 MONEY IS EVERYTHING
CONTENTS
Foreword 9
Introduction 13
PART ONE MAKING IT
1
INTERNSHIPS 17
Paid vs. Unpaid Internships • Internships for College Credit •
Can You Negotiate Your Salary? • Offi ce Politics! • What About a Job?
FROM THE SOURCE: WHAT’S IT REALLY LIKE TO BE AN INTERN?
2
JOBS 27
Get an Interview • Interview Like a Boss • Choose the Right Opportunity •
Negotiate Your Salary • How to Be a Superstar Employee • How to Ask
for a Pay Raise • Transitioning to a New Job
FROM THE SOURCE: HOW DO YOU BUILD A GREAT REPUTATION AT WORK?
3
SELF-EMPLOYMENT AND FREELANCING 43
How to Start Your Own Business • Market Yourself • Fee Structures •
Build a Steady Income Stream • Where to Work • Housekeeping for
Freelancers
FROM THE SOURCE: WHAT’S IT REALLY LIKE TO FREELANCE?
4
SIDE HUSTLES 57
Embrace the Sharing Economy • Make Money Online •
Sell Things Offl ine • Provide Services
FROM THE SOURCE: WHAT MAKES FOR A SUCCESSFUL SIDE HUSTLE?
HACKS 64
PART TWO SPENDING IT
5
PLANNING 71
You Might Be Broke, But You Still Need a Plan •
DIY Financial Planning • Feeling Overwhelmed?
FROM THE SOURCE: WHAT MILLENNIALS NEED TO KNOW ABOUT
FINANCIAL PLANNING
6
BUDGETING 81
Three Essential Things to Consider When Creating a Budget • Feast or
Famine: What to Do If You Underspend or Overspend • Strategies to
Help You Stick to Your Budget
FROM THE SOURCE: WHAT CAN BUDGETS DO FOR YOU?
7
SHOPPING 91
The Shopping Commandments • Online vs. High Street • Best Things
to Buy Online • Things to Never Buy Online • Renting vs. Buying •
You Can Negotiate That • New vs. Used • Where’s the Free Stuff?
FROM THE SOURCE: HOW CAN BEING FRUGAL SAVE ME MONEY?
8
“BIG” PURCHASES 109
Buying a Car • Buying a House • Buying Health Insurance
FROM THE SOURCE: ADVICE FOR BIG PURCHASES
HACKS 126
PART THREE BORROWING IT
9
CREDIT: SCORES, REPORTS, HISTORY 137
What Is It? • How Is It Calculated? • What’s the Difference Between a Credit
Score, Report, and History? • Getting Your Credit Scores and Credit Reports •
Building or Repairing Your Credit Score • How to Prevent Identity Theft •
What to Do If Your Identity Is Stolen
FROM THE SOURCE: HOW IMPORTANT IS BUILDING CREDIT FOR MILLENNIALS?
1 0
PERSONAL CREDIT 151
Know Your Terms • The Skinny on Your Credit Choices
FROM THE SOURCE: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW ABOUT PERSONAL CREDIT
1 1
STUDENT LOANS 159
Student Loans 101 • Does This Repayment Plan Make Me Look Broke? •
What about Private Loans? • One Loan to Rule Them All: Consolidate
Your Loans • Break Up with Your Private Lender and Save •
What If You Can’t Pay? • Save Yourself! Tips to Minimize Student Debt
FROM THE SOURCE: WHAT DO I NEED TO KNOW ABOUT STUDENT LOAN DEBT?
1 2
BECOMING DEBT-FREE 169
Stop Debt in Its Tracks • Negotiate Your Rates • Consolidate Your Debt •
Create a Repayment Plan • Debt-Stacking Method • Debt-Snowball Method •
The Seven-Month Itch: Keeping Motivated • Never Again! Make a Vow to
Stay Debt Free
FROM THE SOURCE: WHAT CAN I DO TO PAY OFF DEBT OR STOP
MY DEBT FROM GETTING WORSE?
HACKS 179
PART FOUR SAVING IT
1 3
DISPOSABLE INCOME 191
Do You Want to Be a Millionaire or Just Live Like One? •
Allocating Your Disposable Income
FROM THE SOURCE: WHAT SHOULD I DO WITH MY DISPOSABLE INCOME?
14
SAVING VS. PAYING OFF DEBT 199
You Can’t Do Everything • Ways to Use Money, Ranked
FROM THE SOURCE: CHOOSING BETWEEN SAVING AND PAYING OFF DEBT
15
INVESTING 207
Ways to Pump Up Your Money • Uncommon Investment Options
Not All Stocks Are Created Equal • Have More Than One Basket •
100K By 30: Why Starting Early Is Important
FROM THE SOURCE: WHY SHOULD I INVEST?
HACKS 220
Afterword 231
Endnotes 234
Index 237
FOREWORD
BY DAN ACLAND
MILLENNIALS Optimistic, entrepreneurial, connected, team-oriented,
and highly adept at multitasking. If you were born between 1980 and
1999, that’s what researchers say you are. But also overconfident to a
fault, and thus prone to discouragement when confronted with life’s
setbacks. Setbacks that you are all the more likely to have encountered
because you came of age during the Great Recession. And while your gen-
eration, the “Millennial Generation,” is the most educated in American
history, many of you are entering the working world with mountains of
student debt, and little in the way of good credit.
Meanwhile, the world you have inherited is one in which personal
initiative and personal responsibility have become indispensable. Gone
are the days when education guaranteed you a first job, and that job led to
another, and so on until retirement. In today’s fragmented labor market,
you must become your own brand and sell yourself like the hottest of new,
new things. And you will have to do so again and again, because in today’s
economy you will have, on average, 25 jobs over the course of your career.
Gone too are the days when large institutions—employers, unions, and the
state—shielded you from life’s biggest risks. Now each individual is expected
to provide their own safety net, with wisely invested retirement savings,
health insurance (which you are increasingly likely to have to provide for
yourself), and a good-sized prudent reserve to tide you through the unpre-
dictable spells of unemployment or underemployment that are so much
more a part of your generation’s lives than those of past generations.
On top of all of that, you are a human being, which just makes every-
thing more complicated. Nobel Prize-winning behavioral economist
Daniel Kahneman describes what he refers to as “system-1” versus
“system-2” thought processes: human decision making is governed by
a mashup of relatively newfangled brain areas where conscious thought
and deliberation occur (system 2), and crusty old vestiges where snap
9