Money lessons for Millennials

Minutes to Read: 3 min 40 sec

Words to lookout: Money-savings-financial advice

You might have heard your friend make a one-day resolution about saving money or eating junk less. Although these promises break as night comes.

Money lessons for millennial’s is an easy guide to help you break your spending pattern and automatically switch to healthy saving patterns.

Why do we over-spend?-Millennial money

Every marketing class taught me that people shop with emotions and later add logic.

The new word called “Comfort food” is introduced by smart advertisers and there goes most of the millennial money.

 Even if you have taken an oath to spend less or eat healthy.The moment you feel you had a bad day you automatically walk inside the nearest fast food outlet and buy junk.

Why can’t we spend less?

Simply because the YouTube video you watched to the Instagram you scroll to the newspaper served with breakfast is bombarded with advertisements prompting you to spend.

You might skip that advertisement or not read the newspaper yet a billboard as big as your bedroom window can persuade you to spend.

With the influencer culture perfectly positioned to grab millennial money-Instagram has become a tool for advertisers to prey on our insecurities.

No wonder the cosmetic industry makes tons of money than Grad-school books will ever make.

5 Easy Financial advice for millennial

The 48-hour rule-Millennial money

You were scrolling online and saw a t-shirt perfect to catch someone’s attention in college. Or a dress an Instagram influencer added to her 5 summer-inspired outfit edition.

The 48 hour simply means,

 Whenever you want to make a purchase decision add that to your cart or hold that thought for the next 48 hours.

By holding that purchase decision for the next 48 hours you will rethink your decision of whether it is a NEED or a WANT.

After 48 hours your goldfish memory is most likely to forget it or leave it stranded in a cart.

Vitamin or Pill-Millennial money

Some of you might tell me, “Well Ruth, Need or Want is too complicated and businessy to understand .”

To break it down further,

Vitamin/ Want- You take it when you are healthy 

Pill/ Need- You take it when you are sick.

Now if BINOD had a hole in his socks – That purchase would be a PILL/need.

If BINOD saw a pair of socks with MARVEL written on it- That purchase would be a VITAMIN/ want.

Do this simple exercise whenever you add something in the cart.

Bootstrapping -Millennial money

Most of you might hate bootstrapping as it takes effort, time, and patience which Millennials with money likely have to spare.

Bootstrapping means using existing resources i.e. in simple words using the money you have. 

Bootstrapping is the opposite of Loan.

Formula:

Smart Millennial money= Bootstrapping > Loans

Million-dollar companies have started by bootstrapping their business does the name Go-Pro ring a bell.

It is hard to save money and easy to take a loan to study abroad or own a super cool bike but if you calculate the interest and the amount of time it is going to take to pay a loan you would never do it.

While your friends are enjoying college, you will end up sleeping less and working more just to pay off hefty interests.

After adding unforeseen circumstances like an accident, inflation, or death of a guardian.

Loans aren’t appropriate for someone who is young and doesn’t own a business.

Don’t let a smiling face in a loan AD fool you instead work your ass off to save some money and then pursue your education abroad.

Sign a check to your DREAMS

Look honestly you have to have more than one saving option to fulfill your financial dreams. 

You just don’t want a car when you grow older, you want a car, a house, and a wife-according to Sima Taparia on Indian Matchmaking.

I heard a motivational speaker say every month she signed a check to herself and wrote on the reason for money transfer the words F-O-R M-Y D-R-E-A-M-S.

She was a single mom living with a small income and a 5-year-old son. Yet every month she wrote a check to her dreams.

You and I might call her crazy but years later the bank called to tell her that she was a millionaire.

Are you saving for your dreams of opening a music studio or visiting a country abroad?

Make it a point that every month regardless of how small the amount may be- Put it in your bank, save it at home, or write a check saying FOR MY DREAMS.

Spend 1/10th a week 

I derived this from my Christian faith of giving 1/10th to God during tithe and applied the same proportion to my weekly purchases.

Step one 

Split one 10th of your salary for weekly expenses,

For example, an average Indian millennial makes 25,000 a month.

one 10th of 25,000 is 2,500 rupees.

Keep these 2,500 rupees as your weekly expense.

Step two

Make a chart of your weekly expense and categorize them into pills or vitamins.

Step three

I am not asking you to not have fun, Do have fun at the end of the week with the money remaining from the weekly expense.

And if you have some leftover money after a fun Saturday save it for your DREAMS.

Therefore you just spent 40% of your salary i.e 10,000 rupees leaving the remaining 60% of your salary for college.

If you liked this do read business learnt from moms.

Conclusion