Considering daylight savings JUST happened this morning and threw off everything yet again, I'm writing this post on time and some ways to adult it. As always, I don't know what I don't know, if you know share your knowledge.
Intro to Adulting: Your lane
As a young man with a lot of ego and a highly competitive nature, I find it easy to want to one up the next guy. I find myself constantly comparing my progress with that of the next guy. I have to stop myself from feeling inadequate because someone else seems to always have a new highlight. There is always that one guy that looks like he has figured life out.
Intro to Adulting: Food
Okay, so adulting isn't always about money. It plays a huge part of it, most of it, but not all of it. Some of the time, you're eating. Let's not lie to ourselves here, the way to anybody's heart is through food. I find myself thinking about food at least every other minute. If I'm bored, I just want to walk up to a fridge and open it. Even if I was there a second ago.
Intro to Adulting: Financial Peace
Most of us (young adults) don't have piles of cash ... yet. So while we build our stacks of cash, there are ways to synthesize the same terms rich people have. They don't worry when their cars get totalled, they don't worry when they lose their jobs, they don't worry about their cards declining on a purchase. So let's do some things to recreate the same effects.
Intro to Adulting: Budgeting
I really want to someday say I’m great at this but quite frankly as of today, I suck. I run two budgets simultaneously (one for myself, the other for my home) so I can share my struggles and successes from using them for about the last year or so. I’ve quickly learned my personal budget goes over more often than the budget for my home. This is simply because my home doesn’t have emotions, my home does not get hungry unexpectedly and my home doesn’t buy new clothes when there is a sale.
Intro to Adulting: Cars
So you want a car, that's a good aspiration to have. You're tired of taking the bus everyday for over an hour in each direction. That's two hours of your life each weekday in addition to any walking and idling while the bus makes its way to your stop. I get it, those are really useful hours you could capture for more useful things. Not to mention the mental preparation for winter and waddling through the snow and sub-zero temperatures just to catch a bus that may or may not even show up.
Intro to Adulting: Stupidity
In honor of my friend in critical condition because of a drunk driving incident, I pray that you come out of it in one piece and that no one I know, love or care about gets into a life threatening situation over stupidity again. The pain, worry and anxiety about injuries and bodily harm to people we hold dear is far too great a burden to repeatedly carry. I'm praying for you, we're praying for you. Get well soon.
Intro to Adulting: Credit Cards
We have all been told that you need a credit card to build your credit history. If you don't build your credit history, you won't be able get the loan to buy a car or buy a house; you don't want to rent forever. How about, you need to keep a balance on your credit otherwise it won't show your history. Or the ever famous, without a credit card, you won't be able to buy things online, make hotel reservations, or breathe air.
Intro to Adulting: My Debts
Alright this time, we talk about Debts. I feel like tackling this is the key to unlocking so much potential for a lot of new adults like myself. The more I think about it, I could argue that people in debt are the most generous people in this life, they are just giving it to the wrong people. These people work so hard JUST to give their money to financial institutions. If you think about it, the moment you create debt you've accepted to pay for something AND give your creditor (the bank) a bonus for it.
Intro to Adulting: My Money
I've been 2 years removed from graduating from University so I felt it was about time I did a quick guide to adulting based on my performance and what I've learned so far. I also think it will be helpful for any new adults like myself, maybe we can start a discussion about our strategies, struggles and triumphs so far.
