Happy Wednesday, especially to all grads, whether it’s high school or University. On a personal note, that includes my stepsister Brigitte McKenzie in Victoria, now Pastor Brigitte, who just graduated as a Minister in the Evangelical Lutheran Church this week. I’m so incredibly proud of her!
Her aside, for the 18 to 25 year old grads, it’s unlikely you’ll believe me or your parents. But one day – years from now – hopefully you’ll remember these three resolutions or heads-up before it’s too late:
Go vote in every election: Every level of government politicians make financial decisions for you that YOU have to pay for over many decades. You are the most impacted by their spending (or not spending) priorities. But your 18-24 age group won’t invest the half hour: Less than 38% of you vote. Compare that to the over 65 age group where 75% vote. Easy math: Which group gets their way? Which groups gets the most benefits? But also which group will pay the most and the longest?
Keep using your debit card: If you’re 18 or so, you always have because you couldn’t get a credit card. If you’re graduating from University, you’ve probably been using one for most of your purchases. Keep it up. It’s the best way to stay out of 20% credit card debt. Stats say you’ll change over to credit cards by your early 30s. It’s the powerful credit card marketing making you think you’re getting a lot of free points or perks. Maybe you will…but it’ll cost you 10 to 50 times what you’re getting through the fees and interest.
Fight the attempts of retailers to make you stupid: For a few years now, almost every advertised payment is weekly or bi-weekly – for expensive vehicles, I’ve also heard payments per day. It’s just stupid and designed to make the payment for whatever it is sound so tiny you’ll want to buy it and finance it.
In Red Deer, off gasoline alley, a large new apartment building has a huge poster on the front: Rent for $295 per week. The stupidity continues. Who rents an apartment for a week? That’s called a hotel! But the dummy-down marketing continues to expand. Better something stupid like $295 a week than the reality of actually paying $1300 a month.
Stop and think: Pull your phone calculator out and multiply it by 52 weeks and divide by 12 to get the real payment!