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[ad_1] This article originally appeared on Financial Pilgrimage and has been republished here with permission. Dear College Graduate, Congratulations! You did it. You now have a fancy piece of paper saying you’re skilled in your college major. For the past twenty years, you’ve been in school to prepare you for your life ahead. You’re moving from a world where failure is punished, creativity is often limited, and all that matters is the grades you get on a test or paper. You’ve learned to navigate this environment successfully if you’ve made it this far. You will now be entering a world of unknowns. A world where you can’t get by on intelligence alone. To become successful, you’ll need to take calculated risks, learn from failures, build effective relationships, and thrive in a world where the exact path isn’t laid out for you. Letter to New College Graduates about Money I remember being in your situation, and it can be terrifying. I graduated without any professional internships or other relatable experience. Getting interviews wasn’t usually a problem. However, there was always that awkward moment when the interviewer asked about my relatable experience. Without any experience, I stumbled through the responses, and the interview often ended shortly after that. After many frustrating interviews that didn’t go as planned, I decided to go to graduate school, where I was fortunate to get a professional internship. A professional internship on my resume closed the gap and allowed me to find an entry-level position at a great organization after graduating. Now I’m here to share my money advice for recent college graduates. I know more individuals are graduating from college later in life. However, for the sake of this article, let’s assume we’re speaking to the traditional college graduate. A person in their early-to-mid 20s has just started or is interviewing for their first “real” job. For individuals in this situation, you have one massive advantage on your side. TIME. Below is my advice. Minimize Lifestyle Inflation For the past four or five years, you have lived like a college student. That may have included eating ramen noodles, living with several roommates, and occasionally gathering loose change to buy a gallon or two of gas. You dreamt about having a real job with an actual paycheck, so you could start living like an adult. Newsflash, living like an adult can be overrated. The typical adult lives paycheck to paycheck, trades time for money, and accumulates hundreds of thousands in debt. As a result, many adults end up in jobs they hate and get stuck because they have to pay for their nice cars and mini-mansions. If you’re already used to being broke, don’t increase your lifestyle to match your new paycheck. Try to live like a college student for as long as you can. If you get a raise at work, no matter how big or small, put the majority of it towards savings, debt paydown, or investments. Deciding to limit lifestyle inflation before you make decent money will set you up for financial success in the future. You can still spend money on the things that are important to you, but do it in a very intentional way. Related read: What’s a Good Credit Score for a College Graduate? Automate Your Finances My wife and I have paid off nearly $200,000 in debt since 2011 without a budget. Many financial experts will say that a budget is the cornerstone of personal finance. I don’t necessarily disagree. However, budgets added a level of complexity to our lives that we didn’t want to deal with. So what’s the alternative? Automating your finances! Our savings, debt payments, and investments come directly out of our paychecks every month. We don’t even see the money. We then pay all of our bills for that pay period within a couple of days of receiving our paychecks. Then, whatever is left over in our bank account can be spent on whatever we want. Automating your finances can be a substitute for a budget if done right. This approach will require more self-discipline, so you’ll have to know yourself before going this route. Having a little money in savings will help when you spend more than anticipated. Related read: How to Start Building Credit as a Recent College Grad Start Investing in Retirement Accounts I know financial experts such as Dave Ramsey will say to hold off on investing in retirement accounts until all debt is paid and you have a solid emergency fund. Paying off debt and building a six-month emergency fund could take years to achieve. Your early years of investing are most critical when it comes to saving for retirement. Therefore, you need to get started as early as possible. The benefit of investing $100 is exponentially greater at 22 years old compared to 32. When you get that first job, check to see what retirement account options are available in your organization. If your company offers a match, do your best to take advantage and invest at least up to that amount. Not only will you benefit from the long-term benefits of compound interest, but you’ll also receive a 50 to 100 percent return on your money immediately with a company match. If your company does not offer a 401(k), pension, or another related account, consider putting money into an individual retirement account (IRA). Get started even if you can only invest $25 a month. Getting started will put you in the habit of investing to hopefully increase your contributions as you reduce debt or increase income. Pay Off Your Debt I know what you’re thinking. How in the world am I supposed to start paying off debt with my first real job? I have to worry about getting a place to live, transportation, food, AND start saving for retirement? How can I do all of this on a starting salary? The answer is you may have to put off paying down debt until you can find opportunities

[ad_1] This article originally appeared on CityGirlSavings. *This post is sponsored by Credit.com. All opinions are my own. Whether you’re just starting out with credit, or looking to finally build your credit profile up, it can be hard to know what to do or what to look for. Trust me, I get it. After nearly 12 years of monitoring, my credit is finally where I want it to be. It shouldn’t have taken that long, but I just didn’t know what I was looking for. That doesn’t have to be the case for you, thanks to ExtraCredit by Credit.com. Why Credit Monitoring is Important? Before I get into all the fun and juicy details about ExtraCredit, I want to first make sure you understand how important monitoring your credit is. Whether your credit is where you want it to be or not, monitoring your credit allows you to see what’s happening with your credit history. Credit monitoring on a consistent basis gives you insight into your credit activity. It opens your eyes for early detection of identity theft and fraud, so you can fix issues before they become fires. Finally, regular credit monitoring puts your spending habits and patterns front and center. This allows you to start making changes or to keep doing the things that work. Credit monitoring is a form of maintaining your good credit score – especially if it’s already where you want it to be. On the other hand, if your score isn’t where you want it to be, credit monitoring helps you see how small things, like paying your bills on time, can have a positive impact on your credit score. Credit scores are an important aspect of most peoples’ lives. Unless you have enough cash to purchase all that you want, credit will be the only option. That’s not always a bad thing. To ensure that you’re able to borrow at the lowest rates possible, you’ll want to work to make sure your credit score is where you want it to be. Monitoring your credit will help. That’s where ExtraCredit by Credit.com comes in! Sign up for ExtraCredit What Is ExtraCredit? ExtraCredit is a brand-new product from industry leader Credit.com that gives you next level credit coverage, for one, low monthly fee. Sure, there are plenty of credit monitoring sites…heck, I’ve even tried a few, but nothing has compared to the new ExtraCredit monitoring features. My Favorite ExtraCredit Features Not only does ExtraCredit give you insight into your 3 credit bureau reports, but it allows you to track 28 FICO scores and monitoring activity on those scores over time. Yes. There are 28 FICO scores and lenders can use a different one depending on what you’re applying for. So, when you know where you stand across the board, you can feel confident in knowing you’re informed no matter which score your lender looks at! 43 million people in America pay rent. Most don’t report their payments. With ExtraCredit, you can report things like rent, utilities and even your phone bill as credit tradelines. If you pay rent, add it to your credit profile to get the credit you deserve. Other ExtraCredit Features Have you been the victim of fraud or identity theft? ExtraCredit helps you guard and protect your credit by offering identity insurance, dark web monitoring (ugh, hackers), and identity alerts so you can feel confident knowing you’ll be notified instantly if something seems off. Lastly, ExtraCredit members receive a $5 sign up bonus and ongoing cash reward offers! Not only are you monitoring your credit, but now you’re making some money too! You can sign up for ExtraCredit’s free trial and test it out for a month! Get a feel for the system and take in all of the amazing features. What Makes ExtraCredit Different? If you think about all of the features I called out above, you’d easily spend $100 or more trying to keep up with it all from different companies, but with ExtraCredit, it’s all in one place for one, low monthly cost. That’s putting your money to work! While it’s great to know that you get the most bang for your buck with ExtraCredit, it’s also important to know that lenders aren’t using scores you see on sites like Credit Karma or Credit Sesame. Only ExtraCredit gives you scores that lenders would pull. This means you can time when you seek out new credit! Build your credit profile, monitor your progress and make money? ExtraCredit is a no brainer for those who want to take charge of their credit. Feel in control and empowered with all of the tools that come with ExtraCredit – I know I do! Have you tried ExtraCredit? What are you doing to monitor your credit score on a regular basis? Drop a comment to share! The post How to Take Monitoring Your Credit to the Next Level appeared first on Credit.com. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] People often think of personal finance in terms of budgeting and tracking expenses, but there’s so much more to it. To have a healthy financial life, you need to set financial goals and work towards them. With this being said, many people fail to do so effectively. In this article, we’ll discuss how to set financial goals that work for you. How to Set Financial Goals What Are Financial Goals and Why Should You Have Them? Financial goals are objectives that you set for yourself in order to improve your financial situation. They can be short-term or long-term, and they can cover a variety of different areas, from saving for retirement to paying off debt. Some more examples of financial goals include: Saving for a major purchase, like a house or a car Building up an emergency fund Increasing your income Investing for the future Reducing your expenses Having these goals gives you something to work towards and can help you make better financial decisions. Plus, achieving a financial goal can be a significantly gratifying experience. This is a great way to boost your confidence and feel good about yourself (while enjoying financial stability). How to Set Financial Goals That Work for You There’s no one-size-fits-all approach to setting financial goals. The most important thing is to make sure that your goals are specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). Let’s break down each of these criteria: Specific: Your goal should be clear and well-defined. For example, rather than setting a goal to “save money,” you could set a goal to “save $500 by the end of the year.” This approach applies across any financial goal, whether it is saving for a car or home, reevaluating where your investments lie, or refinancing your home loan. It is crucial that you calculate the exact amount you would be able to save and plan how you’ll spend it in advance – use digital tools like Credit.com’s mortgage calculator, or this Homestar Finance refinance calculator. Measurable: You should be able to track your progress towards your goal. This will help you stay motivated and on track. How exactly you track your goal will depend on what it is. But some examples include setting up a budget, tracking your net worth, or using a savings tracker app. Achievable: Your goal should be realistic and achievable. There’s no point in setting a goal that you know you won’t be able to reach. Relevant: Your goal should be relevant to your overall financial situation and goals. For example, if you’re trying to get out of debt, setting a goal to save for a new car isn’t particularly relevant. Time-bound: Your goal should have a specific time frame attached to it. This will help you stay on track and make sure that you don’t procrastinate. How to Achieve Your Financial Goals Once you’ve set your goal, it’s important to come up with a plan for how you’re going to achieve it. This might involve setting up a budget, automating your savings, or looking for ways to earn extra income. Whatever your plan is, make sure that it’s realistic and that you’re actually going to stick to it. It can also be helpful to break your goal down into smaller, more manageable pieces. This will make it feel less daunting and will help you track your progress more easily. For example, if your goal is to save $500 by the end of the year, you could aim to save $42 per month. Another helpful tip is to make sure that your goal is visible. Write it down somewhere or keep it stored on your computer or phone so that you can see it and be reminded of it regularly. You could even create a vision board or a collage to help motivate you. It’s also important to take help from others. The financial world is complex, and there’s a lot to learn. If you’re not sure where to start, consider talking to a financial advisor. They can help you develop a plan and offer guidance and support along the way. Finally, it’s important to celebrate your successes along the way. When you reach a milestone, take some time to treat yourself. This will help you stay motivated and keep your eye on the prize. Three Major Financial Mistakes to Avoid While setting and achieving financial goals is important, there are also some financial mistakes that you should avoid. Here are three of the most common ones: Not having any goals: As we’ve already discussed, it’s important to have specific goals that you’re working towards. Without these, it’s easy to end up spending money impulsively. Goals are a significant part of any plan, financial or not.  Relying on a single source of income: If all of your income comes from one source, you’re putting yourself at risk. What would happen if you lost your job or your business failed? It’s important to have multiple streams of income so that you’re not left in a difficult financial situation. Not saving for retirement: Retirement might seem like a long way off, but it’s never too early to start saving. The sooner you start, the more time your money has to grow. Final Thoughts Setting financial goals is a great way to improve your financial situation and achieve greater financial stability. Be sure to make your goals specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and time-bound (SMART). And don’t forget to create a plan for how you’re going to achieve your goals. Good luck! The post How to Set Financial Goals appeared first on Credit.com. [ad_2] Source link

[ad_1] According to IBM’s annual Cost of a Data Breach report, the average cost of a data breach to an organization in 2021 was 4.24 million dollars. That’s the highest average figure in its 17-year history. Most of these breaches were the result of compromised user credentials (where an attacker is able to gain unauthorized access to an account) and are often more costly where remote working is involved. cyber attack These breaches aren’t just costly for large enterprises, though. Many small organizations fail to recover from a serious data breach (where the average cost is just under $700,000), with 60% of them going out of business within 6 months of an attack.  But of course, we can also fall victim to cyber attacks as individuals, and the cost to us can be significant, too. If you’ve been unlucky enough to have been a victim of a data breach, or (worse), identity theft, you’ll know that you can lose eye-watering and potentially crippling sums: this hacking victim lost over $13k in 2020. But when we talk about the cost of a cyber attack to an individual, we’re not talking simply about financial losses.  How to Avoid a Cyber Attack Psychologically, the after-effects of a cyber attack can be damaging. The feeling that you’ve been manipulated by a stranger (and your personal data has been ‘invaded’) can be deeply unsettling. It can lead to a serious loss of confidence, and make you increasingly wary of trusting others. It can cause embarrassment, too, as a victim of a hack can be made to feel as if it’s their fault.  In the most extreme cases (where a cyber attack has led to a significant loss of funds or even the loss of a job) the effect can be even more harmful, leading to stress, anxiety and even depression. Whatever the financial cost of an attack, the emotional cost is often far more significant in the long run. Fortunately, there are a number of steps you can take to secure your data and ensure you’re aware of the threats you might face while online.  Check If Your data Is at Risk Without knowing it, your data might have already been involved in a breach. A breach usually occurs when a hacker gains access to the data­base of a service or company which contains users’ private information, including (but not limited to) usernames, passwords, email addresses and, in the worst cases, bank account details. If you’ve been involved in a data breach, some of your personal information might have been made public without you realizing, which could put you at risk of identity theft. But don’t panic. You can check if your email address or phone number has been exposed in a data breach by going to Have I Been Pwned. If any of your accounts may have been compromised, change those passwords immediately, and make sure you’re not reusing the same passwords across multiple accounts. Use Strong Passwords Speaking of passwords, nearly a quarter of Americans have admitted to using a password like “password” or “123456”. These should clearly be avoided, as they’re easily guessable and won’t take long for a hacker to crack. The longer and more complex a password is, the stronger it is. You can check the strength of your passwords at Security.org. Using a “passphrase” (a series of unrelated words with spaces in between) is often more effective than using a simple combination of letters and numbers, as these can be harder to crack. This can help to protect your accounts from threats like brute-force attacks, in which attackers will submit vast numbers of possible passwords in an effort to guess correctly. Protect Your Website(s) This action may not apply to you, of course — but if you happen to run a website (for a small business, perhaps, or even just a hobby such as blogging) then your personal information is inextricably linked to it, and it can be a huge point of vulnerability. If someone gains access to it through a CMS exploit or a comparable weakness, they can learn your passwords, uncover private information, or even hold the site hostage in an effort to extort you. Keeping extortion efforts at bay is largely a matter of investing in technical safeguards. Top managed hosting platforms are particularly good at keeping ahead of potential attackers, and some (e.g. Cloudways with its 2022-launched Cloudflare CDN integration) are investing in native features that make it all but impossible for run-of-the-mill hackers to gain access. Overall, though, the biggest thing you can do is refrain from storing any sensitive information on your website. Anything intended for public viewing inevitably makes a bad storage vault. Beware of Suspicious Emails  One of the most common ways individuals fall victim to cyber crime is through phishing attacks, a type of ‘social engineering’ where an attacker sends a fraudulent email to an intended victim enticing them to click a suspicious link or hand over personal information. Phishing emails often appear as though they’re from a legitimate organization (like your bank, for example) but there are some classic signs to look out for. Check the email domain (the bit after the @ symbol) to see if it looks legitimate. If it’s misspelled (or a public domain like gmail.com) it could be a scam. Next, check for poor spelling and grammar in the body of the email, as phishing attempts are often shoddily written. If you have the slightest suspicion that the email may not be legitimate, do not respond or click any links in the email. To ensure you’re aware of the telltale signs, IT Governance has produced a handy guide on the ways to detect a phishing email. Update Your Software Cyber threats are constantly evolving, with hackers developing newer, more sophisticated ways to gain access to our devices and our personal data. That’s why it’s so important that our operating systems and software programs are always updated to the latest available versions. These newer versions

[ad_1] In recent years, the largely exclusive world of investing has been blown wide open by the rise of fintech platforms. These support brand new ways for retail investors to participate in the buying and selling of stocks on global markets. Accelerated by the conditions presented by the Covid-19 pandemic, the retail investor boom has been supported by the emergence of passive trading.  fintechs retail investing The accessibility of Wall Street today may be hard to fathom. This is especially true when looking back a little more than a decade to the costs and hurdles that retail investors had to overcome to simply buy their favorite stocks. As recently as 2009, brokerages were charging anywhere from $9.99 to $19.95 per transaction for the buying and selling of stocks online.  ‘Zero-commission’ trading was one of the early revolutionary changes brought by emerging fintech firms as more investing platforms like Robinhood began to enter the market in the months prior to the Covid-19 pandemic.  Although controversial, zero-commission trading generally works on a payment-for-order-flow (PFOF) model. Brokerages receive payments from market makers in return for the flow of customer stock purchases and sales being run exclusively through their firm. This enables investment platforms to make their money without customers having to cough up directly. However, it also means that chosen market makers may not be required to charge the most competitive price for stocks.  As the Covid-19 pandemic heavily impacted the lives of individuals all around the world, the implementation of lockdown measures coupled with the arrival of government stimulus packages saw more retail investors taking to the stock market in a bid to buy into recovering stocks. The data above shows that investors had been quick to take on technology stocks, with a net investment flow of $40 billion arriving in the sector by early 2022.  Investors are now having to adapt to the age of the ‘new normal’ today. This means that there may be less time available to conduct the required research to discover new prospects, fintechs are actively working to take initiative in making key investing decisions for customers.  Thanks largely to the rise of fintech, it’s never been easier, or more cost-effective, to invest passively. In some cases, it’s not even necessary to make any investment decisions whatsoever. Let’s take a deeper look at how fintechs have turned retail investing passive.  The Rise of the Robo-Advisor The past decade has belonged to the robo-advisor. Built on a foundation of artificial intelligence, these automated investment services are generally low-cost, and it’s extremely easy for users to get started with very little money. Many platforms even offer spare change ‘roundup’ investment options.  Robo-advisors have enjoyed a rise in popularity that’s been strong even in the years prior to the Covid-19 pandemic. Between 2017 and 2019, the volume of money under management through robo-advisors tripled from around $240 billion to $980 billion, according to Statista data. Furthermore, the industry has been forecast to reach a value of $2 trillion by the end of 2022.  The beauty of this automated approach to investments is that it enables fintech platforms to do all of the work, in a very literal sense. Roundup platforms like Moneybox has become renowned for its approach to spare change investing, whereby users specify the amount of money they wish to invest each month, whether they would like to have their spare change from bank card purchases automatically rounded up and invested, and the level of risk they would like to take on through their ISAs, and the app will take care of the rest.  This enables users to build a sizable nest egg for their specific goals without having to do anything at all – besides occasionally logging into their account to refresh their bank card permissions.  Passive Portfolios via Copy Trading Although copy trading is nothing new, fintech platforms have helped to make them far more accessible and customizable to boot.  Whilst many stock trading platforms now offer some form of copy trading capabilities, the leading brokerage to offer the feature is eToro.  Through eToro, it’s possible for traders to view the platform’s leading traders over a given period of time, and choose their favorites to essentially trace, trade by trade.  All trades are proportional to the amount of money that a user is willing to invest, and in eToro’s case, it’s possible to copy up to 100 traders at a time – provided a minimum of $200 is invested per trader.  Furthermore, it’s also possible to copy stop losses when trading to ensure that there’s some form of protection against portfolios suffering a downturn.  There’s sufficient evidence that copy trading can work as an option for investors who may lack the time necessary to make informed market decisions. According to eToro’s statistics, the platform’s 50 most copied traders made an average yearly profit of 30.4% in 2021.  Although the Covid-19 pandemic has subsided to the extent where many of the retail investors of 2020 have found that their free time has become more limited, the rise of passive investing has ensured that nobody needs to slow their trading activity. With fintech platforms offering a varied range of passive investment options, it’s possible to maintain a strong portfolio long into the future.  The post How Fintechs Have Turned Retail Investing Passive appeared first on Credit.com. [ad_2] Source link