Welcome to the Tweed Trends podcast. Hey, Evette, what's trending today? Hey, I'm Evette, hey girl, and you are tuned in to Tweed Trends. It's the quickest way to find out what's trending today.
Hey, and happy graduation, CSUN. That's exactly what we're gonna talk about today, so let's get started. Yes, yes, yes, it is that time of year when colleges, not just in this country, but around the globe, are celebrating those students who have done everything that they needed to do. They've completed all of the credit hours that they were required to complete.
They've done all of the exams, the tests, they've paid all of the fees and assessments, and now it's time to reap the rewards of graduation. So if that is you, congratulations, you did it. It may have seemed like an uphill battle, but you made it, and now it's time to start planning for that next chapter in your life. And that's exactly what we're gonna talk about today.
We're talking about the fact that this graduation season brings on change, and when you have to actually go through with this change, there are things that if you do, if you set them up now, you'll be better off in the long run. But a lot of times people don't necessarily talk about the things that you should do. I think sometimes after you graduate, you're just so excited to be looking at getting a real paying job and start paying off your student loans, that it's like, oh my gosh, the world is your oyster and you're so excited and you want to do everything, but there's some things that you should actually plan for. So let's cover those topics.
Once again, if you are graduating, congratulations. Now as you get this next steps to do list going, think about these things that I'm about to talk about, okay? You are mere moments away from receiving that piece of paper that lets everybody know that the subject you've been setting for the past four plus years, well you're almost an expert in that now, and you want to take that knowledge and put it to good use. So now you're looking for some type of job or career field that works with that topic that you've been studying.
Now if you find something great, and if you don't, great, that's fine too because that's not a sign that you failed. It very well could be that this line of work that you're looking at now is something brand new that didn't exist when you started college. That's perfectly fine. But what the bottom line is though, you're going to want to get out there, you're going to want to start earning money, you're going to want to start knocking down the student debt, but what else, what else should you be looking at?
You should be looking at investing as well. The sooner you get in, the better. Some of you have families that have already gotten you started, and that is great. But if you're just hearing this for the first time, then that's great too because now you know what you need to do, what you need to be looking for.
So here's an example, here's a recommendation. Let's say you invest the maximum amount that you can into a Roth IRA, which is $5,500. You do that each year for 10 years. So you start this at 21, you're graduating, right?
So from 21 to 31, you did that investment every year. If you earn like an 8% return on your money, by the time you're 65, you will have earned nearly $1.2 million. Wow. Now, let's try this again.
Same amount, but you start investing later, you start at 27. So now you've been in a job for a little while and somebody tips you and you say, hey, have you considered this? You're like, oh wow, yeah, I hadn't heard of that, but I'm going to start doing that. So you do the same thing, the same $5,500 each year for 10 years, same rate of return.
You'll only have $800,000 by the age of 65. So that sounds like a lot, but it's over $375,000 less than if you started it when you were 21, 20 years old. That makes a huge difference. That's why we all need to be learning these money tips as soon as possible because you miss out on so much when you don't find out about it until further down the road.
The thought of having to take money to put towards bills, put to boards your student loan debt, credit card debt, and to invest your life, okay, this is just too much. I'm a little overwhelmed here. You're starting to stir up my anxiety and I get it. It may seem like a lot.
You're probably sitting there scratching your head like, how are you supposed to do all of it? And where am I going to get extra money from? I'm going to be just starting out. So how is that?
But you don't have to live off of every single dime that you have. So what you're going to do first is you're going to track your spending to see where your money is going and then see where you can cut back so that you can afford to invest say $50 to $100 a month. And you will very well be surprised to see just how much you spent going out with your friends or on coffee or on trips and things like that. Drinks add up.
You don't have to be at the bar for happy hour every Friday. It may seem like that's the thing to do because you're an adult now, but no, you want to make sure that you track your expenses and once you understand how you're spending your money, it's all going to make so much more sense. So only then will you get clued in on ways that you can cut back so that you can then invest. And you know, who knows?
It may mean having to take your lunch to work with you every day versus going out with everybody. Is that really, really going to help you in the long run that you sat at lunch at some restaurant every day with everyone? No. So take that time to think of different things or you know, you can you can curb your impulse spending.
You don't have to go get everything when it's first out the brand new, you know, the trendy outfits, that sort of thing. Look to see where there are ways that you can actually save a little bit of money. And then once you do, make sure that it goes towards your efforts for investing. Thank you so much for joining me for today's episode.
Once again, what you need to do is strike that balance between paying off your debt and investing and you will be so glad that you did. You know, I didn't even talk about employer sponsored retirement plans or looking at various fees that you pay, whether it be for maybe magazine subscriptions or app subscriptions, you will be so shocked at how much money overall over a long time period that you've spent on those types of things that you can actually put towards something for your future. Okay. I'm going to go ahead and get down off of my soapbox because I'll sit here and talk about this forever.
But once again, thank you for joining me. You know where to find me, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, Facebook at Hey, that's at H-Y-E-B-E-T-E or just look for the hashtag tweet trends. Have a great rest of your week. If you're graduating once again, hats off to you.
Congratulations. And I'll see you guys back here again on Tuesday.