We all love to be in relationships. But the truth of the matter is that not every relationship will be healthy in the long run. Some relationships can be very harmful. You may be in a toxic relationship but you won’t know.
In this article, we are going to examine why it is difficult for people to realize that they are in a toxic relationship.
The love between you both is head over heels
They say “Love is blind.” This statement is very true. Because you love your partner, it will be very difficult to make sound and rational decisions. And you never want to admit that he is the wrong person even if your intuition is telling you the fact.
The chemistry between you both is very strong
Another reason why it may be so difficult for you to realize that you in a toxic relationship id the chemistry between you both which you have been able to build over the months or years. And it has been built on a solid foundation so much so that no one can easily fight to break the relationship.
Because he is the best person you have ever met
Weeks after you met him, things began to change for the better. He always complimented you. You won his respect and he made his way into your heart. And now, do you think it is possible to quickly conclude that you are in a toxic relationship even if your friends are telling you that?
You think it is normal to fight
True in a relationship, it is right to fight. But are you fighting for love, compassion, and respect for each other? Couples who love each other and want to remain in relationships don’t fight dirty. They don’t fight to inflict pain.
Work hard to resolve the problem you have with your partner so that it won’t escalate to a state of no solution.
Whether your back-to-school plans involve physically going to a campus or attending digital classes, you might be contemplating getting new gear for the upcoming academic year. We’re relying more on our laptops as learning tools than ever before, and your old, laggy machine just won’t cut it.
A good notebook will not only make it easier for you to finish homework and tune into live-streamed classes, but it will also help you stay in touch with your friends, teachers and study groups. And while long battery life might not seem as important right now, it’s still a huge priority because you’ll want your laptop to keep running all day when we return to a semblance of normal life. As laptops keep improving, you should also be on the lookout for newer features like taller screens, better webcams and thinner, lighter builds.
With all that in mind, we picked our new favorite laptops for students. All of them are easy to carry around, have great keyboards, good performance and last all day. Not everyone is going to need an extremely beefy machine to take back to campus — some of you will find a Chromebook or even a 2-in-1 tablet sufficient. Those who need more power for graphics or video editing will appreciate that our picks pack the muscle you’ll need into frames that won’t weigh down your backpack.
Dell XPS 13
Will Lipman Photography
What else can we say? We’ve already hailed last year’s XPS 13 as the perfect ultraportable, and this year’s model managed to improve on that. It features a taller, larger screen so you can see more of your essay at once, plus a bigger keyboard and trackpad. The XPS 13 2020 manages to have a sleeker design than its predecessor too, so it still fits nicely in your bag.
The laptop also offers the same reliable performance and excellent battery life we’ve come to expect on XPS machines. Stay away from the base model, as it uses a less-powerful Core i3 chipset and a measly 4GB of RAM. We recommend the $1,199 version with its tenth-generation Intel Core i5 and 8GB of RAM. If you’re looking for a well-rounded, all-purpose machine, the XPS 13 2020 is your best bet.
If you want a better keyboard and something with a more stylish appearance, consider the Surface Laptop 3. Microsoft’s homegrown notebook line has a sharp design, swift performance and an excellent keyboard and trackpad. Seriously, you’ll love typing on those deep cushy keys, and the Alcantara fabric that covers the deck will feel like a luxe carpet for your palms.
The 15-inch model in particular offers a ton of power while maintaining a sleek profile thanks to its AMD processor. You’ll have to live without an SD card reader and an HDMI socket, but the USB-C and A options are a good base. Plus, you’ll enjoy staring into the Laptop 3’s big, beautiful screen as you Zoom your way to straight As. The Surface Laptop 3 is a great notebook for those who want a modern, good-looking device.
But what about those of you who prefer Macs? Apple updated its Air and Pro lines this year with improved keyboards, making them easier to recommend. Previous generations are a pain to type on, since keys frequently stick or break.
Now that the typing experience is vastly improved, the MacBook Air is a great laptop for daily use, thanks also to its strong performance, respectable battery life and sharp Retina display. It’s also a much better value now that the starting price is lower and the entry-level specs are more generous. There’s also a handy fingerprint sensor for logging in. Apple also offers year-round education pricing on its notebooks so you can find them for cheaper than on Amazon. Those with more money to spare should consider the 13-inch Pro for its better performance, especially if you expect to be editing videos or playing games. Though, it’s important to note the Pro tops out with Intel’s Iris Plus graphics. That’s fine for light gaming, but for more serious tasks like 3D rendering the 16-inch Pro with discrete GPUs would be better.
There are few laptops in the market that are as good-looking as Samsung’s latest Galaxy notebooks. The Galaxy Chromebook, for example, has to be the most attractive laptop I’ve ever laid my hands on. The Galaxy Book Flex has the exact same gorgeous aesthetic, except in a less-bold, yet still unique, blue tone.
Despite being incredibly thin and light, the Flex packs a powerful tenth-generation Intel Core i7 processor, comfortable keyboard with ample travel and even an S Pen. With this stylus, you can take lecture notes, draw molecular diagrams or sign documents with ease. The QLED screen is gorgeous too, and you can use an Outdoor Mode to bump up brightness when you need to. The Flex’s 13.5-hour battery life is also impressive for its size, and beats most of the notebooks on this list.
The main drawback with the Book Flex is that you can only get it with a Core i7 and 8GB of RAM for $900. There’s no other configuration. That’s actually pretty affordable compared to Apple’s MacBooks, but those with tight budgets might want to skip this and consider the cheaper Galaxy Book Flex Alpha.
Maybe you don’t even have the space for a laptop in your life and only really need occasional access to a proper keyboard. Then a tablet with a keyboard like the Surface Go 2 might suffice. It’s a cute little 10.5-inch slate with a built-in kickstand and runs Windows 10 so you can use all the desktop apps you need. It starts at a relatively affordable $400, though that only gets you an Intel Pentium Gold processor and 4GB of RAM. If you need more power, you might want to bump up to a Core M3 model with 8GB Of RAM, which will cost $730 (with built-in LTE).
You’ll also want to get the keyboard cover, since Windows isn’t the best OS for tablets. That’ll cost you an extra $100, bringing your total to $500 or $830 depending on your configuration. Despite its small size, the Go 2 lasts longer than a work day and should survive a full morning and afternoon of lectures without needing a charge.
Those who don’t mind a more tablet-like OS might find a suitable option in the 2019 iPad Air. It’s not as powerful as the iPad Pro, but it starts at a far more budget-friendly $499. For that, you’ll get a nice 10.5-inch Retina display, good battery life and a robust app ecosystem. The iPad Air is compatible with Apple’s Smart Keyboard so you can use it like a wannabe laptop and bang out quick emails or messages to your professors.
The Air’s A12 Bionic processor may not be the fastest Apple chip around, but it’s still plenty speedy. iPadOS also behaves more like a desktop OS now so you can edit text more intuitively, save files to your device and, finally, pair a mouse for more precise navigation. Art students might want to consider getting the Apple Pencil too, since the Air is a lovely canvas for sketching on. Those who want a better tablet all around might want to consider the iPad Pro instead, but the budget-conscious will be pleased with what the Air offers for the price.
Not every student requires a full-fledged laptop for school — some do most of their work via a browser. If that sounds like you, consider a Chromebook. They’ve matured in the past year both in terms of design and performance. The latest Chromebooks come with more powerful guts and more stylish finishes while still costing hundreds less than their Windows and Mac counterparts.
Our Chromebook pick is Lenovo’s Flex 5 Chromebook, for its sturdy yet sleek build, solid battery life and capable performance for the price. It costs just $410 on Amazon, and offers Intel’s Core i3 guts and a 360-degree hinge. We also like the comfortable keyboard and nice screen here. The 4GB of RAM the Flex 5 packs is somewhat measly, but considering you’re only running Chrome OS, that amount of memory is sufficient.
Soon it’ll be time to put away the flip flops and take out those pencils and calculators once more as we begin another academic year. Of course, this semester is bound to look a little different than the past, with an even heavier emphasis than usual on digital tools like Google Classroom and Zoom. But you don’t just have to lean on whatever programs and books your school assigns you — there’s a plethora of apps and services that can engage you further at your own pace.
Khan Academy
Khan Academy
Khan Academy is the big name in online education, for various reasons. It offers instruction in a wide variety of subjects, including math, science and even test prep for exams like the SAT and MCAT. Each course offers hands-on activities that can run in any browser so you’ll spend less time on tech support and more time just learning. And, while there’s plenty of content ranging from preschool through college, adults can also brush up on subjects or jump into courses on personal finance and entrepreneurship. The best part: It’s completely free.
Maybe you were one of those kids who perked up at the sight of an AV cart being wheeled into your classroom, because it meant you were about to watch a movie instead of listening to another lecture. If you actually enjoyed this — and not just because it was an opportunity to doodle and pass notes — Crash Course might be up your alley. This YouTube channel (and app) offers videos that focus mostly on science and history, sometimes diving into very specific subjects, like IR spectroscopy, bookkeeping or even German cinema of the Weimar period. Besides the breadth of topics, the best part is that all of the videos are under 15 minutes long, meaning it’s unlikely your attention will wander like it did when you were a kid.
Once you’ve loaded up your brain with knowledge, you might want to see how much you retained. In school, that’s what quizzes and exams are for, but outside class you can do something a little more fun. With Kahoot! you can create multiple choice quizzes for your players to answer from their device. It’s similar to Jackbox Games, except it can be customized for any situation, from study groups boning up for a big test to acting as an icebreaker for classrooms and teams. If you’re more the solitary type, Quizlet might be more your speed — the app allows you to create flash cards for your personal perusal.
“Learn to code” is a common piece of advice given to students these days and, while we can’t guarantee that will get you a job, it’s still a good skill set to put on your resume. Code Academy can not only teach you how to program, but it will point you toward the specific skills and lessons you need for your particular career or interests. That way, you feel like each lesson and exercise is time and money well spent if you choose to upgrade to the Pro plan, which adds practical projects and programming assistance for $20 a month.
A lot of high school and college coding courses designed for beginners tend to focus on the basic ideas behind programming, and take a long time before they even approach anything with real world applications. It’s a bit frustrating if you dream of coding the next million-dollar app in your dorm room. Not so with Swift, Apple’s language created specifically for creating programs for its devices. Swift Playgrounds is an app built to teach this new language, and it’s free, easy and friendly enough for novices.
At first glance Kerbal Space Program doesn’t look like an educational game. It has no real lessons or instructions. But, in order to successfully launch a rocket and not kill all your adorable minion-like Kerbals in the process, you’re going to end up teaching yourself a lot about aerodynamics and orbital physics on the fly. It’s a great start for engineering majors and budding rocket scientists, and even students in other disciplines will gain a new appreciation for the work they do at NASA… as well as a lot of laughs when things go horribly, horribly wrong for your Kerbals.
This chemistry puzzle game isn’t going to turn you into Walter White overnight. It’s about teaching basic concepts like how chemical bonds work — something many high school and college students may struggle with as more atoms are thrown into the mix to complicate things. In that sense, chemistry isn’t all that different from puzzle games, which also increase in structural complexity as you complete more levels. Sokobond backs up its addictive puzzling with a chill soundtrack, making it a relaxing way to learn the fundamentals of chemistry without the possibility of singed eyebrows.
You’ve probably been taking a lot more walks lately — it’s much easier to stay socially distant when you’re outdoors, and it’s a nice break from staring at screens all day. Chances are you may have found an interesting tree, smelled some strange flowers or heard the call of an unknown bird. Seek takes the mystery out of your strolls by helping you identify the species you’ll see in your area, either through the included catalog, or by making a guess based on the photos you take. In-app challenges keep things more exciting than your average biology lecture and can help you study up, while also appealing to fans of Pokémon Go and Animal Crossing.
Language programs can be rather dry, but not Duolingo. It’s cute and colorful, with heavy game-like elements to suck you in, ensuring that you keep up your studies on a daily basis. There’s even leaderboards for the more competitive language learners. The selection of languages is also diverse, ranging from common tongues like Spanish and French to more esoteric ones like Esperanto and Latin (which is also great for improving your English vocabulary). There’s even a beta of Klingon, should you ever find yourself stuck facing the wrong end of a bat’leth.
There are gamers out there who have learned Japanese so they can play computer and console RPGs, but how about playing a computer RPG to learn Japanese? That’s the idea behind Learn Japanese to Survive!, which contains all the typical trappings of a roleplaying game, including experience points, a fantasy world to explore and items to equip. The difference is, you won’t be battling monsters here, but Japanese hiragana characters that you damage by attacking them with the correct pronunciations. The first installment of the series focuses on the basic Japanese syllabary — hiragana — but other installments will also teach you katakana and kanji for a well-rounded mastery of written Japanese.
Museum visits are usually a requirement for many art classes. But even though some institutions are now offering virtual tours, you probably haven’t had much time to do those, between schoolwork and feeding your sourdough starter. In those cases, DailyArt offers just the right amount of cultural enrichment for art students who want to brush up on their knowledge, highlighting a single piece of art each day. If you want an even more expansive list of works to study up on, upgrading to the Pro option extends access to the entire database of art for only $6.
Personal enrichment doesn’t always have to be about daily lessons and learning new skills. Sometimes, you just want to keep your brain sharp, and crosswords are a great way to do that, as they test your cultural knowledge and vocabulary. The New York Times’ crossword has always been considered one of the best, and a subscription will grant you access to both today’s puzzles along with older installments, plus other brainteasing, mind-bending games like Spelling Bee and Letter Boxed.
Want to pick up some guitar skills to help unwind after class? Music games like Rock Band and Guitar Hero are fun, but they aren’t going to cut it. Instead, try Ubisoft’s Rocksmith, which guides you through popular songs, monitors how you play and adjusts the difficulty to your skill level. The game is a few years old at this point, but the company only stopped releasing content earlier this year, with thousands of tracks now available in the game’s library.
Study isn’t just for the night before an assignment’s due or the night before an exam.
It’s never too early – or too late – to develop good study habits. The sooner you get into a good study groove, the easier everything will be and the more your chances of getting good marks will improve.
Here are our top tips for getting the most out of study.
1. Pick a place and time
Everyone has their own idea about the best place and time to study. Whether it’s your bedroom at night or the library after school, find a study space and a regular study time that works for you and stick with it.
Set up your study space – Your study space should be quiet, comfortable and distraction-free. It should make you feel happy and inspired. Decorate it with your favourite pictures or objects. If you want to listen to music or burn incense, pick a space that lets you do that.
Find your best time – Some people work better in the morning. Others work better at night. Work out which time suits you and plan to study then. Don’t study much later than your usual bedtime – pushing yourself late at night can make you too tired to study properly.
2. Study every day
If you study a little bit every day you’ll be continually reviewing things in your mind. This helps you understand things. It also helps you avoid the stress of last-minute cramming.
Early in the year an hour or two a night might be enough to stay on top of things. Later in the year you might need to study more each day.
If you’re finding it hard to find time to study, cut back on some (but not all!) of your other activities. Prioritising study might mean spending less time online, or it might mean cutting back on shifts at work, or giving weekend sport a miss for a while.
3. Plan your time
It helps to have some plans in motion so you can make the most of your study time.
Set alarms – Set alarms to remind you about your study plans. A regular reminder keeps you honest and your plans on track.
Use a wall planner – Stick a calendar or wall planner up so you can see it whenever you’re studying. Mark it up with important dates, like exams and assignment due dates. Use it to block out your regular study timetable too.
Make to-do lists – Lists break tasks down into manageable chunks. At the start of the week, make a list of the things that you need to have done by the end of the week. Make a to-do list at the start of each study session too, so that you’re clear about what you need to be doing with your time.
Set time limits – Before you start your study session, have a look at your to-do list and give yourself a set time to spend on each task. If you don’t get something done in the set time, consider whether it’s the best use of your time to keep going with it, or to start working on something else.
4. Discover your learning style
Most of us have a preferred way of learning. Get to know the learning style you’re most comfortable with and study in the ways you learn best.
Note that these styles are just a way to think about diffent studying techniques – they’re not hard and fast rules that say you should only study in one way. Try each of these out and see which ways you prefer.
Auditory learners prefer to learn by listening. Try reading your notes aloud and discussing them with other people. You might like to record key points and play them back.
Visual learners prefer to learn by seeing. Try using colours in your notes and draw diagrams to help represent key points. You could try to remember some ideas as images.
Tactile/kinesthetic learners prefer to learn by doing. Try using techniques like role-playing or building models to revise key points.
5. Review and revise
At least once a week you should go back over the things you’ve studied in class. Thinking things over can help you to understand the concepts and help you remember when you need them the most.
Quiz – Get a friend or family member to quiz you on key concepts. Offer to help your friends with their work too. Quizzes are great ways to get confident about what you know and find out what you still need to learn.
Make your own study materials – Think up some practice exam questions or create your own flash cards to help you study. This way you learn it all twice: once when you make the study materials and once when you use them to revise.
6. Take breaks
It’s important to take breaks while you’re studying, especially if you’re feeling tired or frustrated. Working too long on a task can actually decrease your performance.
When you take a break, make sure you get away from your desk or study space. A bit of physical – even just a walk around the block – can sometimes help you to look at a problem in a different way and could even help you to solve it.
7. Ask for help
If you’re stuck on something, or something just doesn’t seem to make sense, you can always ask for help. Talk to your teachers or lecturers about the things you don’t understand. Talk to your friends and fellow students too.
8. Stay motivated
When you’re studying it helps to keep in mind your reasons for doing all this hard work, like a course or career you’re working towards. It can help to have something in your study space to remind you of your goals.
You could also decorate your study space with inspirational quotes or photos of people you admire and family members you want to make proud of you.
9. App it up
There are heaps of apps out there for helping students with all aspects of study. Have a chat with your friends and teachers or lecturers to see which apps they recommend.
You should also check out the iTunes Collections page on iPads for Learning, which provides links to Australian Curriculum courses on iTunes U as well as educational apps aimed at high school, middle school and primary school students.
10. Look after yourself
You’ll study better if you take care of yourself. Make sure you eat well and get enough sleep and physical exercise. Don’t reward yourself with too many sugary or fatty snacks or push yourself to study late into the night. It’s also a good idea to make sure you drink lots of water when you’re studying.
Now come up with your own strategies
These tips are only some of the things you can do to get the most out of your studying. You might already have other things that work better for you. Find out what your friends do when they’re studying. Maybe your teachers have some good recommendations too.
Whatever it is, whatever strategy you come up with, when you find something that works for you, put it into practise and go for it!
Links
If you’ve got an exam coming up you might also like to have a look at our Top Ten Exam Tips page. You should also check out the links below.
Ergo – Study Skills The State Library of Victoria’s Ergo website has a helpful range of studying tips and advice.
We tell you how In short, financial planning gives you a cruise control of your life and your future
Future is very unpredictable. No matter how hard we try, you cannot really predict what is in store for you in the times to come. However, what you can do is to prepare yourself for it with the best of your abilities. Each one of us has his/her own goals, desires and objectives that we dream to fulfill at some or the other stage of our lives. These objectives cannot be achieved without a solid financial planning.
Financial planning is a strategy to achieve your life’s objectives through meticulous management of your finances. Financial planning is important for each and every one of us and we should take it more seriously to better shape and safeguard our futures. Allen Lakein has famously said, “Failing to plan is planning to fail.” Thus, it is critical that you need to plan your finances better for a secure future. You should carefully choose a financial planner who can understand your needs and devise a plan that will lead you throughout your professional life to retirement. Also, the sooner you start, the better it is for you.
Let me share some critical factors that will help you to understand the importance of financial planning for your future.
Growth in income: Financial planning helps you to properly monitor your income source and grow it further. It lets your money work for you. It allows you to multiply your money that you can utilize at the time of need, be it short-term, mid-term or long term. With accurate planning, you can take the pole position to control all the aspects of your income and work towards building a solid financial platform in terms of your personal as well as professional life.
Growth in cash flow: Growth in income naturally leads to growth in the overall cash flows. Financial planning is necessary for the day-to-day activities of your business and personal life where you are required to honor various obligations as and when they come up. With careful analysis of your spending patterns and budgeting, you can easily identify activities or responsibilities that need more attention. Such prioritization of expenditure can significantly help you to monitor your cash flow, cut down unnecessary expenses, and subsequently build up the overall capital.
Secure the future your family: Providing a safe and secure future to your family is a very critical aspect of financial planning. Savings generated from careful financial planning can turn out to be very helpful at difficult times in life. It strengthens you to face the adversities in life without disturbing the overall financial structure of your life. For instance, a good insurance cover will keep you and your family secure in cases of hospitalizations or other difficult times. It also offers a solid financial platform for your family members to thrive on in the future.
Investments: A good financial plan covers your personal circumstances, risk appetite, and future objectives. It then guides you to select the right investments that suit perfectly with your requirements, objectives, and personality. Financial planning helps you plan and create financial assets for the future.
Asset creation: Having assets gives you a great sense of comfort and peace of mind. It is critical to understand the true value of an asset. Financial planning gives you those insights on asset creation and makes sure that you create those assets that don’t become a burden for you in the coming years of your life
Better prepared to deal with inflation: Inflation has been labelled as the biggest destroyer of the buying power. There has been a steep decline in the value of money, over the last decades. Looking ahead, it is only expected to continue further. Thus, it is imperative to plan your finances for a better and safe future. With acute financial planning, you are better poised to deal with the rising inflation in coming years, as your grow old.
Achieve your long-term goals: Some objectives are very crucial in our lives. Be it to own a house, buy a family car, education and marriage of your children; it is important for you to achieve these objectives. Financial planning helps you devise an accurate plan to achieve your objectives in a specific amount of time
Happy Retirement: While fulfilling your family responsibilities and professional duties, it is important to plan for your life after retirement. Financial planning helps you generate enough wealth for a happy retirement. You need to plan today for a better and brighter tomorrow
To sum it up, it would be right to say that financial planning ensures that you are in complete control of your finances, incomes, liabilities and know exactly what you need to do if a certain situation comes up. In short, financial planning gives you a cruise control of your life and your future.
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Your 20s are a pivotal age. It’s a time to enjoy the greatest freedom you’ll ever know until retirement. It’s also the ideal age to begin investing because you have so much time on your side and can enjoy the magic of compound interest.
Over the years, I have built 7-figure businesses for myself and made strong investments with significant returns. But making the right moves in my 20s saved me years of pain, heartache, and frustration —and it can for you, too.
There’s a saying: “The more you risk, the more you can earn.” Here are eight financial principles you can start practicing in your 20s that will help set you up for long-term success.
1. Understand compound interest and valuation
One concept that usually gets overlooked when people are making long-term financial decisions is the impact and concept of inflation. My parents always told me to put at least 10 percent of earnings into a savings account and another 10 percent into a retirement account. Saving small today can add up to real wealth in the future thanks to compound interest. But be warned: Compound interest is a double-edged sword: A small debt today can add up to a large debt tomorrow.
In addition, try to make financial decisions based on valuations. Buying a home is not always a bad decision. In fact, one study from Harvard University found that homeowners have a higher net worth than renters. In contrast, investing in stocks at higher valuations is not a good decision. You should aim to invest in assets that are available at an attractive valuation.
2. Generate passive income
The quicker you can get your money working for you and generating revenue while you sleep, the quicker you’ll be able to live the life of your dreams, reduce your stress, and likely live longer too. This one is hard to grasp especially for high earners. Every dollar that you earn passively is worth $10 that you earned by trading your time. When you generate passive income, you create the ultimate form of freedom. Your time on this planet is limited, and it’s important to find ways to ensure you can maximize earnings while minimizing your time spent on working.
3. Avoid bad debt
Whether it is credit cards or student loans, make smart decisions when borrowing money. Borrowing money using credit cards, payday loans, and short term loans from a bank have the potential to lock you into a cycle of debt that seems impossible to overcome. This type of debt comes with a high-interest rate and should be avoided except in emergencies, and this type of debt should never be used to finance conspicuous spending.
4. Make friends with good debt
Not all debt is bad debt. Take, for example, a mortgage on a home. The median home price in the U.S. is around $310,000. If you take out a 30-year mortgage on a home at this price with a 20 percent down payment at 4 percent interest, you’ll end up paying a total of $532,795.47 (including interest). However, the inflation-adjusted value of the home after 30 years is expected to be $613,240.33 — so you actually earn a 15.1 percent profit on your debt. In contrast, had you spent that money on rent over the same 30-year period, you would own nothing.
5. Save to invest
Some young people, especially millennials who came of age during the 2008 financial crisis, are understandably wary of stocks, mutual funds, and other financial instruments. They would rather hold their money as cash instead of risking it in the market. But history has shown that, over long periods of time, giving yourself exposure to the market is the best way to ensure your money grows faster than inflation.
Sure, markets fluctuate over time. But on average, the S&P 500 has earned an average annual return of 4.2 percent since 2000, while average annual inflation over this period was 2.3 percent. One dollar invested in 2000 would have turned into $2.10 today. This is despite the recession following the dot-com bust and the Great Recession in 2008. If that same $1 was held as cash, it would only have 66.4 percent of its buying power today.
I would also recommend investing in assets that have these three benefits:
Increase in value over time which can later be sold for a profit
Pay you positive cash flow monthly/quarterly
Have tax benefits like a 1031 exchange on real estate proper
While making investments, you should always think about the worst-case scenario and be ready for it. People generally expect handsome returns considering the best-case scenario but have no strategy in place when things go wrong. Diversification is also key —remember to never to put all your eggs in one basket.
6. Only borrow what you need
While having the right degree opens up opportunities for earning more over your lifetime, no one educated me on the debt I would accumulate in the process. Student loans can be a form of good debt, but only if your future income can support it. The debt you take on to finance higher education should never exceed your expected future income.
7. Avoid conspicuous consumption
The simplest principle that will help you gain immediate control over your financial destiny is to embrace minimalism and shun consumerism. Truly wealthy people don’t flaunt their wealth. They save and invest their money instead of spending it on trinkets to make themselves appear wealthy. You might have to forgo that new pair of Nikes or eat in more often, but at least you won’t be stuck eating cat food at age 70. This study from Integer Group reveals that 64 percent of consumers don’t necessarily think that brand-named products are better than more affordable options. Truly wealthy people are not concerned about what others think of them and have no desire to impress others around them.
The way that I define minimalism is simple: Only spend money on the things that you need or that bring real value to your life.
8. Be patient
When I was younger, I wanted success and I wanted it now — and I was willing to go into debt to get it. If you watch a lot of television, you might have the impression that people become financially independent and amass the trappings of an upper-middle-class lifestyle overnight. Later, I realized that wealth accumulates over a period of time. I had to learn to be patient and disciplined with my investing and spending.
Your health and mental peace are your biggest assets. Never compromise your health for money—even though you think you can when you’re 22. We all have potential. We’re unique, but we’re not so different from one another. We all can be someone, but how much we want to become that person is what shapes your actions from today. And there’s no better time than your 20s to dream big, think big and, most importantly, act big.
