I honestly don't know who said hindsight was 20/20 but sometimes I like to think they were just a clueless about things like I am sometimes. As I come up on my second month of being a college graduate, there are more and more things I wish I had known when I was in my second month of high school graduation bliss that I now know now. But isn't that the case for a lot of people? To keep it in tune with this blog, there are some financial things I wish had known then.
Not all banks are the same.
When I entered college I had a savings account at a then local bank, but when I went to my student orientation, there were sales reps for Wachovia. They were offering free student checking to all students who signed up through them. I had no clue what all entailed in a checking account but it was free and I got checks. So I signed up and a month or so later I got my card, only to find that my name was spelled wrong. After five years, two cards, numerous calls to customer services, and conversations with bank tellers, my name is still spelled wrong. I wished I would have known that not all banks are the same, and I should do some research to find the one that works for me. I've written a total of five checks from that bank in five years, and maybe withdrawn money from a teller once every blue moon. If I would have did a little research even say after my first year, I might have stumbled on some of PF blogs now and been a bit better off now. But I also would have come across high yield accounts, which would have been a good thing.
Not all credit cards are the same.
I hate to admit that the only reason I got my credit cards is because I was tempted with a free shirt, now I still wear my shirt and in way I kind of don't regret it. But again research would have helped a long ways. Compared the rates and find the one that was right for me. I lucked out that the cards I did get were the ones for me with pretty good rates.
The art of saving for the long haul
I've tried multiple times to save, and always ended up saving for short term purpose. Usually to buy something for myself. It never occurred to me to save for the long haul, to plan for longer than an end of a semester. An emergency fund would have come in handy right about now, but then again I didn't know what that was and how to go about it.
Investing in the future and myself
I always thought you had to be a 30 something with a full time job before you could even think about investing. Even now I'm not so sure that's the case. But I know it's not, it just seems like something that's so overwhelming that you need at least 30 years of knowledge just to read through the literature. But here's where PF bloggers come in handy again, by no means are they all knowing. But they probably read more books about the subject then you have, when I'm trying to learn something new, I peruse the blogs read for the basics and then read the literature for myself. By doing this I'm not going into the book blindly, I have some handle on the lingo and the basic structure. It helps.
The difference between a spending plan and a budget
I thought I knew what a budget was, but really I was creating spending plans. I've realize that a combination of both works for me. I budget how much money goes into each category and then devise a spending plan of how to spend that allotted amount, with an eye to save as much from each that I can.
These are just a few things I wish someone had felt the need to tell me before I waved my parents goodbye that August morn.
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