Read on to get the best student money tips available to Irish teens. As a teen myself I spent hours looking for the best financial advice specifically for teenagers, both online and from people I know.
After investigating I have found that as a teen you are taught little about finance, this lack of knowledge can leave many teenagers strapped for cash and struggling to afford basic necessities. This article aims to help fill in the gaps for teens where the education system comes up short.
The really great news is it’s not as hard as you think to get into good money habits. With the right information and coaching, teen finance won’t be a problem.
Here’s the 5 financial tips to make you the teenage Elon Musk.
1. Time is Money – Student Money Tips
2. Track your spending – Student Money Tips
3. Not all debt is bad – Student Money Tips
4. Go to College/University – Student Money Tips
5. Get a Summer Job – Student Money Tips
6. What’s Next? – Student Money Tips
1. Time is Money – Student Money Tips
As a teen, you’ve probably heard this a thousand times, time is money. Literally, all you need is time to make money.
Just lump a bunch of money into a long term investment and watch your money grow. Teenagers don’t have much resources available to them but generally teens and older people alike don’t realise how valuable time is because of something called compound interest.
Most people don’t realise the power of compound interest where your returns in year 1 boost your returns in year 2 etc..
When your young is the perfect time to start long term investing, but you should always get help from parents or professionals before investing in things like crypto or the stock market as you could lose all your money. Stupidly putting your money in Dogecoin could mean being in severe debt by the time you hit college.
Short term investing is often compared to gambling because the stock market and crypto are extremely unpredictable. Famously a monkey was able to make more money from the stock market than 9 out of ten professional traders on the stock market.
Long term investing is much safer and has bigger rewards. It’s a win win.
2. Track your Spending – Student Money Tips
Although this might seem insignificant, believe me when I say keeping track of the stupid things you’ve impulse bought really helps you avoid dumb purchases in the future. Its also useful because in a lot of cases you don’t realise what’s draining your bank account, things like going out too much to a snickers addiction can make your money disappear without you even realising it.
Always remember how much you have in your bank account before buying non essential items, You don’t want to go without heat for a week because you decided to have a drunken pool noodle fight with your roommates.
3. Not all debt is bad debt – Student Money Tips
It should go without saying, being in debt to things like payday loans is just terrible, but debt like mortgages generally can’t be avoided and have a relatively low interest rate compared to other loans. If you go your whole life without debt like mortgages, chances are you’ll be homeless due to how expensive houses are nowadays.
This doesn’t mean you should welcome all debt with open arms, as taking out loans for luxury items will always come back to bite you due to high interest rates, but if you’re starting up a business or taking out a loan for investments, debt should be worth it.
4. Go to College/University – Student Money Tips
There is a lot of stigma about people not being able to afford College and Universities, but that generally comes from the States as their prices for University is about 40`000 a year whereas in Ireland its about 3000 a year. 3000 is still a lot of money and chances are to afford living and tuition fees you’ll need to be extremely money smart but the pros of going to college vastly outweigh the cons.
Non grads have almost twice the unemployment rate as people who have gone to college and make on average around 10000 less. You may have also heard of super rich business men like Mark Zuckerberg and Bill Gates dropping out of college as well but you must remember again that they’re American where the prices of college are much higher and most people who drop out will not make as much as people who went to college. They also left to start the businesses that made them the billionaires they are today.
5. Get a Summer Job – Student Money Tips
If you are a college student, a summer job is basically essential to afford tuition and living costs. Not have a nervous breakdown over being able to afford a sandwich for lunch is amazing and helps you focus more on your studies.
It also helps to have a diverse and full portfolio for your cv when you go into the world of work. Employers like to see that you have experience working no matter what the job is and they also like jobs that show you have a multitude of skills.
What’s next – Student Money Tips
So to summarize,
1. Don’t take your time for granted, it’s extremely valuable.
2. Always remember what you spend your money on, make a budget with this information.
3. Not all debt is bad, some debt just helps you make more money further down the road.
4. Going to college is basically essential to get high paying jobs
5. A summer job should really help with finances and getting a job in the future.
If you want more help with money saving and investing for the future check out our other money saving articles.
