CediWISE

Enhance your professional credibility

Mubarak Sumaila — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 18:11:15 +0000

Credibility is not something you automatically have, nor is it something you can bestow upon yourself- its something others bestow upon you.
The problem is that most people don’t give their credibility a second thought, they automatically assume they are credible, they don’t make any conscious effort to make sure others feel the same way.
The unfortunate truth is that if you don’t take active steps to enhance your credibility, others will do it for you…. and you may not like the results.
Basically, there are three main components to credibility that you need to be aware of in order to gain some points in the credibility market. These are your values, behavior and your reputation.
Your Values: values are acquired over the course of your life and they ultimately shape your expectations of others and of the world. And just as you have values that you use to judge others by, so does everyone else. The problem comes when those who are judging your credibility have different values than you. For example, some people value arguments and lively debate. So if someone values argument and you don’t, it may look to you that the person is mean and likes to argue all the time, when all they’re really doing is trying to encourage a lively debate. But because you have different values, that person loses credibility in your eyes for being a trouble-maker. And on the flip side, the other person may view you as weak because you don’t engage in lively debates, when in fact you simply value keeping the peace more so than arguments.
Therefore, you need to know what others value and to what degree they value it, as their own standards will dictate the level of credibility they bestow upon you.
Your Behaviors: Behaviors are things you choose to do. We all make thousands of choices every day, but hey, be sure to remember that you’re judged by your outward behavior not by your wonderful intentions. .
Some key behaviors to focus on as you attempt to boost your credibility include:
• Don’t over promise. Do what you say you will do.
• Be open about your motives behind a directive or decision. You choose what you tell people.
• own up to mistakes (early and always).
• Keep people’s confidences. Get permission before divulging sensitive information.
• Treat others consistently and fairly.
• Listen to others. You choose where you put your mental focus.
Your Reputation: Your reputation is the total of what your values are and how you choose to act. Ultimately your behaviors lead to your reputation, and then all three of these factors – your values, your behaviors, and your reputation add up to your credibility.
Your reputation is something you have, whether you know it or not. And unfortunately, you can get a bad reputation very easily. In fact, it’s often the small things – like not returning emails promptly – that can tarnish someone’s reputation more so than the bigger issues.
The good news is that you can enhance your reputation by working on it, which will inevitably boost your credibility. You simply need to think about the behaviors you choose and the kind of reputation you want to earn. Therefore, find out what people’s expectations are of you and then meet them.
Finally, realize that being likable doesn’t play a big part in your reputation. You can be very quiet, shy, and totally introverted yet still have a stellar reputation. Conversely, you can have a great personality, be the life of the party, and be totally charming, but have a less than flattering reputation. So no matter who you are, where you work, or what your personality, you can have a great reputation.
And always remember;
Credibility Matters: In today’s economy and job market you need to take the proper steps to enhance your credibility. In fact, if you’re not taking values, behaviors, and reputation into consideration, you could quickly find yourself out of a job with few prospects for new work, as your credibility will be tarnished. A lot is on the line here, so take it seriously. Build your creditability today so you can have the success you desire for years to come.

YOUR THOUGHTS MAKE UP YOU!

Mubarak Sumaila — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:59:19 +0000

So what are your thoughts telling you about the economic situation!
Things are moving from bad to worse everyday. The struggle is becoming even tougher and some people do not even know where to find their next meal from. We are in a system where every one has to fend for themselves and thinking hard as to what you really want your life to be and how to work towards that has become the order of the day. We need to constantly abreast ourselves with information everyday since that is what keeps us moving right?
But what are the line of your thoughts, do you constantly think of how bad the economy really is and how to make a difference in it to help yourself, or do you think of moving along with the flow? Let me limit myself to one thing here. STUDENTS! especially in the tertiary institution.
Just to share my thoughts with you!
When I first entered into the tertiary institution, my mind was fresh and I didn’t know much about life. I started studying hard alright, but then as I moved higher, things began to occur to me. All I could get myself to think of was how I was going to take advantage of the opportunities here. ONE! To make friends and increase my social network, TWO! To get myself informed and to use that information to my advantage and THREE! To identify the enemy.
I used to share my parent’s ideology of coming to school learning hard and getting a good job. Not bad, but as the days passed, that changed. Our parent’s kind of education was in that form, and infact, they had nothing to worry about. Things were prepared for them, plans were made for them. Even in school, things were free for them. Most of them didn’t even pay school fees, they were given school uniforms and they were even fed. All they needed to do was to study and make the good grades so they could complete well and go get the jobs that were already waiting for them. That was the INDUSTRIAL AGE.They didn’t have to think much about what would become of them after school, they only had to think of their books.
But!
In the information age as we are now, You really need to keep yourself abreast with time: To know what is really happening in and around the world, get yourself some relevant information in your interest area and act on it.
THE PROBLEM!/ENEMY.
Either you haven’t left the industrial age, or you simply do not care.
Hey! These are both dangerous thoughts. In this age, this is not too good for you.
WANT TO COME ALONG WITH ME?
Okay, but first, if you are still in school then you should change your thoughts about tertiary education.
This phase of life where you are in the tertiary institution is to widen your horizon, see things in a different kind of way from everyone else and increase your social network. This helps you to be different and quite ahead of everyone everywhere you find yourself. You don’t necessarily have to wait for employment or die trying. Think! You would be different in even dressmaking, catering and all the stuff you might think are odd. But if you can excel in these, which you can because of your wide knowledge and experience, you can excel in many things. So when you complete school or even before you complete, all you need to do is start something. READ OTHER ARTICLES ON WWW.CEDIWISE.COM you might find some answers as to how to do this. You might just put yourself on the money making ladder.
You are really, really what you think and the more positive your thoughts are, the better you. People can only advise you, but only you can decide the kind of person you want to be so you know what, just think right. You can start by getting information. Keep reading our articles, we can help you when it comes to personal finance and attitude change, and keep reading other stuff in other fields because you need as much information as possible to help you change your thoughts for the better.
By: ABIRO BELINDA BAKANTUMA.

SIX SMART TACTICS TO KEEP YOUR BUSINESS RUNNING.

Mubarak Sumaila — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:46:32 +0000

At first, your greatest worry might have been how to materialize your business idea and get it running. You might have succeeded and probably have a big company. Then comes the next one, keeping the company running without any problems or complications. Nothing good comes easy, you’ll have to keep up with a lot of things and even introduce new things now and then, to secure your business. Here are some tips for you.
DON’T FORGET THE BASICS
Starting a business is one of the most difficult things to do. If you have been able to pass through this phase, congratulations, but do not forget what it took you to do this. Why? well this certainly keeps you on track. You may have had to fight hard and claw and do all the odds to make ends meet. This might have been really hard but make a list of all those things you did back then to bring in revenue. You probably moved away from this when your business flourished. But hey! This is the time to aggressively return to them.
CASH FLOW SHOULD BE PRIORITY.
Knowing how your cash flows is not an easy but worthy cause. Cash is very important in business and all care should be taken about it. Well, don’t be scared about this because it doesn’t take any fancy accounting. It is simple, it is just simply tracking how cash comes in compared to how it goes out. Take some time of your busy schedule to this because it is worth it AND! You don’t have to regret in future because you didn’t do this.
FORECAST!
Look into the future pal. You are not on a nine day wander, therefore you should plan ahead and know what you want your company to be in the next ‘let’s say’ ten years. Analyze what money is coming in and specifically from where, maybe in the next two months or more and when this money is coming in, you can then analyze this with the out flows you would have in this time you’ve set for yourself. If things aren’t going well, as in, if outflow overcomes inflow, it’s okay, but this means you can then do some slash downs in some areas to keep things under control. It’s important to keep things under control you know!
MAINTAIN THE LIFE BLOOD.
Who really takes care of your business when it comes to money, who lays the golden eggs, who pays your bills right now, who really keeps the business standing? YOUR CUSTOMERS. How then do you treat your customers. Every business wants new customers everyday to increase their cash in flows but in as much as you might want new customers, you should keep in mind that the old ones are priceless and you should try all means possible to hold them tight. Old friends are the best remember? Your competitors are also hanging around waiting to grab what is yours. It is therefore imperative to make your clients feel like kings and queens. Call them yourself and ask them how they are doing, if there is anything you could do for them, if they are satisfied or dissatisfied with anything, if they are happy with your service and what you could do to provide them with an even better experience.
PREPARE FOR EMERGENCY.
You never know when something unforeseen might strike you HARD! So you must always be ready for any emergency. Set up an emergency fund for your company. If you have some money you can set aside, keep it in the emergency fund. If you don’t have any money, please start now setting that money aside for the fund. You can save cash that equals three months or more of your cash out flows into an account and never touch it unless it is life or death for your business. This is why it is called EMERGENCY fund. Won’t you enjoy having a cushion to fall on when you are falling?
KEEP STRESS UNDER CONTROL.
Stress is something that would definitely set in where ever there is hard work. But knowing how to keep it under control is important. Stress can have a negative impact on your appearance and decision making. In business, you should be sure to think clearly. Meaning, take all your decisions when you are fine and feeling fresh. When ever you are feeling stressed, take some time off to refresh yourself. You may do this by getting off work for a moment and listening to some entertaining CDs. getting out of your working environment to some place new and refreshing. There is no way you can be smart when stressed so be smart, get rid of that stress.
Read more of our articles to help you in other areas.

By: ABIRO BELINDA BAKANTUMA.

Maximize Your Output: Achieve More with Less Time!

Mubarak Sumaila — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 17:38:14 +0000

The wise old saying that time is money, could never have been nearer the truth. Imagine if you had more hours each day to devote to your own personal improvement, that would have a great impact on your effectiveness, accomplishments and long-time success, wouldn’t it?
What did you do with your time today or what are you doing right now? Chances are you probably can think of valuable ways to spend your time, and chances are some of these ideas are more valuable than the ways you’re spending your time right now. The fact is that when you maximize your time, you actually do have more hours in a day.
The trick is to take advantage of shortcut strategies, yes shortcuts but not in the negative sense though. These shortcuts would help you maximize your time.
Here we’re going to take you through a few basic shortcuts that will dramatically reduce the time you spend getting ready so you can exit fast into a life of prosperity.
First we’ll take a look at the modeling shortcut: in many industries and organizations, modeling is a strategy used to mock up an end product before investing in it. In your instance, time is probably the most precious resource you have; make a model before you go out and spend it. In essence, plan your time before using it!!!
You could also consider defining your time: you could do this by grouping together the various activities that take your time. For example, your free days; when you are available to meet people, work days (those you keep to yourself to do your own work)
If a whole day seems too long to devote to a single kind of work, then you could consider going by half days or even less, say two hour blocks.
If you don’t define your days, then every day you’ll bounce around from one activity to another, all day long. Time is lost as you try to transition from a high-energy activity to one that requires you to be calm and quiet. You have a harder time getting focused because you’re constantly changing the focus. In contrast, defining your time allows you to get into one mindset for a particular type of activity and stay there. You can find your rhythm and get into a groove so you actually accomplish more in less time.
Break the rules every now and then: even if we don’t know it, we all are operating on an unspoken set of time rules, yeah, you better believe it. Never heard of:
• You must work eight to ten hours per day????????????
• You must take time off on Saturdays and Sundays.????????????
• You must be available by phone and email at all times????????????
However you can escape the rules of time. How you spend your time is your choice. For instance, maybe you’d rather leave work every day at 3:00 p.m. but work six days a week.
Start defining the length of your workday by the results you achieve instead of the hours you work. Time rules don’t necessarily mean working less, but they do mean working with more freedom and choice.
You don’t need to do too many things at once, Replace Multitasking with “Unitasking”:
Multitasking is a necessary aspect of life in this high-speed world, don’t get me wrong, but you gotta recognize the impact multitasking has on you, you have less concentration, your actions become fragmented, you make hasty decisions and in general your actions are done poorly. On the other hand,
Doing one thing at a time – even for a short time – improves concentration, calms you down, and allows you to get more done in less time. Considering that on average only about three minutes out of every hour are used with maximum focus, you can improve your “concentration rate” in just five minutes at a time. Then fifteen. Then twenty. So all in all, what we’re saying is Accomplish More in Less Time: You will never have control of your time until you take control of it. So while your day will still consist of 24 hours just like it always has, when you implement these shortcuts you’ll feel like you accomplish more because the time you use will be most productive. Therefore, stop long enough to get a handle on how you want to spend your time, and then implement these new ways to maximize the time you do have. Rethinking your relationship to time takes an open mind, it takes commitment, and (ironically) it takes time. But the investment you make in it will pay you back hour after precious hour. You’ll find that you’ll achieve more progress and fulfillment in all areas of your life – and in less time than you ever imagined.
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FirstBanC First Fund

Mubarak Sumaila — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:36:11 +0000

FirstBanC First Fund is a short term collective investment scheme that pools resources of a group of investors known as shareholders and manages it on their behalf.
The main objective is to provide regular income while preserving capital and maintaining liquidity at all times by investing primarily in a diversified portfolio of high quality fixed income securities and other money market instruments.
First Fund Investment Account helps you meet your short- to- medium term financial needs such as saving to take advantage of a business opportunity, catering for monthly household expenditure or providing for a child’s education.

As a First Fund Shareholder (investing in the First Fund), you enjoy the service of professional fund manager, you also enjoy the reward of a diversified portfolio as well as less expense.

First Fund Investment Account comes with low start up cost, easy entry and exit and last but not the least, it’s flexible.

First Fund Investment Account comes with regular update on your investment status and returns on tax exemption coupled with superior returns in the short term and continuous world class investment advice

First Fund is suitable for individuals (especially retired persons), associations, investment clubs, corporate institutions, provident and pension funds that are:
• seeking high regular income to meet short -to
-medium term financial needs
• primarily concerned with preservation of capital
than long-term capital appreciation
• seeking diversification in fixed income

MINIMIZE YOUR BANK CHARGES!!

Mubarak Sumaila — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 18:31:44 +0000

Banks used to make their money by taking customer deposits and lending it out at a higher interest rate. Along the way, they discovered they could siphon off a little bit in the form of “fees” cleverly disguised as “convenience” charges.

Bankrate and banks charges like ATM surcharges, monthly service charge on a current account/checking account and last but not the least overdraft or nonsufficient funds (NSF) are absolutely astounding. All these charges adds up to billions of earnings for banks.
This article is part of cediWISE’s focused on you money – how to get the most out of your banking relationships.

Now let’s talk about how to minimize these fees.

INVESTIGATE

When you’re deciding which bank to use, ask them for their fee structure so you can compare them. While you never want to be dinged for a fee, if all other factors are equal, go with the bank with the lower fees. Many banks will now refund you ATM surcharges, even if it’s another bank’s ATM, and many offer accounts with no account service fee if you meet their requirements.

Research ATM Locations

When am looking out for a bank, I look out for the bank that has got a lot of ATM branches. This is because, accessing my money shouldn’t be a problem and also I wouldn’t like to be charged much higher when using other ATM with my VISA ATM card. Most ATM’s charge high rate when you use different ATM cards which was issued by a different bank.

Fewer Charges

You may be surprised there are a lot of banks which charges far less than what you expect. I wouldn’t like to mention some banks that are really exploiting and draining the water out of us now. They talk to you as if they work in your interest but I bet you they are CHEATS!!!

By: Sumaila Mubarak

WAITING FOR YOUR NEXT PAYCHEQUE?

Mubarak Sumaila — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 17:52:06 +0000

Many of us once we get our selves hooked up with a permanent job, all we do is work our butts out for our organizations and wait for whatever comes with it; your salary and other little remuneration that comes along. Do you know what that means? You are making your job determine what kind of person you should be, how your life should be and hey, what you can have and not have. Boy! That sucks doesn’t it?

Be the master of your own finances

What do I mean? Well I mean you can have a good job with a good pay cheque and everything but as a person who wants to be financially free you can’t be content with your pay cheque and worse if you have to live from hand to mouth with it. To live above average and have your happiness in your life you need to sit up and be the master. You need to make some decisions that would push you up the financial ladder. What exactly do you want to achieve in life? Is your pay cheque helping in that regard? If no then You’ve got to manipulate it to get you to your destination.

Invest

Did I hear you say “my salary is too little for that”? Well my friend, nothing good comes easy. Investment is diverse. You can choose what you are most comfortable in and invest in that. Don’t say you don’t have money because you might continue not having it if you are going to do nothing about it . You may read our previous article on saving to help you make a start. Try to get some information about what you want to invest in. Think! Is it in stocks and bonds, is it in insurance, or do you want to create something of your own you can monitor yourself like getting a business started and running?

Get a business started and running.

It’s my opinion right? Yes, let me tell you why I’d rather go for that. A lot of people visualize starting a business to be the biggest and hardest and most expensive thing on earth but hey if you think starting a business is owning the biggest building with a lot of people working for you and a lot of cars at your disposal, then I understand your fears because that is certainly very expensive. The trick many people miss is that, you don’t have to start a business big, you can start with something small and then that small thing would begin to rise to become the big thing you have always wanted. Have you thought of the sort of business you want to do?

Maybe you want to own a huge supermarket where you would want a lot of people working for you. Well, that is good but maybe you don’t have that kind of money to do that and might never have considering your salary, so what do you do? Do you just fold your hands and say good bye to it? Hell no! You can start small. How much can you spare out of your salary? Nothing? Okay, why don’t you save little by little until you have enough to put up a table with some small provisions to sell? Please do, whiles you sell, the profit would start coming in and then you can use the profit you make to enlarge your little business. Before you know it, you’d have a big supermarket with more cash to enlarge it if you want to.

Don’t say your salary is too meager, or that you can’t afford to or anything that makes starting your business impossible. You could be missing out on the much money you would have made. Risk that little money now for a better tomorrow when you couldn’t care less if your salary delayed or even did not come at all because you just might be making ten times more money than what you have on your pay cheque. But all these depends on your attitude and the decisions you make in that regard.

By: Abiro Belinda Bakantuma.

WANT TO WRITE THE BEST RESUMÉ?

Belinda Bakantuma — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 13:25:16 +0000

Your resumé can also be viewed as your curriculum vitae(CV) and with this, you basically want to convey some special kind of information to your prospective employer. This is something you and I wouldn’t want to mess around with, something we would want precisely, to be flawless. So, how do you go about it? How do you write an impeccable resumé?

Do not generalize.

You can bet your last cedi on the fact that you are not going to be the only one applying for that particular position you seek , in fact, if even you are the only one, you can be sure that writing your resumé haphazardly is definitely not going to get you the job, so whatever the case, you should be as specific as possible with your resume. Why? because with the thousands of people who would apply for that same position with you, you need to be as specific to the job as possible. If you are going for a job that requires certain skills, ensure that you trim your resumé to suit the position. In this case, the resumé should emphasize the positions you have held where those qualifications have been prevalent. You also need to make sure that you don’t use the same resumé in every job application you write.

Check for grammatical errors.

What picture do you think you would be painting about yourself sending a resume full of typographical mistakes. The unemployment situation in Ghana today hasn’t help in any way either so employers are always looking for the least mistake to drop your application out of the race. The least mistake you make could give you the door and for that mistake to be found in your resumé means you aren’t going to get anywhere as far as that position goes. And so please check and double check before you send it. You could even have your friend or a person with better spelling and grammar look it through before you finally post it.

Here comes the BIG one!!!

Make sure it’s legible.

Put your self in the shoes of an employer who has over thousand resumes to go through, what would you do? I’m sure you certainly would look for the best written because you would agree with me that having to read a horrific writing is really stressful and you need to consider the number you need to go through. When it comes to computers you need to be really careful because what might look to you to be a nicely formatted can come out looking terrible and unreadable when you paste it into a text box. It would be sad if a computer made sense of it and selected you only to be discarded because no one can make sense of it because it came out as gibberish.

Organize your resumé well enough.

Organization is really important because through that you would be able to prioritize. This should be done carefully. What would you want your prospective employer to see first once he picks up your resumé? So organizing your resumé in order of importance helps. How would you arrange it then? How about your contact information, your objective, education, accomplishments, skills and then awards? If you have been out of school for a while you can flip education and accomplishments. I’m sure you want the most important material toward the front.

You should not mention references.

Companies rarely call references before talking to a candidate This means that you should never put references directly on your resumé. I’m pretty sure you don’t want your references’ contact information floating around the internet. If the company wants a reference, they can ask you for it. Applying for a job on the internet is very different from the normal paper and pen application we know of.

It is really difficult finding a job these days so when applying for a job make sure you put in you best in every aspect possible, your resumé should be one of those important things. Don’t let that simple mistake you made in your resumé rob you of that dream job. Good luck!!!!!!!!!!!

HOW DO YOU DEAL WITH THAT FINANCIAL CRISIS? DO NOT PANIC, TAKE IT EASY!

Mubarak Sumaila — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 19:38:04 +0000

Think it through carefully.

When that financial emergency comes rushing in, hey! Don’t panic. I know depending on the gravity of it, sitting down and taking it easy is probably the last thing you want to do and you are probably about to jump into the next planet and back in a second, but consider this, how is that going to get you out of that difficulty? You can be sure that if you think the problem is hard to deal with, panicking is going to make it even more difficult than it already is, SO taking it easy is the thing. What you really need to do is to try to determine what caused this situation. Being able to find ways to solve this crisis depends on how you understand the cause. Have you thought of what caused this financial emergency? What is it? Is it a natural disaster? Or maybe it is a sudden loss of money? Or you’ve been robbed of the last cedi you have. Perhaps it is some expenses mounting up so fast you can’t keep up with it. Well, what ever it is, just do first things first, things that would lead to a possible solution of the problem and not stress and more stress.

What do you do next then!

This is really important, take a look…….

You can prioritize your expenses. This situation might be so sudden, one you least expected so you really need to take certain quite painful steps like cutting out those things you really like but do not really need. You can do this by starting from the very important thing to the least, then you would know what you need to do before the other and what you need to remove. You can try a list where you would put food and shelter at the topmost part of your list. You can also consider which bills you can delay a little on in paying up. This would help you save up a little to take care of your emergency depending on what it is.

Look elsewhere for extra money.

Maybe you have been saving up for uncertainties like this, but this might not be the case. The problem might not fit in the case of an insurance. On the other hand if you opened an account in a bank especially for that, the money you may have by then might not be enough to take care of that problem. What do you do then? If it is possible for you, you can do some temporary work or maybe there is something you have that you could sell to raise the money. After you’ve taken care of that little problem you could always buy back whatever you sold and even more.

You can also borrow.

Nobody finds pleasure in doing this. I know this might be something extremely difficult, but some little help from friends and loved ones wouldn’t break a bone. After all they say “what are friends for”. To help you get through that situation it wouldn’t hurt to let the people around you help. Or, you could also borrow from a bank where the interest wouldn’t be that much to deal with.

Grab that available assistance.

If there are provisions to help people in a situation like yours either by the state or individuals, take the opportunity and go for it. If it is a job loss make sure you collect all your benefits and entitlements. Perhaps it is some form of illness either on you or a family member. You should be in a position to get the assistance the state has put in place. An assistance like the health insurance. This means you should have registered, right?

These things happen in life once a while. So whiles you go about your daily activities you should endeavor to make provisions for them. Even if they happen before you ever think of protection, there is always a way around everything so you could still take it easy, okay?

Don’t Buy A Home Within 5 Years of Graduation

Mubarak Sumaila — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 18:38:01 +0000

I’m quite sure your next big dream after finishing college is probably buying a house.

Sure it’s great to own your own house but apart from the obvious financial problems of purchasing your own house immediately after college, there are other non-financial reasons I would like to take you through as well.

Don’t get me wrong though, I think it’s great to own a house but don’t buy one immediately after college!

Here’s why………..

Loss of Flexibility

When you buy a home, you lose flexibility. When you buy a house, you are putting down roots in the community and you lose flexibility in many aspects of your life. For the first five years of your professional career, your flexibility will be one of your greatest assets. As you learn what you are good at doing and figure out what you really enjoy doing, you may want to change jobs or even careers. When you buy a house, you’re restricted geographically. That could mean that a great opportunity on the other side of the country is something you can’t pursue (easily)

Learn What You Like

In the five years, take the time to look around and see what it is you like about the places you live in. What do you dislike? Until you’ve lived in a few different layouts and setups, you won’t really know what to look for. Do you really like a big kitchen or just like how it looks in photos? Will you really want a hot tub or do you just like the idea of a hot tub? Is a garage something you really love and can’t live without? Unless you’ve lived in places with these amenities, you won’t know how important they really are to you.

And now, to the more widely known financial problems of jumping into home ownership.

Unless you’re the fabulously rich heir, who can do whatever he wants with his money, listen to this…

A mortgage is a huge weight. Your first few years of graduation should be spent enjoying and exploring your freedom, not saddling yourself with tens to hundreds of thousands of dollars of debt. Believe me when I say that you can be even financially irresponsible for the first few years of your life, buckle down, and still retire a very happy and fulfilled person. As long as your financially irresponsibility doesn’t rack up a debt itself, you’ll be fine.

Homes Require Maintenance

And maintenance, regardless of how handy you are, is both a headache and time sink.. Things in a house break and you’ll have to fix it. When you rent, the landlord is responsible if the roof leaks. When you own it, you are responsible if the roof leaks and roof repairs are not cheap. In fact, they may cost several thousand dollars.