Creating a Budget
Budget is not a bad word! It lets you see the options you have for your money: spend, save, invest, and donate.Your budget ensures that you don’t run out of money before your next paycheck. If you follow a budget, you will be able to accomplish your financial goals and retire early one day without money worries. Budgets are for everyone regardless of age or amount of income. Budgets help you set limits on your spending so you can get and stay financially healthy!
Additional Resources
If you want some additional information on managing your money, there are several places you can go. You can ask your friends and family for advice, but be sure they manage their money well! Choose carefully because you want someone who practices the things you learned about in this module. You can get some advice from financial experts. Your bank would be a good place to start, but remember most financial experts charge money for their advice because it is how they make their livings.
You can also visit the library or the book store. Here are three good books to get you started. They are easy to read and will give more good information.
- Rich Dad, Poor Dad by Robert T. Kiyosaki - A very engaging book written by a man influenced by both his own father and his friend's father. As you may guess from the book's title, one is very wealthy and the other is lower-middle class. He speaks at length about the advice each of them gave him while he was young and explains why his "rich" dad's mentoring helped him to become a millionaire later in life. This book is well written and very easy to read in just a couple of sittings.
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- The Motley Fool Brothers, David and Tom Gardner, continue in their sarcastic manner to give money management and investment strategies to teens in their book The Motley Fool Investment Guide for Teens. The brothers spend some time describing and defining mutual funds, banking, retirement accounts, and other types of investing. Also, many first-timer mistakes are detailed in hopes that teens won’t make the same ones.
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- The Money Book was written to address the specific financial reality that young people face today, and it offers a set of real, not impossible, solutions to the problems at hand and the problems ahead. This book is concise and helpful, without making teens feel like the author is “talking down” to them. Suze Orman tells her young, fabulous, and broke readers precisely what actions to take and why.
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