Sometime shortly after I began working in May of 2017, I remember reading through my employer’s benefits packet at my job (I suggest doing this before starting a job, but I was young and dumb). I started seeing abbreviations like 401k, IRA, and HSA, with headlines beneath saying things like “invest in your future”, or “plan for your retirement now”.
Embarrassingly, these were all phrases or acronyms that I had seen before but in reality knew nothing about. I remember reading through it and turning to my dad to ask him
what a 401k was…
I could name you every muscle in the body with it’s origin, insertion, and action. I could name every nerve in the body and what it innervated. I could tell you how to treat numerous conditions, rehab injuries, and quickly recover from surgeries. But I could not tell you what a 401k was.
I went to school from Kindergarten through physical therapy school, accepting my doctorate roughly 20 years later and I could not tell you the difference between a Roth IRA and a traditional IRA.
I couldn’t fathom how no one through all that time had taught me anything about money, retirement, or investing. I questioned how I was allowed to take a 4th gym class in high school but not required to take a simple class about understanding money. However, this will require a likely long winded soapbox rant in which I will save for a post in the future.
Moving forward
During that same discussion with my dad, I remember asking him who taught him about this stuff and he responded that “you just sort of figure it out as you go”. That answer wasn’t good enough for me. I didn’t want to risk my hard earned money just blindly putting my faith into accounts that I knew nothing about except the surface level knowledge my HR lady could tell me.
Nor did I want money building up in my checking account serving no purpose other than reminding me of just how poor I really was.
No, I wanted my money working for me, I just had to figure out how.
At this point, I still had not yet stumbled into the FIRE (financial independence retire early) community but this was my first step towards that direction. I made it my personal goal to learn everything there was about investing, retirement, and money. I started by just googling each term I didn’t know. This progressed into reading article after article about what each account was, what rules applied to each, and what specific things I should be investing in.
Before, I had gotten too deep into my research I was given advice by a friend. He told me to invest the minimum in my 401k to at least meet my employers match and to start a Roth IRA. Although, this advice was not unique to my goals and situation it was good advice and the starting point I needed in which to begin investing.
Conclusion
Reflecting on this process now, I learned that no one is going to hold your hand with investing and money. There are also people out there who look for young people like myself who come out of school with good paying jobs and little knowledge about money.
They will offer their “services” for small percentages of your money. And at the time, 2% doesn’t seem like much as we can barely see past our next pay check. Or they will offer investment options loaded with high fee’s and charges hidden to the unsuspecting new grad.
Ultimately, it is our responsibility to take control of our money because no one
else is going to do it for you. In life, only you have your best interests in mind.
Feel free to comment below with any questions or if you have specific or personal questions feel free to contact me here!
