Personal Finance - Restraint Today, Freedom Tomorrow

So you enjoyed living in your mom's basement. While you were there, you earned a world class education getting an MBA from the best online university in USA. You have worked just as hard in looking for a job and found that foot in the door at a start-up. Congratulations! In many ways your life begins now.

These are exciting times. Now that you have great deal of freedom and a steady paycheck it also is a very dangerous time and a time for caution. You have lived responsibly while living with your parents because you were spending their money. Now that you no longer have that obstacle, an easy tendency would be to start your free-spending ways. What you do over the next few years could impact your next few decades.

Let's review some of your financial responsibilities. As the saying goes "life comes at you fast" so you need to be prepared at any given time. Things you need to save for, in that specific order are

·         Saving for your immediate needs also known as an emergency fund

·         Saving for a house and family

·         Saving for retirement

Let's take a look at each one in detail.

Saving for an emergency: How often have you been able to predict your monthly expenses? It is nearly impossible to predict where the next big expense will come from. For starters if you move into an apartment you are going to need furniture. Next month it could be your car tires or the cell phone you accidentally dropped in the toilet. These are bound to happen at one time or another. We're not even talking about the serious stuff like missing work due to illness or an accident. Now creating an emergency fund will result in your depending on credit and credit cards. If you start early with credit cards you will never recover from them. So when the going is good set up an emergency fund.

Saving for a house and family: Eventually your bachelor days will be behind you. You will meet someone you really want to settle down with. It might be the girl you’ve been chatting with online – you know, the one completing one of the top accredited online nursing programs. Given how expensive homes will be by the time you get ready to buy a house, you should start saving now.

Saving for retirement:  While this seems like a millennium away, you should start now. Hopefully your career will grow with you and you will be retiring having achieved all your career goals. If you want to maintain that lifestyle without an income, you have to start saving now. So live by the motto - save today, enjoy tomorrow!