*Disclaimer* First I want to start by saying I’m not legally certified to give financial advice. I am only passing along information that can potentially help build wealth.
As an English major, I have been fascinated with British literature such as Taming the Shrew and Beowulf. My concentration is in creative writing so preparing for a New York #1 best-seller novel is something most people would think I want to do. But I always had the mentality that you can’t put all your eggs in one basket. While scrolling through Instagram for hours I came across a video with a guy asking millionaires what advice would they give young people. The two responses that stuck with me were getting life insurance and having your parents get a trust instead of a will especially if they own a house that way when it’s given to you property taxes and other fees can be avoided. That video sparked an interest in finance that I never knew I would be passionate about. It didn’t take long before I found myself down a rabbit hole of videos, articles, and a plethora of free classes about financial independence. When coming in contact with many of my peers in college they complained about not having money and living paycheck to paycheck. I always made sure to share what I learned with them so they could start to be financially stable.
- If your credit is “bad” or you don’t have enough credit in your name you can get a parent/guardian or any family member to add your name to one of their credit cards. Also, it’s a website called kikoff.com that helps to build your credit by giving you 12 dollars virtually and you pay 1 dollar from the money they “give you” within a year so it can help raise your score.
- Once you have a credit of 650 or better you can apply for student-friendly no annual fee credit cards that will give you points back that you can use for everyday purchases. Apple card, Discover, and Amazon are some great cards but it’s smart to get a card where you shop a lot. For example, I love Amazon and I shop at whole foods so I got an Amazon credit card. Many of these cards will give you a fair limit as a college student working a minimum wage job. For the average student, the limit will range from 500-1500$
- Next look into an account where you can gain interest just for having your money in an account. High Yield Savings accounts, whole life insurance, or even a 401k account are great for earning interest. Based on how much money and how the economy is you can earn a good amount of money every month.
- The last thing is getting a travel credit card so you can get miles when booking a flight, hotel, car, etc. Delta Amex’s lowest level credit card gives you a certain amount of miles just for getting approved for the card. Last time I checked if you spend 500$ within your first 6 months of getting the 0 annual fees blue Delta AMEX card you can get 15,000 miles and keep in mind that every 10,000 miles are roughly 121$ you can use to get off on your next flight.
I share my knowledge with my peers to help promote financial freedom. Since I took it upon myself to learn about this I make sure to express how helpful it is to have a great relationship with money.
I really enjoyed your take on having financial freedom. These are some interesting tips that I didn’t know any of. It is really important for individuals to have financial freedom in a world that takes so much from the working people. These tips will not only help my peers but even adults who don’t even have this information. I think it’s really helpful that you are willingly giving people this information for help.
Thank you Malik for this generous and vital post! With us all living in a world where we are overloaded with information from any and everywhere most people never get access or true understanding of any financial information that can save their lives and prevent them from suffering due to debt and other horrible financial decisions. I would like to touch more on financial literacy during one of our meet-ups this semester. Don’t be surprised if I circle back to you for your expertise lol!
Thank you for the refresher and information in such a concise format. I may need to take advantage of the last tip to book my next vacation.