Book of the Month: Broke Millenial

Happy new month! It's the beginning of the second half of the year. I don't even want to say I don't know where the year went to: I do. What a year.  Although this year I have slacked with blogging (since I literally could not be bothered), one major reason I like blogging is the ability to see how far you have come. Of course, you can also do that with your personal journalling, but I like some sort of record showing you how far you have come. So for me the year hasn't flown by, it has been 6 months of grueling hard-work, some anxiety, some failures, and lots of successes. So bring it on second half, let's do this!

It also is an opportunity to look at your vision board, list of resolutions, goals for 2018 and re evaluate how you can achieve some of the things on the list. I'm not so naive that I wouldn't know that many people don't have this privilege; for some, they just want to survive. Which brings me to all the insanity in Nigeria, and the many lives that have been wasted within the past couple of weeks.  Lives are being wasted due to happenings that can be avoided. We really are all tired and angry and frustrated. I know everyone keeps talking about getting your PVC and those of you who can vote, please do get your PVC. The truth though is I think more focus should be placed on the National Assembly and local leaders/governance. I feel it is necessary to mention that I think am sure our current president is a disaster, but we all know that already. Anyway, here's hoping for better governance. On a lighter note, I have a book of the month today yayyy *throws confetti* Without much ado*, let's get to it.

I have been digging non-fiction a lot lately. I have also been a little obsessed with personal and responsible finance generally. I think we are merchants in the marketplace and must be both diligent and faithful with whatever God has blessed us with. With that, this year I took a slightly aggressive approach to my finance: not being miserly/frugal as much as knowing where every dollar goes to and making responsible decisions. I wish more people would do this too. You know, think twice about that weekly trip to designer stores for things you know you don't need. Think about investing; think about retirement and your future financial plans; and think about [getting out of] your debts; think about giving; think about your credit score.  But there can be an extreme measure to this, as with most things in life, too much of everything is bad. [As Christians] Our hope is (or should be) ultimately in God's ability to provide for us and his grace, not so much in that we know how to spend.

The book of this month is therefore on  personal finance, called Broke Millennial: stop scraping by and get your financial life together. Honestly, the title already tells you everything you need to know. I first heard of the author on The Financial Diet, another personal finance blog/vlog. And then I put her book on my wishlist, and my awesome friends got me tons of books for my birthday, and this was one of them.

I like the matter of fact nature of the book; but not as much as I love her personal anecdotes and relatable way of communicating. The book does a good job of  touching on everything: negotiating your income; navigating the anxiety-inducing, often overwhelming, and borderline destructive concept that is your student loans; finding the right financial products; credit scores and credit reports; how to navigate declining to split bills evenly; getting financially naked with your partner; investing; buying a house (YES, millennials too are buying houses); and retirement (like how does roth IRA differ from traditional IRA?). The best part is the approach to these are not overwhelming at all. She also tries to come at it with finesse, not the way most people address it by scaring you with sensational headlines like "Millennials will never afford houses" or "Millennials are doomed forever with their loans" or "How stupid can you be to take student loans?". She doesn't do any of that nonsense.  It’s basically a finance bible. Something you can reference if confused about any concept. It also does it without complicated jargon. I love that.

Like I said, I implore you to read this book or any other finance book/blogs out there or just take charge or just pay attention to your finances. Think about it, you are not just taking care of you this way but sort of, kind of, in your future generations as well. Privilege is never having to take student loans because grandpa left a hefty inheritance for you lol. Again,  I also worry about being so obsessed with your finances that you forget to live! It’s exactly like living a healthy lifestyle/eating clean: you can begin to obsess over every detail and then judge those who aren't. Don't do that. The same way you don't want to be the friend who makes the choice of where to eat dinner tedious, since they don't eat gluten or eat carbs or eat meat and fish or eat eggs but also prefer their veggies grown in a farm where dogs are treated like kings. Get the hell out of here with your impossible standards. Set a realistic goal: be out of debt by 30 or buy a house at 35 etc. but also know life is wayyyy more than a bunch of checklists, and what is success to others isn’t necessarily success to you. Define success for you, and live within your means. At the end of the day, every single financial book, blog, video, advice out there can be summarized to that: live within your means.

Love,

I.

*much ado being the last time I did one was almost a year ago!

P.S. for real, for real now, I am back to blogging this second half of the year...probably :)