A word in your shell-like. While mother may know best when it comes to a lot of things, there are a few things you simply have to learn by experience.
Fortunately, friends, acquaintances (and I) can all help make life a little easier here. So read on for 5 things you won’t have been taught, but you really need to know.
1. Having credit cards and loans can boost your credit rating
While running up debts like there’s no tomorrow is a bad way to go about things – having a credit card, taking out a loan and having a mortgage can actually improve, rather than hamper, your credit worthiness.
This is because if you’re a good borrower (one that maintains a good credit history by making payments in full and on time, and keeping in contact with their lender) other financial services companies will be happy to lend to you.
2. A job shouldn’t be for life
Feeling over-worked, under-valued and under-paid? Then tell your boss where to stick it – once you’ve found yourself another job to go to, that is.
The fact is that many people who change jobs, find both their earnings and job satisfaction levels rise.
You see, just as doing the same old same old, week in, year out, can make us bored and disillusioned, the same can happen to bosses to. They know us, they think they know what are capabilities are, and so most of the time, when promotion looms, they don’t give us a second thought.
Yet, how many times does it rankle when you see a newcomer being given the chance to ‘shine’ at something you could have done twice as well – given half the chance?
Well, it’s time to look after number one. You find someone new to impress too. And I bet you’ll be impressed too when you find out how much you’re really worth.
3. Your bank won’t reward your loyalty
Are you two-timing your bank? Well you should be. Much like bosses, banks like fresh meat and will do everything they can to entice them in.
Many banks focus their attentions on wooing new customers and ‘reward’ their loyal, long-standing customers with much poorer deals. So you, loyal customer, are long forgotten.
They’ve got you. They know that. They assume you won’t go anywhere.
Statistics show most people have more chance of getting divorced than switching their current account to another bank.
But, it’s time to change that. It’s time to get out there and play the banking game.
4. Your boyfriend/girlfriend WON’T change for the better once you’re married
An old-fashioned approach to marriage still looms. ‘Once you’ve got him down the aisle he’ll become a lot more responsible. It’ll be the making of him,’ you hear.
If you give a wry smile and think, ‘Not my guy/girl, nothing will stop him/her spending/boozing/smoking etc in a million years’, then you’re a smart cookie.
You see, a few decades ago 90 per cent of girls who got hitched, got to jack in their day job, leaving poor old hubby to carry the can financially. But that’s all changed.
The good news for today’s newly-wedded man is that a lot of women like to keep their jobs. The bad news for any girls out there, who’d hoped to find Mr Right and then spend the next 40 years spending his hard-earned cash, is that 90 per cent of men today also expect their wives to pull their weight, money-wise.
5. While there may be no ‘right time’ to have kids, some times are ‘righter’ than others
Kids change your life. They change everything from your body (girls), to your choice of car (boys) and perhaps more importantly, your cash flow (boys and girls). Kids cost a fortune.
So having a regular income, a nice home and a stable relationship makes the task of child-raising a hell of a lot easier.
And the cost of raising a child isn’t something your mother (or mother-in-law) will have to contend with when you have a child.
So next time you hear the now familiar complaint about you having failed to furnish her with a grandchild, when all her friends’ off-spring have had the courtesy to oblige, don’t feel pressurised, just explain one of the facts of modern life – financially, you’re just not ready yet.
{Image: Images_of_Money}
