7021: 대학 졸업생을 위한 경제 조언 – nyt
배병일 (babang) @ 2006-06-13 01:50:30 Read: 115 Recommended: 0 Scrapped: 3
미국 얘기라 생소한 것도 있지만…
1. 커피 사먹지 말고 혼자 끓여 먹기 (스타벅스 그런 것 좀 좀!!!!!)
2. 요리하기. 최소한 도시락이라도 싸가지고 다니기
3. 네가 쓰는 거 네가 다 갚기
4. 401(k) 빨리 시작하기
5. broad stock index fund에 투자하기 <– 한국 증시에서는 어째야 하죠? 고수님들
한 말씀 부탁. 특히 증권사 동문들. :$ 한국에서는 무조건 아파트인가요?
6. 월급 오르면 오른 만큼 다 저축하기
7. iPod 처럼 시간이 지날수록 가치가 떨어지는 거 사지 말기. 차는 중고 사라.
(Saturn SL, Toyota Echo 타라. Mini Cooper나 VW Beetle 타지 말고.)
8. 월급 10%는 무조건 저축
등등…
우와~~~~ 많다.
June 10, 2006
Your Money
Advice to All You Graduates: Let’s Start With That Daily Latte . . .
By DAMON DARLIN
This is the season for giving advice to graduates as they enter the workplace.
Instead of listening to yet another recitation of the usual admonishments to
“change the world,” “carpe diem,” or “wear sunscreen,” those graduates —
unless they are already trapped on the nonpaying internship hamster wheel
— need to hear how to manage their paychecks.
Parents may have tried this. And many will undoubtedly send this article to
their children.
But, dear graduate, before you wad this up and toss it next to the keg still
sitting there from last week’s party, consider this: If you think it is tough
living on very little now, imagine what it will be like when you are old and sick.
Surveys say most of you already suspect Social Security will not be around
after mom and dad deplete it sometime during your peak earning years. A recent
survey by the Pew Research Center found that 61 percent of Americans 18 to 29
years old favored a system of privatized retirement savings accounts.
Let’s start with the easy stuff first.
Make your own coffee You probably know you spend a lot at Starbucks, a company
that collected $6.4 billion from coffee drinkers last year. You probably don’t
have any idea how much of that total came from you. A calculator at
www.hughchou.org/calc/coffee.cgi let’s you figure that out and also forecast
how much you will spend over a decade of coffee breaks. (This Web site contains
a treasure trove of financial planning calculators.) Say you spend just $3.50
every workday for your latte. If you drank the free office brew instead, you’d
have more than $11,500 to play with after 10 years.
Does coffee shop coffee taste better than the free stuff? Probably, but ask
yourself, do you want to live in a roach-infested studio apartment with two
roommates your entire life?
By the same logic, if you smoke, now is a good time to quit. Doing so will save
you on average $25,600 over 10 years.
Learn to cook Unless you have learned the art of sneaking into conferences at
hotels to snag a breakfast croissant or cocktail-hour shrimp, you need to
reduce your dining budget. A twice-a-week kung pao chicken takeout habit can
easily drain you of about $10,000 over 10 years.
At the very least, learn how to pack a lunch. Taking your lunch to work may
seem like the equivalent of sitting with the nerds in the school cafeteria, and
going out to lunch with colleagues can sometimes be a smart career move. But
bringing your lunch lets you be more choosy about who you are eating with and
saves money. How much? Back to the online calculators
(www.hughchou.org/calc/lunch.cgi) and you’ll discover that the savings could be
as much as $23,000 in 10 years.
The tally so far: $34,500 (for the nonsmokers), or enough to make a down
payment on a $172,500 house. That won’t get you much in most big cities, so you
really need to exert yourself.
Pay yourself first If you do everything suggested so far, you haven’t had to
sacrifice much except perhaps a regular lunch with the office jokers. Now,
prepare to sacrifice.
Set aside 10 percent of your paycheck in a savings or brokerage account
separate from where the rest of your money goes. You’ll be less tempted to
spend it if it is hidden away there, unattached to a checkbook or an A.T.M.
card. If your employer has direct deposit of paychecks, your paycheck can
probably be directed to different places.
Here comes the tough part. You are going to squirrel away this money in
addition to the pretax money that you take out of your paycheck to save in the
company 401(k). Only 31 percent of workers 18 to 25 participate in a
tax-deferred 401(k) retirement plan, according to a recent survey by Hewitt
Associates, an employee benefits consulting firm. The others undoubtedly assume
that they’ll get to it later. About two-thirds of workers 42 to 59 have money
set aside in a 401(k).
There is an important reason you want to start early, even though it hurts. Say
you withhold $375 a month for your 401(k). In 40 years, you’ll have $750,000.
But those who waited a decade to get started would have only $377,000.
And guess who delayed? Mom and dad. The average amount in a 401(k) is less than
$60,000, according to the Investment Company Institute, a trade association of
retirement fund companies. Generation X isn’t in any better shape. A study by
the Center for Retirement Research at Boston College found that 49 percent of
those born from 1965 to 1972 won’t have enough money at retirement to maintain
their standard of living.
Another bit of advice: Stick the money in the broadest stock index fund offered
by your plan, not bonds and not a money market fund. Sure, the markets may
stumble at some point during the next 45 years, but history has shown that they
will rise over a period that long. You take risks when you are young.
Ignore your raises Every time you get a raise, and you’ll get them because you
are working hard instead of spending money you don’t have, pretend you didn’t
get one. Bank the entire amount.
Over time, you’ll start spending the money. It’s human nature. But you’ll start
spending it more slowly. You’ll keep the car another few years. You won’t
immediately move to a new apartment. All that helps money to accumulate.
By this point, you may be screaming: “I can’t afford to do this. There will be
nothing left for me to live on. Have you seen my student loans?”
A few words about those loans. The government will make its annual adjustment
of interest rates on existing student loans on July 1 to reflect recent
increases in all interest rates. Consolidating your loans at a fixed rate to
lock in a lower interest rate is one possibility, but you need to calculate if
the longer time frame of such loans — and the greater overall interest
payments — offset the savings from the lower interest rate. (You can’t
consolidate consumer loans or credit card debt with the student loans.) You can
always pay a loan off early once your salary increases.
Now, back to the hectoring. Having less to spend can help you spend less on
frivolous things and save for worthwhile causes. Having less will also make you
work harder to get more. If you are comfortable, you get complacent.
Don’t borrow to buy depreciating assets Almost every consumer product from an
iPod to a sofa is worth less the moment you buy it. You are just paying extra
for it with a loan. Borrowing, by the way, means taking out a loan, buying it
on installment or using your credit card when you don’t have the money to pay
off the balance. If you can’t afford it, don’t buy it.
An exception is a car, which may be a necessity that would be out of reach
otherwise. One option to consider is a used car coming off a dealer’s lease.
They tend to be driven carefully and there are a lot of them thanks to recent
incentives from manufacturers. Keep the term of the loan short to minimize
cost. The latest edition of the Consumer Reports “Buying Guide” lists the most
reliable used models, including the best ones for less than $6,000 like the
2002 Saturn SL sedan and the 2000 Toyota Echo. The guide also includes the less
reliable models like the 2002 and 2003 Mini Cooper and the Volkswagen Beetle
from 1998 through 2004.
Protect your credit Eventually you will have to borrow money for a car or a
home. If you want to pay as little as possible in interest, you want pristine
credit. So make yourself a credit card company’s worst customer: pay your bills
on time and never carry a balance. No exceptions. To help avoid temptation, use
no more than two credit cards. Try to find one that gives you rewards —
airline ticket rewards or cash — for using it, but still won’t charge a
fee for that privilege.
Another technique to cut down on incidental expenses is to train yourself to
use the A.T.M. only once a month. Take out enough cash to get you through the
month, and when you run out of cash near the end of the month, stop spending.
Don’t grab for the credit card.
Now go out and seize the day. And wear sunscreen.
E-mail: yourmoney@nytimes.com
