Hello everyone! Today, I wanted to share some ideas and resources for using that precious self care time to learn and grow!

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For this Blogmas, the last topic I wanted to focus on for Self Care Sundays was education. I wanted to share the many resources that I’ve found and loved regarding finances! I figured it might help someone so why not share! Now, I think these steps I’ll share can be applied to just about anything you want to learn about. But because finances are my latest obsession, I wanted to focus on that lens. Here we go!

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Self Care Sunday: Learning About Finances

This year, it all started because of my old 401k account. I had been getting letters about higher fees on my account due to the fact that I wasn’t employed by my old company anymore, so I decided I needed to move my account. I realized my new company wouldn’t let me move my account to theirs until 3 months in, so I decided to wait to combine the two. But, less than three months in I ended up getting an offer at another company! The new-new company didn’t offer 401k accounts until a year in, so I had to move my account anyway in the meantime.

I googled what type of accounts I could move my 401k into. After deciding on a Rollover IRA, I headed to YouTube to find the best place for the account. Eventually, I had one new Rollover IRA account with my old 401k accounts in it!

Here’s my suggestions on learning and researching about personal finances.

1. As silly as it sounds, if you have no idea where to start, head to Google and find those articles with names like “what I wished I knew about finance” and such. Especially the ones that include “in my 20s” since those are typically related to beginner finance topics.
2. Once you find something that resonates in those articles, or if you already had a topic you were interested in, focus on that! Either look up more articles or even head over to YouTube. I really loved “The Financial Diet” YouTube channel, for example. There was a little about everything there! Of course, I would also say to be cautious about where you look. Some places might give dubious advice for many reasons, such as promoting companies they are sponsored by or to scam someone. Also, not everything will work for everyone. For example, there will be those financial gurus who have a ton of fans, but they can give pretty bad, super judgmental, or unsound advice. My best advice for these things is to check multiple places and reviews as well. Let’s say you come across someone suggesting Company A over Company B. I would recommend checking multiple sources to see if there’s a general consensus that Company A is, in fact, better than Company B. And, more importantly, that Company A is better for you.
3. Join related groups on social media for those topics. I joined “Her First 100k” on Facebook. Now, normally I hate Facebook and rarely use it but I find that those groups are actually really helpful! In the groups, if they are active and well monitored, there will be great people in there asking questions and giving advice. I have learned a lot, been encouraged a lot, and even done some encouraging myself!
4. Act! After you’ve learned about your chosen topic, make sure you act! I selected my new brokerage for my Roth IRA and Rollover IRA, and then it took me almost two months to finally get the checks from my old accounts and mail them back out for the new account. Realizing I had spent so long on that part of the process, I made sure to check my account daily and get the funds invested ASAP after it was deposited. Something I’ve learned through that aforementioned Facebook group, is that a lot of us will feel we don’t “know enough yet” and it was really eye-opening to realize how many people in the group were putting stuff off due to that. What’s the point of putting all that effort into learning if there isn’t any follow through?
5. Reflect on what you’ve learned and experienced too. Things are bound to go right and wrong, maybe at the same time, and it’s important to learn from experience. You can typically make changes and corrections. For example, when I was learning, I realized you could have more than one Roth IRA account, so I figured if I didn’t end up liking my chosen brokerage, I could just change it later.
6. After learning and acting on your chosen topic, keep going! There’s always something else to learn and it shouldn’t be a deterrent. After I got my Roth straightened out, I also opened a high yield savings account, made a better plan for paying off my student loans, made a budget, and started investing. So keep learning!

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So that’s my tips for learning about personal finance, or just about any other topic you’re interested in! Feel free to share your tips as well!

Thanks for reading!

Pamela

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