Early career personal finance tips you’ll wish you knew sooner

6 min read

Sometimes, late at night, I still get cold sweats thinking back to the time when I started my first “real” job. It’s not because I hated my work, had toxic coworkers or despised a horrible boss. It’s because I had zero clue how to manage my personal finances. Now, I can only look back with one part shame and two parts regret.

A lot of people will say “money isn’t everything”, but those are also the people who have likely figured out a system that works for them. They’re not constantly feeling the stress of watching a paycheck disappear within days, or being blindsided by the shock of a massive credit card bill. If these feelings are familiar to you, you’re not alone. When I first started my big girl job at 22, I neither cared nor knew much about personal finances. I was just stoked to be getting what seemed like a TON of money coming through my bank account every two weeks! That initial excitement would soon turn to anxiety as I watched the dollars disappear. After a year of working, I had almost nothing in my bank accounts to show for it.

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