Financial advice for recent graduates

So, you have recently graduated and you’re looking for financial advice and do not know where to start. There’s many places to begin, but I hope I can give an overview. I was going to give specific advice such as which credit cards to get, but that changes over time, and there are better resources for that. So, I’m going to rather give you the resources to get much more specific advice and tools and you can use those to make the financial decisions you need. So, I’m going to give a step-by-step guidance on what to do now that you have graduated. This is not only useful for college graduates, but also useful for students who are still in college and anyone just looking for financial advice.

Check your credit score and report

This is a really important item to check off even before you do any of the other items on this list. Many apps provide this. Experian is the only one that provides an actual credit report on a monthly basis. But, apps such as Credit Karma, Credit wise by Capital One, Nerdwallet, Turbo, and Wallethub provide this sort of information and something called a credit score which can gauge your financial health in a simple number. The better the number, the better your financial health, so it’s always better to have it higher. Now, understandably recent college graduates or college students will have lower numbers than their full-time worker counterparts. But, look carefully at the report and score on the app. Are there any discrepancies? If there are, the sooner you report and fix them, the better. It will probably be better to check a few apps. I actually have all of the ones mentioned above installed on my phone, because they are all free and they all have different UIs, so to each their own preference.

Get some credit cards

So, this is an interesting conversation, because it all depends on what you want and need. It does depend on your financial health as listed above and whether or not a bank wants to give you a credit card. If you have poor to little financial health, a secured credit card would be ideal to build health. Some of the credit score apps suggested above give suggestions on what credit cards to get to build credit. If you have good to excellent credit health, I would disregard the advice on those apps, and instead refer to The Points Guy. Many of the premiere credit cards give excellent rewards and benefits now, so I would refer to this website to get advice and tips on which credit card to get for your scenario.

Let’s take for example, you would like an airlines credit card because you feel as if you travel a lot on airlines and you would prefer that, it would definitely depend on your city of origin. My current home city of Atlanta would definitely require a Delta rewards credit card. And, even if you travel only once or twice a year, a less prestigious rewards card in their line-up would be just as beneficial for the discounts.

That same advice applies for hotels that you stay at or stores that you shop at frequently. There’s also benefits to having multiple credit cards with multiple different providers because some places accept cards that others do not. That is especially true in the US with a Discover or AMEX, but also internationally. Some places accept Discover cards internationally that don’t accept a Visa or Mastercard which is more typical. I would encourage having at least one card that might be in the $500 annual fee range. The reason why I say that is because the benefits that come with $500 annual fee are more than enough to pay for it, especially if you use it. Definitely look into the benefits and do not look at the $500 fee part only. Look at the entire benefits package.

Follow some blogs

This is very vague, but depending on your interests, it might be good to follow a couple of different blogs that can inform your opinion on various matters that are of interest to you. My recommendation would be Penny Hoarder. They have great tips on saving money, budgeting, investing, etc. They pretty much have anything and everything involving money. Another one that I mentioned earlier is The Points Guy for credit card and rewards advice. There are many financial blogs out there. Just look for one that is more catered to your interests.

Budgeting, but not exactly

So, I’m not going to try to tell people to create a budget because I do not create a budget for myself, and that’s not something people might have the time to do. I certainly don’t. But, what I do tell people is get an app that can analyze their financial transactions, especially one of the newer apps, that have AI built in and can alert you to certain things. I really loved Penny when it was out, but they have been bought out by Credit Karma and closed down now, so a cool alternative is Cleo. It’s not as feature rich as Penny used to be, but they are rapidly improving it, and I think that within half a year, it should be much better.

There is one major reasons why I suggest to people to get a financial transaction analyzer app: it can analyze the transactions and you can get a feel for how much you spend across all your different spending methods whether that is multiple credit cards, etc. Look, you don’t want to have to budget $100 for travel manually. But, if you notice that you spend $350 on Uber this month, you can definitely take a look at it then. Or if you spent more than usual in any category, you can look and analyze the transactions and maybe even catch discrepancies.

Conclusion

Here’s all my general financial advice. I am thinking about a few blog posts about more specific blog posts on more specific topics. I have not decided yet if I will be doing them or what those would be. Thanks for reading. If you have any comments or questions, please feel free to ask. Thanks!

The above should not construed as official financial advice. Please consult an actual financial advisor or fiduciary for actual financial advice, etc.