The Financial Struggles Young People Face in Today’s World
The financial landscape for the younger generation has seen significant shifts in recent years. As the world rapidly evolves, so do the challenges faced by young adults in managing their finances.
This article is written especially for enthusiastic youngsters who are in search of quick earning without taking care of the pros and cons. But in reality, these youngsters are facing many financial issues.
If you are an adult, this can help you in shaping your children’s future.
Most of the people of the age group 18–25 want to earn money to complete their immediate desires. They often don’t care about investments, savings, and personal finance.
Also, most of them rely on their parents for all the financial matters. From school to college everything is being taken care of by the parents. Till they become self-reliant, they miss an important aspect of their life which is “How to handle financial hurdles in your life?”
Here I will share some of the biggest financial distress which young people face. What can youngsters do to overcome them? How can they live an economically balanced life? Let’s take a look at them.
Financial illiteracy
There are two main reasons for that. The foremost reason is that economic balance and financial management are not taught in our schools.
The students learn STEM subjects, sports, creative skills but they are deprived of crucial financial knowledge.
The next thing is that parents take care of their growing kids without letting them feel any kind of financial burden. Though it is a good parenting skill, this sometimes creates problems in the upcoming life of the kids.
Tip for you: It’s better to involve yourself in small habits of saving money for any short-term goals or go to market for daily utilities and learn how to spend money smartly. This will increase your internal curiosity and financial intelligence.
Hefty Education Loans
Parents who are unable to afford the education for their kids take an education loan in the hope that it will be paid in the future.
This loan sometimes becomes a hurdle in their life who don’t get into jobs immediately after their college life.
This creates huge pressure on a student. Even if someone gets a low-paying job, it can take years to pay that loan.
Tip for you: It is suggested to research your employability and loan repayment strategies prior to taking an education loan. The landscape of the industry is changing rapidly. So you can’t rely on just one source.
Home Rent and bills
Most young people don’t have a direct source of income. They often get their bills paid either by their parents or some small part-time jobs.
Tip for you: To reduce the burden of exhausting funds, the skill of monthly budgeting comes into play. If you start managing your cash-flow bit by bit, it can be easy to handle this issue. Also, this habit will prove to be a milestone in the long run.
Risk-Taking Capability
What is the general mindset of your parents toward your career? A safe future? A good job? Civil services? That’s it!
Due to such surroundings, the youngsters are never exposed to learn about investment, the stock market, mutual funds, etc. This sector has not been considered a “SAFE ZONE”.
So once you start earning money, you will have no proper knowledge about the financial tools to be used to keep your money. Either you end up in a Savings account or an FD.
Tip for you: If you learn about investments at an early age, you can have enough capacity to take risks when you start earning. You will have enough knowledge about investments and returns. With that knowledge, they can utilize the power of compounding. This will give them long-term stability.
Finding a dream job
We have discussed a prior stage of the job i.e. education. After completing education, every college student starts a job search in order to maintain a self living. But job search is not an easy task in such a competitive market where more people are fired than they are hired.
The youth face this problem of finding a decent job. This creates a lot of above-described difficulties like loan repayment gets delayed, rent, meals, other expenses keep on building.
Tip for you: To come out of such a situation you can adopt some strategies:
Build a good CV/Resume which reflects all your capabilities, skills. This is the first step to getting a job.
Create a good network using social media like LinkedIn. There you can find jobs, peoples, companies, etc. which can be useful for you.
Find what are the trending skills in the industry which are high paying as well as most used. Learn those skills if you can. Add them to your CV to take lead over many others.
The Upshot
There are hurdles in every field, at every stage of life. This never means that you have to stop. A better approach is to find ways to come out of them. The best you can do is to find a good financial mentor/ financial advisor at an early age. It can be your parents, any friend or a financial advisory.