Common money myths you should ignore

Growing up, we are bombarded with financial advice ranging from spending less, saving more to investing early. While most of these words of wisdom are true and mean well, there’s also a widespread on financial tips that are actually false.

There is a lot of bad information out there and falling for some of them can actually cost you money. Could be that other people misled you or you have been telling yourself the wrong things, whatever the reason, believing these myths can be hazardous to your financial wellbeing.

Here are some financial information that shouldn’t get you bamboozled:

In this era, knowledge is available at our fingertips and what this means is that going to college has become lesser and lesser necessary.

Well, college is still a positive investment (despite the high cost of education) because of its cultural benefits like creating well-rounded individuals but that doesn’t mean the expense is justified. The need for a college education depends on what you want to do with your life.

For instance, if your goal is just to make money, you are better off with a trade profession than spending time in college.

There are careers where you can start working immediately (say, after high school) and start earning right away with little to no debt accrued in the form of education loans in learning your craft.

The one caveat is that most employers still prefer applicants with college degree. As thus, a college degree may still give you an advantage when it comes to securing a job.

This is a generality that can cause more harm than good. Being told you should be having X amount saved because you are age 35 can demotivate you. I mean, if you are never going to catch up, why even bother starting? And what if you have already surpassed the ‘set amount?’ You will loosen up your saving culture as you feel that you have already hacked the financial challenge, won’t you?

What you need to remember, however, is to save as much as you can and do it as early as possible.

Truth is, there are certain times when taking debts can be helpful, especially when you are able to leverage the debt into income. You can use debt to buy rental properties, start a business or even advance your education.

Credit and debit cards offer way more protection than hard cash. Cards even have some incentives you can always take advantage of. For instance, reward cards and cash backs, these are sweet perks that hard cash don’t give you.

Credit cards also offer protection in case of loss or theft, therefore, they sort of have a guarantee that you won’t lose out everything as the case with hard cash.

The reason why some people consider cash king is because one tends to spend less when they pay in cash – a psychological barrier to purchasing that helps them save.

It is no longer like the traditional trading where one had to buy a given number of whole shares. Now, you can basically deposit whatever amount of money you have, thanks to robo-investors – digital financial aides.

Other than in stocks, if you are a beginning investor, you can look into the passively managed funds as it is also an easy way to start building your wealth.

Well, investing in stocks is akin to gambling your money. However, you need to be positive and trust in the stock market.

If you put your money in a regular savings account, your savings risk being affected by inflation. In that, as prices increase in the future, your money won’t be worth as much if they are not earning at least at the rate of inflation – what a thousand bob can buy you now is probably much more compared to what you will be able to do with the same amount in 20 years time.

Nonetheless, the key to trading in stocks is making sure you are only investing money that you don’t need right away. Tip: Don’t put your emergency fund in the stock market.