What is step 4 in a resident's financial journey? Hey, it's Jon from Financial MD, welcome to today's didactic minute.
Today we are on the beautiful Grand River in Lansing, Michigan and I thought this would be as good a place as any to tell you what that fourth and final step is in a resident's financial journey. Step 1 was your Cash Flow – knowing what's coming in and what's going out, getting a budget, and what's your surplus. Step 2 is to take that surplus to fund your Safety Net – that's your emergency fund, three to six months of your fixed expenses; and insurance. Together, those form your safety net to protect you from anything that can happen financially, for the most part. And then step 3 is getting your Debt Strategy in place; so not getting out of debt yet but having a strategy in place whether it's credit cards or student loans or your mortgage, whatever it might be, get it started, get disciplined, and get going…which brings us to step 4 – Growing your Future…realizing your future. A lot of times that's investing, so we're going to talk about investing a little, but to get real in-depth on these topics, you've got to go back to our other videos. We talked about stocks, mutual funds, 401(k)s, IRAs, and Roth IRAs. All those things are topics in and of themselves, but the one thing I want you to hear today is to invest first…save first. Get that done first of the month, right after you get paid every two weeks. Whatever it is, get it out of your bank account and you can feel that freedom and that permission to enjoy the rest of your money. Spend it. Do whatever you want knowing that you've made the good decisions early whether it's payroll deducted in a 401(k), whether it's coming right out of your checking account of your Roth IRA…whatever it is that you have to do, get that done first; get that discipline happening automatically. We live in a world where there's no reason you can't get that done now.
So to dig in more about how much to invest, where to invest, and what to invest, get into our past videos. You can check it out on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok…wherever…and be sure to subscribe and follow so that you see what comes next in the journey. And hey, do the right thing for your colleagues. Share this with another resident so they can get a little bit financially smarter too. This is Jon from Financial MD, we'll see you next time.
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