Welcome! It looks like you're new here. Be sure to subscribe to my RSS feed so you don't miss a thing! Thanks for visiting!

As I was perusing the Internet recently I found a couple of great of pieces I wanted to touch upon today. The first is a quote from a Colby College grad talking about her experiences after college. The whole piece was a filled with advice from graduates to their undergraduate counterparts – you can read them all here – but this one was the most pertinent to me:

“Every grad should know that, unless you’re going on to grad school, the first year out of college is one of the toughest you’ll face. Someone told me at my graduation party that it’s the hardest of your life. I’m not sure it made it easier, but when things were challenging, at least I knew it was normal. Why is it so hard? It’s something to do with having no structure and having infinite choice when you’ve spent the previous 18 years in an academic structure with many fewer choices.”
-Kimberly Schneider ’01

Adjusting to the post-college lifestyle can be very challenging for many people. I know I, for one, have had a huge problem with my sleep schedule since a 10:30AM meeting isn’t “optional”, the notes won’t be put online and you generally can’t schedule every Friday off. Many grads find the first year after college one of the toughest of their lives, for a number of reasons. A lot of these reasons are all the things we here at RealWorldReally.com talk about all the time: credit card debt, budgeting, building a savings, finding a job, dealing with roommates or doing your taxes.

The important thing to remember is that while things might be tough now, you aren’t alone and plenty of other people are out there on their own trying to make it work too. If things get overwhelming, talk to some of your friends or colleagues about what they did to get by and get settled out of school. After a short time dedicating yourself to making good financial decisions you can start clearing out debt, freeing up more income and eliminating a lot of the early sacrifices recent grads end up making. And of course, stay tuned here for tons of great info as well.

The other cool piece I found online was a short NPR radio clip talking with two young professionals living in NYC about their savings habits – they hit both of the extremes here. I thought it was a good listen and you can probably garner some great tips from both of them that will help you build financial assets, even without the benefit of a $200,000/year income like Mr. Levy.

Popularity: 21% [?]