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The recession rocks...if you're young. If you're in your 20's or 30's consider yourself young and able to take advantage of the current economic situation. I know it's hard to see anything good in it, but being young gives you plenty of time to recover from our nation's financial meltdown, and it may even give you some advantages.
1. Invest on the cheap - Yes, the stock market has tanked, dropping almost 40% since its all time high in 2007. But, because you're young that's a good thing. You get to buy stocks on sale, and who doesn't like a sale. Then you have 20 or 30 years to wait for your investments to grow, and its historically grown an average of 10% a year. Even if you had invested in 1928, right before the Great Depression, you would have still gained an average of 8.5% a year over the next 30 years.
2. Home Buying - We bought our home at the very beginning of the housing decline. I kick myself all the time for not waiting another year or two. It would've saved me a lot of money. Since we bought our house in 2006, median home prices have dropped 25%, and some metro areas have dropped more than 50%. Yes, I'm talking about you Detroit. Plus the government has now sweetened the pot with the $8,000 first time home buyers credit.
3. Your career options are open - This may be a bit of a stretch, but hear me out. Yes, the unemployment rate is close to 10%. Yes, hiring for graduates has dropped off significantly. But, imagine how much worse it would be if you had a mortgage and kids. Imagine working for a company for 15-20 plus years and then being laid off. What would you do then? Being young means you can still explore various careers. Some you may have never even considered had we not been in a recession.
4. Debt is no longer in - One of the best things to come out of the recession. Debt is out, and frugality is in. Before our current mess, Americans were saving 0% or less. How do you save less than 0, easy you spend more than you earn. Which is what a lot of people did. But now the savings rate is up close to 7%, the most since the 80's. Now, credit is harder to come by, lenders aren't throwing it out like candy at a parade. If we can't get as much credit, perhaps we don't dig ourselves into debt at such an early age.
Hopefully we've all learned from the recession. Living within your means and saving money is now in, and that rocks.
1. Invest on the cheap - Yes, the stock market has tanked, dropping almost 40% since its all time high in 2007. But, because you're young that's a good thing. You get to buy stocks on sale, and who doesn't like a sale. Then you have 20 or 30 years to wait for your investments to grow, and its historically grown an average of 10% a year. Even if you had invested in 1928, right before the Great Depression, you would have still gained an average of 8.5% a year over the next 30 years.
2. Home Buying - We bought our home at the very beginning of the housing decline. I kick myself all the time for not waiting another year or two. It would've saved me a lot of money. Since we bought our house in 2006, median home prices have dropped 25%, and some metro areas have dropped more than 50%. Yes, I'm talking about you Detroit. Plus the government has now sweetened the pot with the $8,000 first time home buyers credit.
3. Your career options are open - This may be a bit of a stretch, but hear me out. Yes, the unemployment rate is close to 10%. Yes, hiring for graduates has dropped off significantly. But, imagine how much worse it would be if you had a mortgage and kids. Imagine working for a company for 15-20 plus years and then being laid off. What would you do then? Being young means you can still explore various careers. Some you may have never even considered had we not been in a recession.
4. Debt is no longer in - One of the best things to come out of the recession. Debt is out, and frugality is in. Before our current mess, Americans were saving 0% or less. How do you save less than 0, easy you spend more than you earn. Which is what a lot of people did. But now the savings rate is up close to 7%, the most since the 80's. Now, credit is harder to come by, lenders aren't throwing it out like candy at a parade. If we can't get as much credit, perhaps we don't dig ourselves into debt at such an early age.
Hopefully we've all learned from the recession. Living within your means and saving money is now in, and that rocks.
1 comments:
Recession rocks if you have money.. It sucks bad, really bad for the un-employed and homeless. Almost 3 in 15 Americans are now jobless. can you believe that?
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