Herman Ye

Running out of money is a huge fear for retirees. Without proper planning, you could find yourself making an unexpected comeback to the office ( hey guys, I'm back...) .

There are three types of people on campus - students, professors and smiley people in vests. You see the latter waving around "free" frisbees and t-shirts. As a broke student, the prospect of free stuff was ( and  still is ) super intriguing. But as we all know, there's no such thing as a free shirt. They wanted a credit card application in exchange. As I'm not keen on selling my data, I politely declined. The moment always stuck with me. Why would banks work so hard to give away credit? There must be something in it for them. Well, you bet there is! Banks make  billions  off credit cards, this is how. Interest When you don't pay off your credit card in full on the due date, you will be charged interest on the balance. Average annual interest rates on credit cards are around  20% . This is an incredibly high price to pay and an insane return for the banks. When you consider that the average return of the stock market is about 7-8% , the return they ea

Financial media is like all media, there is a lot of it and it comes at you from all angles. Your laptop, phone, TV, there's no escape. "Beyond Meat is rocketing to the moon, get in before it's too late!" "Household debt is out of control, the next crisis is coming. Sell now!" Endless "experts" looking into their crystal balls, pushing their opinions and presenting them as facts. No one knows the future. If they did, they wouldn't be broadcasting it. A poker player doesn't announce their cards to the table. Real information is kept to themselves to profit. Be skeptical of financial fortune-tellers -  or any fortune-teller for that matter . They're likely acting out of self-interest, promoting their own strategy or baiting for clicks. Rational minds acknowledge that markets are unpredictable and the future is unknown ( crazy, right? ). Despite the uncertainty of markets, decades of data demonstrate it trends up over time.

"Renting is throwing your money away." "You're just paying your landlord's mortgage." "My dad's friend's uncle's house tripled in value!"

My introduction into investing was with a big bank mutual fund. I was in university and knew as much about investing as Jon Snow knew about anything. I had some idle savings and was told it was the smart thing to do.