In today’s complex economy, it’s impossible to avoid pernicious influences like inflation, scam artists, and personal bouts of poor judgment. No one is immune to negative factors that have the potential to rob individuals of their personal wealth. Risk is part of life. Fortunately, there are plenty of powerful methods that can minimize the chance you’ll fall victim to scams, a sluggish economy, or your own financial missteps. Developing a balanced long-term investment portfolio is a helpful first step for most working adults.
Other tactics include being careful about cosigning on loans, avoiding potentially dangerous online links, using common sense when investing in the stock market, being diligent when evaluating credit card offers, changing account passwords every so often, and saving money on a regular basis. No single approach works for everyone, but most people can get worthwhile results from a combination of techniques. Review the following points to jumpstart your imagination and protect your wealth from a multitude of threats.
Build a Balanced Investment Portfolio
Work with an experienced consultant or alone to construct a sensible long-term investment portfolio. The account is your best protection against the ups and downs of a volatile economy during the decades between your early working years and retirement. The portfolio’s primary purpose is to shield account holders from inflation, but a secondary purpose is to offset the effect of taxes as much as possible. What does balanced mean in the world of investing?
It’s about including several asset classes in the collection of financial instruments within your portfolio. While there is no perfect list, a majority of working adults who maintain such accounts prefer to include assets like corporate stocks, commodities, a small dollar amount of precious metals, mutual funds, bonds, ETFs (exchange traded funds), investing in real estate and more. Each item has its own list of potential advantages. Some bonds are tax-free, and certain corporate stocks pay quarterly dividends.
Think Twice Before Cosigning on a Student Loan
Scam artists and inflationary pressures can be destructive, but self-deception is even worse. That’s why it’s so crucial to be honest with yourself when someone, like your own child or a family friend, asks that you append your signature to their college loan application as a cosigner. While it’s incredibly tempting to say yes and help a youngster finance their higher education, find out the pertinent facts. Does cosigning a student loan have the potential to harm your good credit standing and scores? Yes, it does. Will it? That depends on how the original borrower performs.
If the student graduates and later defaults on the loan obligation or simply makes several late payments, then the lending institution can seek recourse from anyone who cosigned on the obligation. Answer all the relevant questions for yourself before agreeing to cosign. Anyone who wonders if they should cosign a student loan should spend time researching the topic. But that’s not enough. Read the fine print on the loan agreement for which the person is asking you to be a cosigner. Those are the two most thorough ways to gather the information that will give you a sufficient answer to the question.
Beware of Bait-and-Switch Card Offers
Many issuers of plastic take part in questionable practices, like offering 0% interest for one year, no fees, and guaranteed approval for spending limits up to $10,000. Those all sound good, but they are common ploys to get unsuspecting consumers to click on offers and sign up to receive a card that comes with hidden fees and conditions. If you read the fine print, the typical bait-and-switch ads include wording that indicates only qualified applicants will receive the 0% rate, or similar verbiage. The bottom line with offers that seem too good to be true is that they are nearly always come-ons and should be avoided. Instead, use a reputable financial website to find legit offers based on real qualifications.
Change Bank Passwords Frequently
At least once per month, change all your money-related passwords. Don’t use any obvious methods or systems to create new passwords or phrases. Find one of the free online random number generators and use its output to craft truly unique passwords that no one could guess. Never use any form of your birthdate, name, or address to create passwords. Write them all down and store them in a safe place.
