Something that is largely overlooked its time management and the implications of good time management versus poor time management. Obviously there is a finite amount of time in each day, so the trick is to maximize your productive time and minimize your unproductive time. For a lot of people, all of their extra time involves sitting around watching television or engaging in something else that is unproductive. In order to begin the process of managing your time wisely, it’s important that you identify what is important to you and what is unimportant to you.

For some people, spending time with family is important. For others with no family, or no family around, perhaps it doesn’t play as large a role. I personally fall into the second category: I have no family that is nearby and so I have virtually no time devoted to family besides an occasional phone call or weekend visit (which happened this weekend). This leaves me with a lot more time to devote to things like furthering my education, engaging in social activities, and investing my time in developing skills that can push me further towards my goals.

Things that are unimportant to me include things that will not better me or push me towards my goals. This means mindless tasks like watching most television, movies, drinking for the sake of getting drunk, and other things that yield me nothing. I value my time very highly and so I try to spend as little time as possible doing mindless things. That being said, I still am human and need a mental rest every now and then, and so I will spend an hour every few days watching TV or browsing the Internet even if it’s not really helping me.

Now that I’ve identified what’s important to me (bettering myself and moving towards my goals) and what’s not important to me (mindless activities and things that hinder me from accomplishing my goals), it’s time to start thinking about how to break up my day so that I maximize my available time by cutting out the unimportant. I’ve been criticized by my peers for making every morning an “early” one (I say “early” because in college, anything before 9am is considered early), but I find that since I took the steps to make my mornings more productive, I can make my evenings more enjoyable and overall I’m in a better position. I wake up each morning by 6:45 and start my day, eating breakfast and then going to class until 1:00pm every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday. I have no class on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but still wake up at 6:45 regardless of what time I have to work, if at all, because I can be far more productive when I’m not distracted by my roommates and friends.

One of my most difficult goals is to be able to retire by the time I am 45 - something that’s relatively unheard of for most people. On Tuesdays and Thursdays, I usually spend about an hour or so reading the news to see what is going on in the business world. This helps me gain a general oversight of what is popular, and it gives me a better general understanding of how the business world is working. I usually then devote some time, either before or after work depending on when I work, to updating my blog and brainstorming ways that I can maximize my spare time and money in the future. Some may see this as generally unproductive, but I’m confident that it’s a worthwhile investment; sometimes I will use this time to read or do homework as needed.

My days are largely sporadic because I’ve got a part-time job without set hours each week; so each week is different. It’s hard to plan my days then until I know when I am supposed to work. But, the latest I work is 8:00pm (retail) which still leaves me a few hours before I go to bed for the night. In this time I read, update my blog if I haven’t found time to earlier in the day, finish any homework I may have, and continue to find ways to move myself towards accomplishing my goals.

By managing my time wisely for the past month, I’ve noticed that I’m far more productive, find myself being bored less of the time, and am happier and healthier. I get a good night of sleep every night, even if I’m only devoting seven hours or less, and in the mornings I usually wake up feeling refreshed and ready to tackle the day at hand. Pick out the important things in your life and emphasize those when thinking about how to maximize your time. I suggest waking up early to accomplish things that may otherwise go undone in the day. Avoiding distractions helps you be more productive and being more productive helps you accomplish the things in life that truly matter to you. Don’t let anybody dictate how you spend your time; my friends think I should spend my time drinking and enjoying “college life”, but I know that through good time management I can enjoy college life without drinking and still accomplish what is important to me. The only thing keeping you from accomplishing your goals is how you spend your time. Master your time, and you can master almost everything else you want.

Habits are always a touchy subject for some people. They can have both positive and negative influences on our overall health. Saving for retirement automatically, spending a few extra minutes thinking over purchases, paying off your credit card as soon as you use it - these are good habits that will help us. What about the bad habits? Drinking, smoking -things that, for the most part, you know are bad for you, but you continue to do them anyways because of, likely, a physical addiction.

You always hear about the bad habits from people telling you that if you stop, it will help you out. Stop drinking, you’ll spend less money and you won’t risk as much being injured in a drunk driving accident. Stop smoking, you’ll help prevent cancer and you’ll cut back on $5 a day if you’re smoking a pack a day. It’s the habits that don’t seem bad for you that, financially, can be devastating. Take, for example, a morning coffee stop at Starbucks - or another coffee place. On average, a coffee probably costs you $4. Over the course of a week, $20. Over the course of a year, roughly $1000. Now $1000 may not seem like a lot to some people, but when you’re living on minimum wage like me (post coming later, so heads up!) those $4 mornings can get quite pricey.

I recently gave up drinking alcohol for three and a half months. Even though I’m underage, I’m in college and drinking is a big part of college life here at my school; it’s a great social outlet. Besides the obvious legal and physical ramifications of drinking, it was taking its toll on my bank account. Over the summer, I spent far too much money on alcohol - I’ve estimated that, since I stopped drinking one month ago, I’ve saved about $200-$300 that I would have otherwise spent on alcohol. That’s a pretty hefty chunk of change for any college student, and I’ll be happily shoving that money into my Roth IRA. Kicking bad habits improves physical and financial health. I have no question that whatever a bad habit is, getting rid of it will help you financially and physically.

That being said, it’s vital that good habits are developed to help you improve your physical/emotional health, and your financial health. Saving for retirement is something that I - ignorantly - thought most people would be doing. Having my father be a Certified Public Accountant has put some huge discipline on me when it comes to my finances, so I’ve been saving for retirement in a Roth IRA for a number of years already. If you don’t already have a retirement account, open one as soon as you can. It’s a great way to protect your money from, well, yourself, and also have it grow exponentially. This Roth IRA calculator is a rough estimate of how much a Roth IRA will be worth given your current age, your age of retirement, yearly additions (max this year is 5K, although that number will be increasing), marginal tax rate, and expected rate of return. I myself should have over $1.5M in my Roth IRA alone by the time I am 60 - I was going to say the time I retire, but I hope to retire far earlier than that.

Saving can be difficult when it’s something you have to think about. I will be the first to admit that if I have cash in my wallet, I am going to spend it, and it’s very likely that it’ll be on something I don’t need. For that reason, I’ve set up automatic transfers from my checking account to two of my other savings account to take a total of $400. When I made my budget (they are a good way of helping measure your financial progress), I had to figure that I had $400 less a month to spend on something - fun money, bills, etc. It’s made me rework some of my variable expenses - cutting back on drinking alone helps me save over half of this money. Automated transfers are an invaluable resource to help you stash away money. You no longer have to think about it, you just automatically do it - and help yourself in the long run. If you can’t save $400, save $100, save $10 - any amount is better than spending it on variable expenses that are luxuries. If you can save more, do it; if you invest wisely, your money will grow for you.

Paying off your credit card bill immediately and thinking about purchases don’t really need much said about them. They’ll help keep your debt and unnecessary purchases under control, which will help you be able to kick in more money to your savings.

Instead of working for your money, make your money work for you. Kick the bad habits, promote the good ones. If you can’t kick a habit completely (I am only giving up drinking until I turn 21, and then it’ll be in moderation to save my liver and my wallet), cut back as much as you can. Stretch your comfort for a while. Most of the time we continue a bad habit because it’s a comfort for us - our coffee gives us energy for the day, but so can something else. Satisfying a physical addiction can be comforting. But if you can stop and still be moderately comfortable, you’ll find, like me, that you don’t need alcohol or nicotine or your morning coffee to feel good. If you’re struggling to get ahead, I bet that you won’t unless you evaluate your actions and figure out what needs to go and what needs to stay.

I’ve seen many complaints on other blogs about how qualified a blogger is to write about finances. Most people who write about finances, as far as I’ve seen, are not professionals in regards to finances. I’ve seen people who are writers, engineers, and other. No matter your occupation, finances are important for helping plan your future.

Why then, should you listen to what a student has to say? Second (or third, or more) opinions on a subject are always healthy.  As a college student, I can relate to many different types of people - other students, younger people who are not students, people without jobs, and people with low incomes. Much of what I read on financial forums doesn’t pertain to me; I don’t have thousands of dollars to invest. I don’t have expendable income. I am a poor college student squeaking by on a 30-hour-a-week job at minimum wage. Because of that, and because I’m still managing to not only stay afloat but also improve my financial situation, I think it’s easier for those people in situations like me to relate. Sure, I’ll talk about things that the middle and upper classes can endulge themselves in that I cannot; but I will also relate it to how those of us with less income can get ahead. Too long have low-income families and students gone unnoticed in the financial world. People tell me it’s nearly impossible to save for retirement making less than $20K a year; I’ll use my experiences to show you how I am saving for the future and hopefully you can take something out of that.

As always, take anything you read with a grain of salt. I’m not perfect. I will make mistakes on here. If I do, just kindly correct me; it’s not the end of the world. You will make mistakes, too. To quote Batman Begins: “Why do we fall down? So we can learn to pick ourselves up.” Let’s learn.