SoFi Blog

What is it about money and the heart? We try to make rational decisions about buying houses, investing for retirement, even something as simple as deciding on a household product. We think we can take emotion out of the equation.

The truth is, we can’t. There’s no such thing as a completely logical decision. Every choice we make is a mix of rational thinking and emotional desire. And that can be a dangerous cocktail when your personal finances are at stake.

What’s more, most people are largely unaware of their subconscious desires and motivations and fail to take them into consideration when making decisions. You can help to make sound financial decisions every day if you follow some simple guidelines. Even better, you can improve your decision making by taking the steps to uncover the emotion behind the money.

Bringing home a bundle of joy from the hospital is the start of a new adventure. You’re responsible for a new life and are now party to the ups and downs, the laughter and stress, of raising a child.

If you plan on having kids, you may already be considering how the new addition to your family will factor in financially. From the cost of health and prenatal care, to childbirth, to actually raising your child—things can get expensive. There’s a crib, maybe a new nursery, diapers, formula, clothes, and that’s just the beginning.

Young people are facing unprecedented levels of student loan debt and increasing costs for health care and housing. At the same time, millennial salaries are lower than those of previous generations, partly because many entered the job market after the 2008 recession.

While millennials are having kids later than older generations, a majority still rate being a parent as their most important life goal.

Let Your Goals Be Your Guide

After a somewhat gloomy close to 2018, the New Year has not exactly rewarded investors with warm and fuzzy headlines. Let’s see…first, there was the longest government shutdown in US history, which was hard on the employees who were directly impacted. And with that, the US economy lost an estimated $3 billion that will never be recovered.

Then, across the pond, Great Britain’s Prime Minister suffered a stinging defeat of her Brexit proposal and there is no clear resolution in sight. China’s economy was found to have grown only 6.6% in 2018, its slowest showing since 1990. The IMF also warned that global economic expansion is weakening.

And, oh, and the S&P 500, a broad measure of US stocks, rose 7.8%, which was its best January return since 1987 .

Wait, what? How did that happen?

Articles about the benefits of attending college typically focus on traditional situations where students live on, or right next to college campuses—and benefits of full college-campus experiences are numerous. But, there are also plenty of benefits when commuting to college and here we’ll look at seven of the most important of them.

Before we begin, though, we want to create a definition of this type of student. What is a commuter student, really? Traditionally, people think of students who live in dorm rooms as the ones who are heavily involved in campus life, but what about students who live nearby in an apartment? These students may also be immersed in campus life.

There are a lot of fun things to spend money on. Retirement does not always feel like one of them. Setting money aside for retirement is hard to do, but it’s truly a great gift that you can give yourself.

Your retirement has the potential to be one of the greatest times of your life—imagine taking your family on a European vacation, eating fantastic food, and reading all the books you never had time to read. It’s possible, but it all depends on how much money you save and invest.

The average person isn’t saving enough to live out their golden years in style. One study, by Vanguard , shows that the average (median) person has only $26,000 in retirement savings.

If you haven’t made an IRA contribution for 2018 and are looking to ramp up your retirement savings rate, you’re in luck: You can contribute up to $11,500 to your IRA by April 15, 2019 .