First Generation White Collar: A practical guide on how to get ahead and not just get by with your money

By L. Marie Joseph

This book will help young adults that are the first in their family to graduate from college that need guidance with managing their new found income. L. Marie Joseph, personal finance writer and financial blogger guides recent college graduates to get ahead with money. First Generation White Collar not only tells you what to do with money but gives details on how to do it. Marie shares her knowledge of saving money, prioritizing debt, building wealth and becoming a responsible consumer with money.

She teaches young adults to:

Manage Debt and stop living on the edge
Forget Budgets and Save 30% of your income
Invest Wisely
Live Simple
Avoid Lifestyle Inflation
Buy a house the right way

• Language: English
• Publisher: L. Marie Joseph
• Release date: Apr 5, 2011
• ISBN: 9781458032508

L. Marie Joseph

Marie has directly impacted the lives of many minorities nationwide in wealth building. She is a personal finance blogger whose work has been mentioned in MSN Money, U.S.News, CNNMoney, WalletPop, and Forbes Woman and various personal finance blogs and radio programs. Being a college graduate herself, she knows firsthand experiences of the obstacles and challenges most graduates face when dealing with an above average income for the first time

Book preview

FIRST GENERATION WHITE COLLAR

A practical guide on how to get ahead and not just get by with your money

by

L. Marie Joseph

Smashwords Edition

* * * * *

Published on Smashwords by:

L. Marie Joseph

First Generation White Collar

Copyright 2011 by Linda Joseph

ISBN-13: 978-0615390826

Cataloging-in-Publication data for this book is available from the Library of Congress

First Edition 2010

All rights reserved. Without limiting the rights under copyright reserved above, no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in or introduced into a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form, or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the above publisher of this book.

Smashwords Edition License Notes

This ebook is licensed for your personal use only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each person you share it with. If you are reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then you should return to Smashwords.com and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the author’s work.

* * * * *

To my husband Arry, who never cease to amaze me and to my daughter Chelsea, I look forward to teaching you my financial principals

To my parents, thanks for choosing to love me

* * * * *

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Preface

Chapter 1: Debt: Paying off Debt

Credit cards

Personal Loans

Retirement Loans

Student Loans

Housing and Other Consumer Debt

Save to Fend off Debt

Chapter 2: Saving

Budgets Schmudgets

How Much Do I Need in My Emergency Fund?

Your Financial Empire

Chapter 3: Investing

Mutual Funds: Flee the Fee!

Spending It and Keeping It

Chapter 4: Get Smart About Spending

Negotiate on Large Purchases

Resist Retail Temptations

Lifestyle Inflation

Guilty Pleasures

Ask for Deals

Chapter 5: Take It up a Notch

Chapter 6: Your Spouse and Money

Kids and Money

Chapter 7: Grow and Explore

Career

Chapter 8: Protect Your Wealth

Life Insurance

Disability

Wills

Giving

Give Back

Bonus Section

Appendix: Resources

Author Biography

* * * * *

Acknowledgements

I would love to thank everyone that helped put this book into fruition. Before, I did not know how to get started in writing a book and each one of you help me along the way. It takes more than one person to work on a book. I could have never launched this book without my team guidance. I want to thank Dan Baum for giving me the title of this book. Looking back, the title I originally had was not a good fit. We came a long way since the first draft. Thanks for giving me direction and a target audience. Thanks also to my team of editors at Create Space, great job! I’m grateful to J. Steve Miller for advising me how to take my time when it came to making decisions about publishing. I want to thank the lady on Bancroft Street that introduced me to fine living. This book started with you in mind. My siblings for teaching me life lessons, I learned from your mistakes and successes. As the youngest of seven children I sure did learn a lot. My parents for listening to my dreams of being rich, I’m glad you listened to my goals even though I was a little arrogant. I would like to thank several financial bloggers. I probably would have not written a book if it wasn’t for you guys. I’m indebted to my loyal readers of my blog; the purpose of writing a book is to give my readers good information on personal finance and money management. Special thanks to Seth Godin for returning every single one of my emails, yes I know I asked a lot of questions. Mary Brown, my website designer—big thanks—the site I originally had sucked! For more information and resources visit www.firstgenerationwhitecollar.com

* * * * *

Preface

Wealth is the ability to fully experience life.

—Henry David Thoreau

On Halloween night in 1982, one of my older sisters took us trick-or-treating on the other side. I was nine years old, and I’d never crossed the boulevard to the upper middle-class subdivision of Park Island. Our own neighborhood of little wood bungalows contained all I knew about the world. But my sister had gotten the notion that the treats from the upper class might be good, so without a word to the grown-ups, we scampered across the boulevard. We skipped the first house because the lights weren’t on. At the second house, the older kids ventured up a broad, brightly lit porch while I hung back, worried. The door opened on a short little old lady with a froth of bluish-white hair. But it wasn’t the lady who caught my attention; it was the space behind her. I had never in my life seen a house so big. The foyer was the size of my bedroom, the chandelier, its crystal lights shining gloriously, as big as an easy chair. A wide staircase with gleaming mahogany banisters curved up like a set from Gone with the Wind waiting for Scarlett O’Hara to swoop down. I’d never seen a two-story house, much less a mansion. As we trooped to the next house, I asked, What does that lady do for a living? My sister shrugged, interested more in the fine chocolate she’d received and the prospects for more. If I’d had the nerve, I’d have run back and knocked again, to ask the old lady. Instead, I walked backward, gazing at the pool of light playing softly on the columns, the porch, and the neat rows of shrubs.

That was the day I decided to be wealthy. My parents worked hard—my dad as a longshoreman on the New Orleans riverfront and my mom as a homemaker. They made a good life for their seven children because Dad was good with money. He carried no debt, and he saved. He’d paid off the house by the time he was in his fifties. He even contributed to help us go to college.

Like a lot of people of my generation, my siblings and I were the first in my family to go to college and the first to achieve the white-collar life. But as I look around, I notice that while we first-generation white-collar workers are making more money than our parents ever dreamed of, many of us are somehow not living as comfortably as they did because, as a generation, we have burdened ourselves with crushing debt. We have student loans to pay off. We have mortgages—many of them bigger than we can afford. We’re making car payments. We’re paying off the furniture, the appliances, and the vacation. Our credit-card bills grow frighteningly every month. Instead of building wealth for future generations, we’re going ever deeper into a hole. For all our achievement of getting up and out, and going to college, many of us risk falling backward.

It isn’t entirely our