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Showing posts from November, 2017

The financial advantage gap between having a college degree and just having a high school diploma is widening!

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The financial advantage gap between having a college degree and just having a high school diploma is widening! A 20-year study in Canada revealed that a man with a bachelor's degree made  an average of $732,000  more during that time than a man who only had a high school diploma. And in 2015 alone, the average US college graduate  earned 56% more  than the average high school graduate. This is the widest gap between the two that the Economic Policy Institute has recorded since 1973! While a college grad may encounter a type of retirement savings roadblock different from a reduced income – student loan debt – the earning numbers above show that the advantages of having a college degree and a solid financial strategy outweigh the retirement saving power of not having a college degree. But here’s an issue plaguing both groups:   more than two-thirds  of US millennial workers surveyed do not have a specific retirement plan in place at all, and  a full third  of Canadian millenn

Open Enrollment Health Insurance Ends December 15th! Why this matters.

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Open enrollment for Health Insurance for 2018 will end on December 15th. If you do not have a Health Insurance Plan by that date, you could be fined a minimum of $695 in 2018. Are you covered? Do you need to be? Many jobs give some kind of health care. But not every millennial is lucky enough to have a job with these perks, or good enough coverage to really help them in an emergency. What is Health Insurance for? Health Insurance is there to help you in a crisis. Hospital bills can be extremely costly - with the average cost of a stay in the Hospital being $10,000! ( https://myphysiciansnow.com/how-much-will-that-hospital-stay-cost-you/ ) Emergencies happen, and you need care. Health Insurance makes this more manageable. Instead of having to pay all of that amount, you make monthly payments of anywhere between $20-$300 (depending on what you want and what you qualify for. See link at bottom of this post to get your own quotes). After the monthly payment, you also have a

Headed in the Right Direction: Managing Debt for Millennials

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Three simple words can strike fear into the heart of any millennial: Student. Loan. Debt. The anxiety is not surprising: In 2015, US college graduates had an average of  $30,100  in student debt, and the average Canadian college graduate had  $26,819  in student loan debt. Nearly $30 grand?  For that you could travel the world. Put a down payment on a house. Buy a car. Even start a new business! But instead of having the freedom to pursue their dreams, there’s a hefty financial ball and chain around millennials’ feet. That many young people owing that much money before they even enter the workforce? It’s unbelievable! Now just imagine adding car payments, house payments, insurance premiums, and more on top of that student debt.  No wonder millennials are feeling so terrible: studies showed that Canadian students who had to take out large loans were in a state of  poorer mental health  than their peers, and  57% of American millennials  report that paying for essential