You can find dates and times for all GCC-sponsored programs in Handshake. Be sure to sign in when you arrive so your attendance is properly recorded. Include here a reflection piece on your experience.
On November 7th, I attended a virtual powering potential workshop done by Morgan Stanley on ‘Personal finance fundamentals’. I initially thought that this would be extremely useful for future reference and now that I work as an RA and get monthly paychecks, I wanted to know how to budget and manage my finances responsibly.
I was particularly interested in the budgeting section of the workshop and the talk about financial freedom. First, we were all asked what financial freedom meant to us and I reflected on this and decided that to me, financial freedom means having enough savings to afford a life you can enjoy without worrying about money – I think that this was very important to reflect on in terms of long term goals; this helped me think about smaller goals I can achieve in order to work towards financial freedom one day.
In terms of advice, the advisors told us budgeting is an important part of personal finance fundamentals because budgeting incorporates smart saving habits. Outside of the basic budgeting tips, they said it was important to prepare for a surprise need and that in the long term, it’s good to save money aside for this. They also said to pick out categories that you want to spend money on and how much money should be going to those needs and wants.
My biggest takeaway from this workshop was to have a diary and write my money expenses down by hand; I think this would be extremely useful for me because I can track what I’m spending my money on and start dedicating money to certain things like travel, eating out and long term savings. Overall, I really enjoyed this talk and had some key takeaways which I will be applying to my finances.
