Scenario: I love personal finance and am really getting into investing and maximizing return. I’m about to graduate college and need help figuring out what to do with my money. I use a paper budget and put it on my fridge. I like doing it manually. I’ve had a job throughout college and have about 5k in savings earning about 2% interest. Should I move the 5k to an account earning 3% interest?

What I’d do:

Let’s first explore your budget. To be honest, paper budgets don’t work.

They require a lot of work to maintain and go stale immediately so they can’t drive any behavior.

As for your account, I don’t think its worth the headache. But, personal finance is personal. Be careful not to waste your time with small $50 decisions when you could be spending your time on bigger decisions, like creating a dynamic budget that drives behavior and ultimately could save you thousands of dollars.

I can say that when I was in your shoes just out of school, I would have opened the new account because its an extra $50.

So if it makes you happy, is easy for you, and your money is secure, then go for it.

Managing money has nothing to do with smarts! There is a base level of financial education that you can get for FREE through the financial launch course.

After you have that, you’ve entered into the real struggle with money - emotions.

Most people know they need to spend less than they make…but why is it so hard?

Money is more about acknowledging your emotional state, the way you were raised to think about it, and your natural tendencies.

By taking this step back, you can learn that you’ll never be perfect with money.

But you will learn to mostly spend less than you make.

I have a vegetable joke….

...but it's corny.