The Roth IRA is my favorite retirement vehicle, bar none. Because contributions are after-tax, that means you can look at your account and know that every penny (including earnings) is yours forever, tax-free. So contribute as early as you can. max it out every year for as long as you can, and you can sleep a little easier knowing your retirement will probably be okay.

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Change your habits so you can put money aside for the things that matter to you. But that’s also really, really hard to do. That’s because understanding personal finance is an uphill battle for many Americans. The smartest thing you can do, financially is to save a percentage of each paycheck. You can fund your emergency savings account first and then consider funding a Roth IRA.

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Automating your money works because you’re paying yourself first: if you automatically deposit a certain percentage of your paycheck to your savings, 401k, and other investments, you won’t be tempted to spend it later on. As Warren Buffet puts it, ”Don’t save what is left after spending; spend what is left after saving.

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By harnessing that pain of paying, you might be able to save money on discretionary spending, writes Joe Pinsker of the Atlantic, who says he records every credit card transaction in his phone after making it. ”After I buy something, I log the transaction on my phone, recording the price and what I bought,” he writes. ”The idea is to increase the pain of paying, especially with a credit card, by forcing myself to take note of what I’m spending.”

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If you’re trying to get your spending in order, one of the more painful ways to do is to embrace the ”pain of paying”, as Joe Pinsker writes in the Atlantic. That means, for one, paying for things with cash instead of credit. Because credit cards allow us to buy now and pay later, we tend to feel better about our purchases and overspend; paying with cash is a mentally more painful way to buy something because you’re parting with your money then and there.

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If you’re trying to get your finances straight and you’re completely intimated with the work ahead, take it one step at a time. Commit to just 15 minutes of financial literacy a day!

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Here are some essentials I wish I would have learned in high school and I think should be taught today:

1. How credit cards and interest rates work
2. How to balance a checkbook
3. Budgeting basics
4. The Power of compound interest
5. How to build credit
6. Investing and stock market basics
7. How to start a business

Let’s try to make a positive difference in our students’ financial futures now by teaching our children financial basics – and to advocate for more financial education in schools.

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Many of us hate calling a plumber for help. Most plumbers are honest professionals, but we worry that a few might try dodgy tricks to overcharge us. So just placing the phone call make us uncomfortable. The only way to feel good about calling the plumber is to learn:

• The kind of tricks you may run into
• How to spot the tricks
• How to find a good plumbers and get value for your money.

1. Working unlicensed and uninsured
2. Estimating a job sight unseen
3. Lowballing the bid
4. Padding the estimate
5. Showing up uninvited
6. Using bait-and-switch tactics
7. Pushing you for cash
8. Bringing in extra workers
9. Charging high rates for the first hour
10. Pushing you to pay before the work is done

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Each of these products is essential to the financial stability you will need through all of life’s ups and downs. Being money smart is about more than having a budget and eliminating dumb purchases. It means creating a financial foundation that will carry you and your family comfortably through whatever life throws your way. To find lasting financial security, you need these 10 products.

1. A fee-free checking account
2. A debit card
3. A high-yield savings account
4. Health insurance and a health savings account
5. Homeowners or renters insurance
6. Auto insurance
7. Disability insurance
8. Life insurance
9. A retirement fund
10. A college savings account

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New investors fall into some common traps. But you can avoid them if you understand and remember these fundamentals. Beginning investors don’t realize what they don’t know. It’s all unfamiliar territory, so it is natural to feel a bit unsure about selecting investments for a portfolio. A little education can go a long way toward making you feel more comfortable in your investing decisions, though. Following are eight fundamentals that will get beginning investors started.

1. Savings erode if you’re not investing
2. Don’t put it all in stocks
3. Don’t try picking stocks
4. Choose index funds
5. Keep fees low
6. Expect market declines
7. Don’t let financial pressure build
8. There’s no need to go it alone

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