BEST FINANCIAL TIPS FOR GEN Z

The Peculiarity of The Gen Z Demographic

With the arrival of each new generation, the financial situation changes on a global scale. Career choices differ across multiple age demographics, currencies around the world feel the effects of inflation, and what worked in the 1970s would be regarded as obsolete in the current decade. The change extends to spending patterns, investment models and approach to money, too.

Suffice it to say that the most intriguing age demographic in the world right now is the one known as Generation Z, generally comprising those born between 1997 and 2012. Wide-eyed, bold and largely carefree, this peculiar generation makes up a larger percentage of today’s social media users, and they have a way of influencing social media trends. They are young, they are restless, they don’t conform to the rules set by older generations, and their attitude to the corporate world is significantly different too. In Nigeria, for context, they make up a huge part of the active population that is eligible to vote.

However, because they are young – the oldest set of people in Gen Z are 25 years old – and haven’t been in the workforce long enough, many of them do not have access to as much wealth as they would have liked. Sure enough, there are some of them making millions, but many of them are not satisfied with their current financial state. Worse still, in a country like Nigeria where inflation is on the rise, it is easy to get frustrated with how quickly money loses its purchasing power around here.

Financial Tips for Gen Z

A lot of people in Gen Z are slowly transitioning from school into the working class. Some are even working already while still in school, and it’s easy to get overwhelmed by the volatile nature of the economy. Here are a few tips that are sure to help Gen Z stay afloat and get their money up:

1.  Have A Comprehensive Financial Plan: Don’t wait until you are well into your career to seek financial advice for your financial future. If you have a steady job, now is the time to seek input on how to maximize your savings. Learn about budgeting, and arrange your spending list by other of priority. You have no business getting a new phone when there’s still tuition to pay, or online courses to register for.

2.  Let Your Money Grow Slowly: Take advantage of compound interest. Compound interest is interest you earn on interest. Let me explain – when you invest, you earn interest on that investment. Say you put N10,000 into an investment account that pays 10% interest per annum, you will earn N1,000 at the end of the year. By the start of the second year, your investing amount is now N11,000 and another 10% interest per annum will yield N1,100. Just like that, your money begins to grow.

3.   Invest, But Spread Your Tentacles: One way of getting your money up is by placing some of your income into investments like stocks or mutual funds. However, you don’t want to tie your entire financial future to a single investment. When it comes to investing, it’s a lot better to adopt an investment strategy that tries to spread your investments across different assets and asset classes. You can also diversify across currencies by investing in dollar-denominated assets to protect against currency devaluation.

4.   Be Careful About The Financial Advice You Take: Making rash decisions with money is almost never a good idea. If you get your financial advice from TikTok or any other social media platform, make sure you back it up with research or the opinion of someone you trust before you act on it. Be prudent with your financial decisions and only invest when you have the basics in place.

5.   Always Have Emergency Funds In Place: You need a savings cushion to be able to cater to eventualities, without having to take out of your long-term investments. A good rule of thumb is to have six months’ worth of your monthly tucked neatly in a savings account. You never know what could happen to you or the ones you care about: you could lose your job, your apartment could get flooded, or your favourite uncle could require a surgery that costs millions.

How Paga Helps You Check Your Spending

One way that Paga has helped to provide financial guidance for its customers is via the creation of the wealth.ng marketplace. Wealth.ng is an investment marketplace that makes it easy for you to invest money in treasury bills, stocks, mutual funds, and real estate. With Wealth.ng, you can grow wealth by investing in any of the treasury bills, stocks and other securities listed on the platform. You can monitor your investments in real time and see how much interest accrues to you when your investment matures. Wealth.ng holds your hand through the investment process and guides your hand each step of the way. You have total control over your investments, and you can make changes to your personal profile settings at any time.

It is also important that you keep track of your spending, and this is one of the services provided by Paga. One way the platform does this is by allowing you to set up recurring payments. This means that you can set up your account in a manner that it will be debited a specific amount at a specified time of the month for a particular service. A recurring payment is designed to take away the burden of initiating a regular payment while ensuring you do not miss the payment. It is simple to set up. To do this:

–          Log into your Paga account

–          Select “recurring payments” from the list of services

–          Create a new recurring payment

–          Select the service you want to create a recurring payment for

–          Fill out the details of the recipient/beneficiary

–          Set up the schedule and fill all required fields

–          Review the details and confirm the transaction.

Opening a Paga account is pretty easy. To get started, click here to download the Paga app on your device, then click on ‘Sign Up’, and follow the instructions from there.