[MUSIC] In the ted talk you heard about some of these money principles to live by and I'm adding a little bit more to them. So you heard about following a budget. So following a budget is what you just did because unless you put things on a piece of paper and you put numbers, you have no idea what you're doing. If you are one of those students who buy at Starbucks coffee every day, I love it then I still go on blogs and they say Starbucks coffee is about $2. So imagine in one week you're spending about seven times two. Have you guys seen a $2 coffee at Starbucks? What is $2? Because when I get a regular coffees 250 right 260 something. So imagine you get a latte or something like that every day, that's about $4 or $5. Multiply that number by seven then multiply that by four and then by 12 that's about $600 per year. Great. Okay people talk about that. So follow a budget and buy things you need and not things that you want. So this is something that mindfulness help. I have started doing this practice and it is sometimes really painful. So if I'm shopping, I look at the item that I really want to buy and then I practice mindfulness, I pause for a few seconds and I asked myself do I need this or do I want this? Of course the clever me is going to say, no, you really need this. You can go to lectures wearing the same jacket, every week after week after week, can you, It doesn't look good. Then students think you're poor and it's about you, you will be a very bad role model for those students. So this is the clever me. But they smart me saying that no, you have enough jackets don't buy another one. So I went to my closet, I counted the number of jacket so I have, you probably know by now we've been together for nine weeks. And I said you know what, I really don't need any more jackets. So need versus want. So this is very important and really practice to be debt free. I'm not talking about necessary items like you have no choice but putting your tuition on the credit card. But I'm talking about the same concept, need versus want and try to pay your credit cards in full. You saw what happened to Jessica, the credit card that didn't happen overnight, it was $500 this month another 1000 another 1000. And then she ended up having, what was her credit card debt? Was it 10,000, I think. Have an emergency saving account. So that was the question. So save the emergency saving account has a different meaning for different people. For adults who are working and who have families, it's recommended that you need to have six months. The money that you need to live for six months, six months worth of living expenses in your emergency account. And people who didn't have that in 2010 when the economy crashed and many people were laid off really got in trouble. And many people, many professional people I'm talking about families ended up being homeless because of that. So in your case, having an emergency savings account could be an account that has a couple of $1,000. And we're going to see how we can do that because maybe you say, you may say, my God, $2,000 is a lot of money. Negotiate salary, this is very important guys. We don't do that. So one year when I said negotiate salary, a student came to my office and said I should have never listened to you and I said what happened? She said I applied for the job, I think it was working in a bookstore and they gave her the job, I don't remember exactly how much it was. And she said no I'm not going to work here for $10 an hour, I need 15. And then they said, well I'm we're sorry, that's how much we pay. She said no I really want to have $15. So she started negotiating and they said forget it. So I asked her what is how much experience do you have? She said this was my first job. I'm like, okay, that is, I should say that I should add this to my lectures, negotiate salary based on your skills. If this is your first job, you can go in and say, I want $15, $20 an hour. I tell my students that when you do these free internships that I'm sure you all do, if you're really, really good, I can guarantee you that in most scenarios they are going to hire you. As a matter of fact, the majority of jobs that undergrad students land after graduating, this is the first year after graduation, they started with internships. And then if the company really wants you, you have to negotiate, it's always good to negotiate. And unfortunately, this is a skill that I learned really, really late in my life, but I'm teaching you guys that it is important. You have to negotiate salaries. Recycle repurpose and I can. I used to give a one hour lecture in this class on recycling and repurposing. So what do I mean by that? I am I talking about recycling water bottles because we're going to hear that next week. What am I talking about here when I say recycle and repurpose? I forgot to bring this back with me to the class, I have a bag in my car that is filled with a few sweaters and jackets and things like that that looked pretty good. But you know what, I don't want them anymore, I don't want them, right? Do I need them, probably I need them. So I was going to bring it to the class and say that you have to start this practice of recycling and repurposing amongst yourself. Maybe this jacket that I'm wearing right now, which I was thinking about it this morning, it's a very, very old jacket. Maybe if I don't need it, you may need it, you may want it, right? So start this practice amongst yourself, your neighbors. If you live in a dorm, start practicing that because we all want new things, right? It's exciting to wear a new jacket, a new dress, having a new backpack. Start exchanging, I started this toy exchange program in my neighborhood when my son was four. And in the beginning everybody was like, no, we are okay. We can afford buying new toys for our kids. Like why your son is but four. My son is now five. So I can constantly exchange these stories and not waste money on new toys. So this is just an example. But I think you get the idea eating food. This is where you can save a lot of money. What do I mean by cooking teams? So if two years ago, after visiting one of my collaborators at the University of Vienna, I learned about her graduate students and students cooking for each other. So every week 1 student cooked for the other ones, ever five of them in the lab. So one graduate student every day was responsible to cook for everybody else on that day and they saved a lot of money. It was a lot of fun and it worked for them. So I brought that idea to my lab. I'm not sure if my students are still doing that, but I know that for one year we were doing that. So I had six or seven students in the lab at the time and each one of them took time to cook one lunch for the entire lab. So if you live in dorms and if you have roommates, this is a very good idea, bottled waters, get rid of them guys. You waste so much money on these bottled waters and we have all, we have water dispensers everywhere and they are purified believe me some of that water is sometimes better than what you find in bottled water coffee maker. Do you guys have a coffee maker or you just go straight to st abucks? So we save a lot of money by making our coffee at home. If you make a good coffee, the cost of that coffee is about 50 cents a cup versus 2 to $3 at the coffee shop and save for retirement. And you're talking about now you're not talking about, when you graduate and when you're done with like everything and it could be the saving for retirement, it could be $50 a month, $20 a month. You just feel those forms and if there is an area that you can cut and say that okay, I'm going to cancel the subscription to this. I don't know movie screening or whatever that is and then I'm going to put the $20 in my saving account in my retirement account. Do it start it now and then finally asked for help. Sometimes you forget that you're in a university, it is a community and professors and staff really want to help you ask for help. Two years ago I had a student who was not getting any money from his parents because he was from a country where any type of transaction was banned. And he didn't have any money and he was being pretty much expelled, not even be on a probation because he couldn't pay. So he came to my office and he asked for help. So we went to the registrar office. I'm not going to tell you how much time it took. It was not easy. It wasn't like we walked in, I'm sorry, registrar, this is my student, he can't pay so he's not going to pay and then we left. No, it wasn't like that. It was a lot of back and forth. But it worked out because he was able to get an emergency loan for two quarters until things settle down a little bit. So ask for help and that help could be from a professor like me or from anybody on campus, anybody that you know and you trust and you think that they can help you. So ask for help. So I am going to end this discussion by teaching you a very high tech Personal Finances Method. Have you guys heard of MJ-2- E Method? M.J -2- E. You haven't know anybody on this side. You don't know what that is. Do you want to guess? You've never heard it because none of the financial advisors I talked to have ever heard of this. MJ is me. So here, MJ is me talk. That's my initials. What else? So what is 2-E? It's very high tech guys, I don't think you can come up with this, I'm going to show you the pictures. Two envelope, what are these envelopes? Look, my God, this is not high tech, I have five apps on my phone. Yes. Okay, very good. Your close. So these envelopes that you see here are going to be your best tools for personal finances. Forget about those fancy apps even forget about that table that I gave you. You're going to put starting today or tomorrow, every time you have an expense you're going to put the receipt. And if you don't have a receipt because sometimes I mean like me I say no receipt just write it down, write it, write the number down on this envelope. So this is your receipt and this is the money you have and you may say that I don't use cash anymore but I want to recommend that for one month you do that. So for one month go to the ATM and get some money and put it in this envelope and in this and the and the other one is received in the other one is the money that you have. And then what I like to recommend is that you're going to see it on the next slide that once a week look at those receipts. Yes. No, this is an exercise, this is actually a good comment. So the question is if I'm putting money in the envelope that envelope, why don't I put it in the saving account? So the reason you're doing this is a very first step exercise in personal finances. You're going to figure out, I have this much money and these are my expenses and we're not talking about tuition. We're not talking about car payments, this is about coffee, groceries, entertainment, this is what it is but it's a good place to start but you're absolutely right. If you have extra money, put it in your saving account and I should have another envelope that's a saving but that's a little bit to advance. That would be the MJ-3-E method that we are not talking about today. This is just a 2 E level. Okay so you may say that I'm not going to buy these envelopes, I'm not going to do that, it's a concept guys. I'm trying to kind of inspire you to look at those receipts and see which one is the need, which one is the wants. So the practical would be the practical for personal finances, number one is to develop a budget. So now you have these forms right do you still have your form, so you don't? Okay so you still have the form, develop a budget. Save all your receipts in an envelope and review them monthly or weekly to get an idea of where the money is going. If you see on your grocery list bottled water, ask yourself this question, do you really need that? Do you really need to buy bottled waters? You can go to a conference, you can go to like an event and get one of those recyclable bottles and just feel that you don't need to buy bottled waters. Spend money in a mindful way, I can't emphasize this enough spend money in a mindful way. Every time you grab. Okay guys I have three more minutes you can you have to wait so every time you grab that ATM card or your credit card or cash, ask yourself this question. Do I really need it or do I want it? And start saving. So a practice would be to start saving just $20 per month. And I think majority of you can do that. I think most of us can save $20 a month and if you can save more, any questions, we have two minutes for questions. Yes. You see the you should give this lecture next year. I'm going to recruit you to give this lecture. You're right. But what is the purpose of saving $20 a month? Because again, they are at the baseline. So what is the purpose of $20 a month? Am I going to get rich on $20 a month? What is it at the end of the year? 240. Right to only. Yeah. That is going to get used interest, not the $20 because you're compounding and this is the minimum. I'm sorry. Yes. Yes. Exactly. So your comments are very valid but you're starting at the baseline. But because you're going to give this lecture next year, then you're good. So let me just show you the next slide I am going to upload these slides tonight. These are some websites that can really teach you some of the tips and these websites are amazing teaching you how to save money in college. Thank you guys. [MUSIC]
