Almost in the blink of an eye – you transition from walking across the graduation stage into your first real job, move into your first apartment, or perhaps buy your first car. But maybe around six months after graduation day, many young adults face the reality of that first student loan payment coming due. Almost instantly, they may feel overwhelmed. We all suspected that adulting would be hard, but many had no idea how difficult it would really be until that very moment. Sound familiar?
Compared to any generation that came before them, today’s millennials are facing higher rents, higher home prices and higher college costs. Taking into consideration these factors, it’s no mystery that so few young people feel secure about their finances. Fortunately, they’re not alone. Financial professionals Joseph Viviano, AJ Loedel and Patrick Newton of HighPoint Advisors, LLC understand these challenging times that millennials experience all too well. And they want to emphasize that many of the things that make adulting so difficult are actually what financial advisors do for a living – such as budgeting, saving for major purchases like a first-time home, as well as selecting & managing investment portfolios.
“Upon graduating from college, possibly under the weight of thousands of dollars in student loan debt, many young people wonder, ‘Where do I start?’” says Loedel. Even after initially settling in as a young professional, it’s easy to feel lost or disoriented, or even worse, alone when it comes to the idea of financial planning. Some may assume they don’t have enough money to work with an advisor or mistakenly feel that their questions are too basic. However, with the guidance of a financial advisor, millennials and other young adults can start adulthood off on the right path.
“Financial planning is essentially a systemized adulting device,” explains Newton. “It can help a person create a budget, automate finances, save for retirement as well as guide through many other crucial decisions that focus on established individual financial goals.” With regard to student loans, an advisor can help with refinancing and creating a payoff plan that addresses a borrower’s specific desires.
Regardless of where a person is in his or her financial journey, an advisor can be a vital partner. Saving for a home? Uncertain how much to save for retirement years down the road? Interested in prioritizing some travel goals? An advisor can offer a clear, thorough picture of your current financial situation, as well as recommend steps to progress towards your goals.
A financial advisor can also help to avoid potentially unwise investment decisions due to FOMO, or fear of missing out. “Too often,” Viviano explains, “millennials and other young investors look to seize upon the momentum of the latest social trends – as opposed to gaining education for themselves about sensible investments.” Instead of these seemingly too-good-to-be-true investment schemes, financial advisors can work with their clients to create properly-balanced portfolios. This may involve assessing risk tolerance and strategically allocating various assets in an effort to balance potential portfolio risks with prospective rewards.
To all his fellow millennials out there, Viviano pleads, “At some point, you need to take certain steps on the path to securing your future. Financial planning is certainly one of those steps.” But don’t despair – for all those unnerving financial decisions, you can seek direction from a financial advisor who’s personally been in your shoes – and knows how to help obtain a confident financial future.
Ready take your adulting to the next level? Contact HighPoint Advisors, LLC to set up a conversation today.
This article originally appeared on Syracuse.com on April 10th, 2019. Click the following link for the original article. CLICK HERE.