Rant: The semester vs. the school of life - which taught me more about money?

I dropped out of college after two semesters of a business degree. Back then, I thought I knew everything about managing money from a single class on personal finance. The professor said to budget 50/30/20 and I nodded along. Then I got a job at a warehouse making $14 an hour and realized none of that applied. My rent was $800 a month and I had to figure out how to eat and still have bus fare. The big shift came when I started tracking every dollar in a notebook instead of on an app. It took about three months of failing before I found a system that worked. The class told me to save for retirement but I was just trying to save for next week. So here is my debate: formal education on money or real life trial and error, which one actually stuck for you? Has anyone else felt like the classroom version of budgeting is a different world from the paycheck version?

2 comments

2 Comments

johnb952d ago

Did any class ever teach you how to actually negotiate a raise?

blake_williams2d ago

Did you ever take a look at the free resources from your local library? I found a book on salary negotiation there that helped me practice a simple script before my last raise talk and it worked out pretty well.