Contributed Photo/Courtesy U.S. Census Bureau: Young working adults are some of the hardest hit by the loss of income during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Do you feel as though your lifestyle needs a facelift? Whether the terrible economy has sapped your spirits or you want a change, you can take several easy steps to remedy the situation. In addition to buying life insurance for financial peace of mind, consider finding a way to reduce daily stress, build wealth by investing in real estate, and eliminate household clutter. Here’s how to get started.
Buying life insurance
The vast majority of working adults are underinsured. For all sorts of reasons, they put insurance on the back burner of financial priorities and often forget about it. Don’t lose out on this kind of inexpensive protection. For young adults, one of the best bargains is term life insurance. Others prefer the slightly more expensive policies called whole life. Either way, for a small monthly expense, you can acquire a large amount of insurance coverage to protect your family in the event of your death or disability. While term coverage is cheaper, it does not offer the lifelong protection and investment benefits of whole-life policies.
Investing in real estate
For more than a century, intelligent investors have sought ways to legally protect their financial gains from the high burden of taxation. Fortunately, there are several kinds of accounts available for this very purpose, including IRAs and 401(k)’s. Both offer reliable ways for working people to defer taxes on retirement investments within the accounts. The best-known tax deductions are the ones associated with IRAs, but there are others.
One problem with traditional IRAs is that they are set up only for adding highly liquid assets, like equity shares, cash, bonds, and mutual funds. As a result, they fall short of individuals who want to acquire real estate for long-term retirement security. Luckily, particular types of accounts allow you to hold real estate and take advantage of an asset class that has beaten the S&P 500 for the past two decades. These unique vehicles are called self-directed IRAs. The first step in learning how to add investment properties to your retirement fund is to review an informative guide on the subject. Then, find out how and why a self-directed IRA with real estate can augment your long-term financial security.
Reducing stress
If stress is giving you a hard time, consider speaking with a licensed counselor to find strategies for minimizing it. For non-serious levels of daily stress, like job-related and other worries, there are dozens of tactics for reducing its toll on your everyday serenity level. Many adults choose to do yoga, go for long walks in the morning, listen to soothing music, get massages, or use self-hypnosis techniques to relax more deeply. The tricky thing about life’s most common forms of stress is that they have a way of sneaking up on you and slowly increasing until you feel overwhelmed. Taking action against stress is the single most potent weapon for fighting it.
Getting rid of household clutter
Make a written plan for removing household junk and clutter on a room-by-room basis. Break the job down into doable mini-tasks, and you’ll be surprised at how quickly you can tackle the clutter problem. Include attics, basements, extra bedrooms, storage sheds, garages, and closets on the list. That way, you won’t miss anything.
