SoFi Blog

Monthly expenses add up quickly; including rent or a mortgage payment, car payments, student loan payments, and more. You routinely pay these bills each month, and then, almost as an afterthought, you try to figure out what’s left over to save for a rainy day or invest for financial growth. The concept of paying yourself first shakes up that routine.

When you pay yourself first, your top priority is to put a predetermined amount of money into personal savings and investment accounts. Depending on your expenses and income, the amount you save will vary.

When you focus on investing in your own financial wellbeing first, it helps to ensure your discretionary spending doesn’t cut into your financial growth. When you make paying yourself first a priority, it often makes sense to set up automatic transfers from your paycheck to your savings or investment account. If you’re ready to make yourself and your financial future a priority, these tips and strategies could help.

Maintaining a budget is hard at any time of year, but when the winter holiday season is on the horizon, and the time has come for gifts to be purchased, decorations to be pulled out and updated, and parties to be thrown and attended, budgeting can easily and quickly fall by the wayside.

While it’s no big deal to swap a restaurant meal for a home-cooked dinner during the year, it can feel like your best laid plans go to waste once Thanksgiving hits. Between holiday celebrations, extra treats for coworkers, travel plans, and more, it’s easy to see how, for Americans, the average Christmas debt is around $1,054.

The scariest part? While more than half of the respondents to a MagnifyMoney survey said they would pay down the debt in three months or less, around 30% said they would need five months or more to pay off the holiday debt on their credit card.

In order to avoid being part of that statistic—and avoid interest rates that could haunt you well into 2019—here are some budgeting tips as well as tips for how to manage credit card debt.

After the turkey’s been devoured, the wine consumed, and everyone is pleasantly stuffed (okay, overstuffed), millions of us head to the couch or the car to kick-start our holiday shopping. (You guessed it—this post is all about the Black Friday and Cyber Monday discounts!)

Black Friday and Cyber Monday used to be two distinctly separate shopping holidays, but as online shopping becomes more and more prevalent, the two dates are merging into a weekend-long sale extravaganza.

In an attempt to stand out from all the noise on the actual day, some retailers will often start their Black Friday deals earlier in the week—and even extend their deals into December.

And by taking advantage of the steep discounts following Black Friday and Cyber Monday, you can maximize your budget and get the gifts you’ve been eyeing.
While it can seem like almost everything is on sale from Thanksgiving all the way through the day after Christmas, there are certain buys that may be better deals than others.

Christmas carols are playing on the radio, decorated trees and presents line window displays—the holiday season is quickly approaching. If you’re stressed about all the holiday shopping you have left to do, you’re not alone.

Between finding the perfect gift for everyone on your list and fighting crowds at the mall, holiday shopping isn’t always a pleasant activity. But doing some of your shopping before the holidays are in full swing could help alleviate some of the shopping-related stress and can be financially advantageous. With all the hustle and bustle around the holidays, staying ahead of your shopping can be difficult.

Doing the bulk of your holiday shopping online could end up saving you a little bit of money, especially when you’re taking advantage of Black Friday sales or other holiday deals. Here are 10 helpful tips so you can get ahead on your holiday shopping and make the most of your money.

As a kid, there’s a strong chance you dreamed about becoming a doctor. In fact, according to Fatherly’s Imagination Report , becoming a doctor is the number one dream of young girls nationwide. It’s also the number one dream career for children living in the West and the mid-Atlantic, and second in the Great Lakes, Midwest, Southeast, and Southwest, according to Fatherly.

And apparently a lot of those kids actually followed through on their dreams, as more than 51,000 people applied to med school in the 2017 to 2018 school year. Of those applicants, more than 21,000 actually got in. (And if you’re wondering what it takes to be part of the 40% who got accepted, the Association of American Medical Colleges revealed that the average MCAT score for applicants was 501.8 in the 2016 to 2017 school year and 504.7 for 2017 to 2018. The average score for matriculating students was 508.7 in the 2016 to 2017 school year and 510.4 for 2017 to 2018. In other words, MCAT scores aren’t trending down.)

Upon graduation, these medical school students turned doctors can expect an average salary of $294,000 a year, and more if they follow through with a specialty such as becoming an orthopedic surgeon, a job which commands an average salary of $489,000 . Or if they choose to live and practice in a state that pays medical professionals particularly well, like North Dakota, they can expect to make an average of $361,000.