Financial Goals For Your 20s: 5 Financial Goals and How to Achieve Them

Description

The purpose of this project was to promote financial literacy amongst individuals in their 20s and empower them to take control of their finances. Statistics show society is lacking the financial knowledge to create a successful future and be able

The purpose of this project was to promote financial literacy amongst individuals in their 20s and empower them to take control of their finances. Statistics show society is lacking the financial knowledge to create a successful future and be able to one day retire debt free. My research details that by starting in your 20s and aiming for five simple, yet effective, goals one will be able to launch their success and do so reasonably. The thesis presentation details each of the five goals and outlines how to achieve each.

Date Created
2023-05
Agent

An Analysis on Multiple Economic and Social Changes that Occurred Within the United States from 1985 to 2019, and How Those Changes Affected the Average College Graduate’s (from 1985 verses 2019) Ability to Prepare for Retirement.

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Description

The goal of this paper is to determine whether or not multiple economic and societal changes have or have not made retirement in America, an easier, or harder goal to achieve. My hypothesis is that these changes have created

The goal of this paper is to determine whether or not multiple economic and societal changes have or have not made retirement in America, an easier, or harder goal to achieve. My hypothesis is that these changes have created an environment in which retiring and preparing for retirement is much, much more difficult. The analysis considers multiple economic and social changes between May, 1985 and May, 2019, a 34-year span. <br/><br/>In this paper, I will be comparing the average 1985 college graduate to the average 2019 college graduate. The 8 major factors I look at are, annual salary, average student debt (assuming a 120-month repayment period), average housing cost (assuming a 360-month payment period), average car expenses (assuming a 60-month payment period), and average annual food, clothing, taxes and medical insurance costs. All of these figures look at the end points, looking at figures for the average 1985 graduate, and the figures for the average 2019 graduate. The 1985 figures are then put into 2019 dollars, and subtracted from the original salary figure. This will give us an objective way to compare savings, and therefore ability to save for retirement. <br/><br/>My analysis demonstrates that it is actually easier for people today to prepare for retirement than it was 34 years ago. The average 2019 graduate had $4,178.96 remaining at the end of a year. Comparatively, the 1985 graduate had a debt of $12,837.94. This is an effective difference of $17,016.91, benefiting the 2019 graduate by far.

Date Created
2021-05
Agent

The E-Commerce Window for Economic Development: Analyzing the Earning Capacities for Low-Income Households

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Description
The United States has a long-standing history of income and wealth inequality that create barriers for individuals to escape from poverty. When a family is in poverty, children in the household are likely to grow up experiencing educational and skill

The United States has a long-standing history of income and wealth inequality that create barriers for individuals to escape from poverty. When a family is in poverty, children in the household are likely to grow up experiencing educational and skill inequity. This establishes the beginning of the cycle of poverty which is a complex issue that is caused by a combination of factors or events which can affect all aspects of an individual’s life. Research suggests poverty is driven by the following root causes: family breakdown, educational failure, worklessness and dependency, addiction, and personal debt (The Centre for Social Justice). While these factors can be seen as interrelated factors affecting a family’s socioeconomic standing, this paper focuses specifically on addressing the worklessness and dependency aspect of poverty.
Work is recognized as one of the most effective routes out of poverty. I set out to research how side hustles or gigs can impact the financial standing of low-income families and get a better understanding of requirements to engage in these types of work. The research conducted in this project aims to identify potential side hustles that low-income earners can engage in without needing to make a large capital investment. The project findings will help readers get a better understanding of various side hustles available and learn how additional earnings can help individuals build, grow, and maintain capital.
Date Created
2020-05
Agent

Are current college undergraduates interested in saving for retirement?

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Description
In an era where college undergraduates are spending five dollars on a cup of coffee and ten dollars on avocado toast, now seems like an appropriate time to reevaluate these questions:
• Are current college undergraduates interested in the idea of

In an era where college undergraduates are spending five dollars on a cup of coffee and ten dollars on avocado toast, now seems like an appropriate time to reevaluate these questions:
• Are current college undergraduates interested in the idea of saving for retirement?
• Do they have realistic expectations about how much money they need to save in order to live comfortably during retirement?
• Are there differences in expectations between people who are interested in saving for retirement using traditional means and people who are interested in saving for retirement using the extreme-saving FIRE (Financial Independence Retire Early) method?

This paper examines students’ interest in the idea of saving for retirement through a series of lenses: demographics, financial retirement literacy, and expressed commitment to save for retirement. I hypothesized that traditional retirement expected savers and FIRE expected savers, who correctly answer financial retirement literacy questions, are realistic about how much money they will need to save in order to live comfortably during retirement. To investigate this, a survey was sent out to two ASU Tempe campus business classes; 171 completed responses were analyzed. The statistical analysis of the unfiltered survey results showed three findings, but one finding stood out the most: Students who know what a 401k is (Question 5 in Exhibit 1) are significantly more likely to plan on saving for retirement, when compared to students who don’t know what a 401k is.

When filtering survey results to only show responses from students who know what a 401k is, median responses show that traditional retirement expected savers are somewhat realistic with their retirement savings expectations, while FIRE expected savers are not realistic with their retirement savings expectations.
Date Created
2020-05
Agent

How to Make the Most Money Podcasting

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Description
Over 50% of the US population has listened to a podcast as of 2019. That is over 144 million people in the US alone that can potentially generate revenue for a podcast host. In 2017, podcast advertising secured revenues of

Over 50% of the US population has listened to a podcast as of 2019. That is over 144 million people in the US alone that can potentially generate revenue for a podcast host. In 2017, podcast advertising secured revenues of $314 million. It is expected to grow to $659 million by 2020 (Goldberg). There is a growing market of active podcast listeners for advertisers to tap into. There is so much potential in podcasting that Spotify has recently decided that they are willing to spend $400-500 million on this category alone in 2019. In that large figure they have acquired “Gimlet”, a podcasting company, for 230 million and “Anchor”, a creation/distribution platform (Heater).
These massive amounts of investment in podcasting is assuring for the podcast industry that began as recently as the early 2000’s. There is money to be made for the content creators of podcasts as well. This paper focuses on how podcast hosts can generate the most amount of money. The two forms of producing income is by paid advertisements or donations/crowdfunding. I conducted an experiment using my own podcast to test whether paid advertisements or donations were more effective at making money. My hypothesis for this experiment is if I offer a free podcast for the public to listen to and ask for donations then I think less than 10% of listeners will donate. I believe that paid advertisements will generate more revenue than donations because I believe podcast listeners are not generous enough to donate. My research on how to make the most money podcasting is illustrated in the following pages.
Date Created
2019-05
Agent

The Influence of Loss Aversion and the Framing Effect in Personal Investing Decisions

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Description
This study aims to identify the potential irrationality in the personal investment decision-making habits of university students, as influenced by the framing effect, loss aversion, and related heuristics. Researchers conducted a cross-sectional study of 114 students (n = 102). Participants

This study aims to identify the potential irrationality in the personal investment decision-making habits of university students, as influenced by the framing effect, loss aversion, and related heuristics. Researchers conducted a cross-sectional study of 114 students (n = 102). Participants responded to a survey regarding their willingness to invest in certain hypothetical investment scenarios. Outcome was measured primarily using Likert scales and yes
o binomial options regarding the participant’s willingness to participate in a specific deal. The study was broken into three blocks, the first of which dealt with the framing effect and the subsequent two considered loss aversion. Of the data collected, there were multiple significant results found to support the framing effect and loss aversion. There was a significant difference between responses that were positively and negatively framed, and between varying upside potential in equivalent-risk scenarios. For block one, those participants who received the positive framing condition were more likely to invest in the master’s program than those who received the negative framing condition. For blocks two and three, the majority of participants exhibited loss averse behavior more extreme than the predicted amounts; closer to 4x the upside was required (rather than the predicted 2x) for the participants to participate in the deal. Although the results did replicate the framing effect and loss aversion, college students were more loss averse than was predicted.
Date Created
2019-05
Agent

Correlation Between Assets Under Management & Sponsorship of Exchange Traded Funds

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Description
This thesis set out to find whether or not there is a correlation between assets under management (AUM) of institutional investment managers and their sponsorship of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). It first examines the history of how and why ETFs

This thesis set out to find whether or not there is a correlation between assets under management (AUM) of institutional investment managers and their sponsorship of Exchange Traded Funds (ETFs). It first examines the history of how and why ETFs entered the marketplace and how they have evolved over time in use by institutional investors. It then explains the features that make ETFs unique, and which are desirable to investors. Institutional investors can benefit from arbitrage opportunities in the creation redemption process used to bring ETFs to market; however, this paper will assert that the marketability of ETF products and their associated brand recognition contributes to the value of the firms who sponsor them. Finally, this paper will show that between 1993 and 2015, firms who have sponsored ETFs have had a greater growth in AUM than firms who have not sponsored ETFs.
Date Created
2019-05
Agent