How to purchase your first car: Most young adults purchase their first car once they've graduated, but they don't quite know how to do it in a way that lowers cost and can get it payed off faster. No matter where you get your car from always negotiate the price and go into the situation being able to walk away. If you're buying a used car make sure you ask for the history of the car when talking to the seller; common questions, How long have you had it? How often did you change the oil? and most importantly How many times has it been in the shop? along with verbally asking these questions get the carfax on the car. If its had several engine repairs its more than likely not going to hold up in the long run and not worth buying. The most common websites for buying used cars are carfax.com autotrader.com cars.com and truecar.com along with craigslist. Now when buying a brand new car, which is not recommended for young adults, always look at the safety ratings of it, know what you can afford without putting yourself at risk, research it online, and when taking the test drive look for the things that you don't like. If you look for the things you like you won't notice the cons until you've already made the purchase.

                                                          Savings Plan after High School and College
Once you've graduated from college your financial situation will change so the best way to prepare for it is: 1. have a fully funded emergency fund ready ($1,000) 2. (if in college) look for and apply to as many scholarship offers as you can to lower the amount of money spent for books and tuition. These two things should be in place throughout your entire college career. Once you've graduated from college flip the "High School savings plan" steps. Basically continue keeping $10, $15 or $20 a paycheck for yourself but then transfer half of what you have in your money market to your savings and checking and put 85% of what you make in  your savings account. Reason for this is your money will be a lot more accessible in a savings account rather than in a money market. Then with the other 15% put that into your money market account.

                                                             High School savings plan

Parents always tell their kids to save from a young age because they know how powerful interest is but what they don't tell you is which account to open. When you're 16 or 17 you don't really have any expenses, so you should be able to keep about 90% of your net pay and that should be placed into a money market and not a savings account. All banks have a higher interest rate for money market and over 2 years that's a couple hundred dollars extra that can go to other needs that you'll have after high school such as housing or a car or books for college. The best way to do this so that you can enjoy your money, when you're still in high school, is to open the money market as soon as you have a job then keep $10 or $15 of each paycheck for yourself, and it can go to whatever you want, then with 85% of what you have left goes into the money market account and the other 15% goes into a savings/checking account. Once your saving/checking account has $1,000 - $1,500 you can stop putting money it it that account should be used for emergency situations like your car breaking down or damage to your apartment. Although it may seem like a lot of maintenance after 3 months it should be fairly routine and it'll make a huge difference in the long run.

Do you know how to save your money?

        Most young adults don't know how to save their money or invest it, which leads to them getting trapped in debt and thus creating a snowball effect. Here you will see how to invest it so that your money can make you money, save it so that after you retire you have enough to live off of, and most importantly avoiding or escaping debt.