What they don’t teach you in journalism school

While in the process of completing your studies, you reach a stage where you need to start applying for apprenticeship, in-service or internship programmes that would help you get your foot into the door of the industry.

Depending on how good your curriculum vitae or resume looks or how easily you’re able to talk your way in interviews, finding a job after university can be daunting if not a walk in the park. For some it could take a month, while for others it could take months if not years just to get that work experience.

Often budding journalist get excited of the prospect of working in a newsroom for the first time. On your first day you already want to impress your editor and seniors, you sign your contract without reading it because you believe or are just naïve that human resources is trustworthy and reliable.

And that’s when it all goes wrong. Human resource often do not sit down new employees, especially those in their first jobs, to explain the do’s, don’ts and how’s of your salary, what’s on your pay slip, leave days etc. So this post is part of a series where Ill share some tips that you would often never learn about or hear about later in life, when it’s a tad too late.

Before anything else, Generaton-Y, those of you who questions everything often talk about retiring early and becoming millionaires at age 30. Well you have to start by investing for a comfortable retirement. It is not easy. According to Investec, many companies do not give their members guidance on preservation or savings, while two thirds of the elderly are on the state old age grant. And the sad reality is six of every 100 retire comfortably.

You need to start saving from the get go. You probably asking yourself, what is the objective of a retirement savings plan right? It is to provide you with a reasonable standard of living in retirement, especially since you do not know when you are going to die. Hopefully you don’t want to be relying on your children to take care of you or even worse, them sending you to an old age home while they spend your pension money away.

Start saving now, for that life that you want when you retire from your job or career. If you start early on with saving, you are more likely to pay less as you get older and possibly you’d be able to retire much earlier than the current retirement age.

So what are the main components to saving for retirement? It is the amount you save every month, the period over which you save and the investment returns you achieve.