In today’s blog presentation I have ophrah’s tips for millenials. Since April 2018 we run the blog and is dedicated to financial topics that are relevant for young professionals. We are particularly interested in imparting basic financial knowledge, sensitising people to the importance of old-age provision and highlighting suitable investment options.
Hello Andreas! Please introduce yourself briefly. Who are you? And what do you do when you’re not blogging?
I grew up in Hanover. There I also did my apprenticeship as a bank clerk, so I learned the banking business from scratch. After studying business administration, my first job took me to a management consultancy in Hamburg. Meanwhile I am employed again at a bank.
However, I don’t work on classic financial topics, but in project management. After a few years in Frankfurt, I now live a little outside, in beautiful Oberursel.
When I’m not working or blogging, I like to read (not only, but also financial books), try to do sports as regularly as possible and am otherwise very enthusiastic about football. And I love to travel – no matter if near or far, mountains or sea, city trip or beach vacation. There are so many great places on this earth, and I want to get to know as many of them as possible.
When and how did you get the idea to start your financial blog?
I didn’t do my banking apprenticeship because I couldn’t think of anything better, as it should sometimes be the case… But because I’m really interested in financial topics. And this interest remained also after my bank apprenticeship.
In the course of my own financial planning and investment activities, I have not only read many books and financial magazines, but also found financial blogs during my Internet research. And in the course of the time the desire arose with me then to start my own Blog, in order to divide my knowledge and to exchange me to the financial topics, which move me, with Gleichgesinnten.
In the spring of this year, during a holiday in Aruba, I found the time to think through the concept and plan the first steps. In April 2018 I published my first blog posts.
And with the help of WordPress I was able to overcome the hurdle of “building a website” – I actually had a little respect for that.
Who is your main target group, and why do you write for this target group?
My blog is aimed primarily at young professionals. When you start your career, a lot of new impressions and tasks come to you: Your first job, often in a new city with your first “real” apartment and a new social environment that you want to build up. Professional development, for many the founding of a family – that’s when you’re busy with many things at first, so that important financial issues are often left behind or financial decisions are made rather casually – and therefore often to your own disadvantage.
But that is fatal. On the one hand, because the wrong decisions can cost a lot of money in the form of sometimes horrendous commissions and fees. And on the other hand, because valuable time is given away with the fortune structure and the age precaution – keyword ?compound interest effect?
Unfortunately, far too little knowledge about financial topics is imparted at school or university. Blogs offer for interested ones from my view an outstanding possibility of appropriating important financial knowledge and of informing about current topics.
What’s behind your blogname “Generation Finance”?
Many career starters and young professionals – my target group – may belong to the so-called “millennials” generation (i.e. those born between 1980 and 2000). This group is also known as Generation Y.
This generation faces particular financial challenges: Due to demographic change and political decisions at the expense of young people, only a small pension can be expected later. The European Central Bank’s low-interest policy makes it difficult to increase the amount of money saved.
That is why I chose the blonde name: I am addressing this generation, which has to deal particularly intensively with its finances.
And with my blog – based on my own experience – I would like to support them in building up the necessary financial knowledge and making the right decisions.
What goals do you pursue with your blog?
Since I myself have given a lot of thought to the financial topics that were relevant in the first few years of my career and have made one or two mistakes myself, I would like to pass on the knowledge I have acquired over the years.
I would like to encourage and support my readers to take their finances into their own hands. To actively shape them in order to make the right fundamental decisions at an early stage and to avoid expensive mistakes. Who takes itself a little time will notice fast that finances are not at all dry, as some mean. And that a promising investment doesn’t have to be complicated.
What are the most important topics that young professionals should tackle first after their training or studies from your point of view?
First: Pay off debts (e.g. student loans or a consumer loan for your first home furnishings) and avoid them in the future. Second: Cover existential risks (especially liability and occupational disability). And thirdly: Start building up assets and providing for old age as early as possible in order to take advantage of the compound interest effect, which has been enormous over the years and decades. It is important here to avoid expensive and inflexible products and not to let the bank advisor talk you into anything.
