Understand your net worth
Burns says understanding your net worth and tracking it throughout your working years is the first step to retiring comfortably. Your net worth should rise throughout your working years and allow you to retire with more assets than debts.
To find your net worth, add up all of your assets then subtract your debts.
Stay out of debt
Staying out of debt is key to building wealth, Burns says. Making wise spending decisions, such as buying a used car instead of a more expensive new car and paying it off for years, can go a long way to growing your net worth. If you have a credit card, aim to pay the balance in full every month.
The best no-penalty CDs of April 2021
Close icon
Two crossed lines that form an X . It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification.
Account icon
An icon in the shape of a person s head and shoulders. It often indicates a user profile.
US Edition
Registration on or use of this site constitutes acceptance of our
Close icon
Two crossed lines that form an X . It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification. Good
Free subscriber-exclusive audiobook!
“No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention”
Close icon
Two crossed lines that form an X . It indicates a way to close an interaction, or dismiss a notification.
Banking has a racist history in the US
Banking in the United States has a long history of racial injustice. In 1874, thousands of Black people saw their savings wiped out when Freedman s Bank collapsed. The government-chartered bank, started for newly freed Black Americans, promised to return some of the lost funds to customers, but most received nothing or pennies on the dollar.
Shawn Rochester, author of The Black Tax, told Insider that the Freedman Bank collapse bred distrust of banks among Black Americans.
Freedman s was marketed as a Black bank but actually run by white managers, Rochester explained. Those managers used Black customers money in risky ways, and lost a total of $3 million from 61,000 Black depositors, most of whom had been members of the Union Army.