8 Financial Rules You Should Break, According To Experts

Classic money advice never goes out of style. But as the economy, technology and our lifestyles continue to evolve, so should the way we manage our finances. Unfortunately, not all the advice out there has caught up.

We asked eight certified financial planners what rules of thumb have become outdated ― and what they tell their clients instead.

1. “You have to save 20 percent for a home down payment.”

On the off chance that you’ve thought at any point ever about purchasing a house, you’ve most likely heard it: Don’t take out a home loan until you’ve set aside something like 20% for an up front installment. Else, you’ll be compelled to pay infamous private home loan protection.

Higher home loan installments can be an aggravation, however the monetary compromise between paying all the more now as opposed to holding up years to set aside up enough cash could be awesome.

“On the off chance that we check out the macroeconomic components of the last years and years, home has appreciated extensively while wage levels have to a great extent deteriorated,” clarified Justin Chidester, proprietor of Wealth Mode Financial Planning in Logan, Utah. This, he said, makes it unreasonable for a great many people to set aside a 20 percent initial installment inside a sensible measure of time.

“My new rule of thumb is this: If you can save 20 percent down for your target home within about five years, go for it,” advised Chidester. “But if you take much longer than that, you’re going to be chasing a moving target with home prices going up, which also means you missed the opportunity to experience appreciation on something you own.”

2. “Credit cards should be used for emergencies only.”

As a young adult, if your parents talked to you about money at all, they probably warned you about the dangers of credit card debt. “For emergencies only” was usually the caveat that accompanied access to plastic.

Today, credit cards have become diverse and effective tools that allow you to “track your spending in one place, increase security and theft protection, and potentially gain cash-back rewards,” according to Eric Maldonado, owner of Aquila Wealth in San Luis Obispo, California. Often, it makes much more financial sense to do your spending with a credit card over cash.

Yet, that doesn’t mean you should swipe hastily.

“Try to set up a month to month computerized installment from your financial records to take care of your Visa balance in full each month,” said Maldonado, “in order to never bring about any interest charges.”

3. “Getting married requires merging your finances.”

Getting hitched implies imparting pretty much everything to your companion ― your home, your time and perhaps a family. However, one thing you don’t need to share, in spite of mainstream thinking, is your cash.

“Getting hitched doesn’t mean you need to combine all your ledgers,” clarified Ryan Frailich, author of Deliberate Finances in New Orleans. He said it’s significantly more typical for union with happen sometime down the road after couples have gone through years fabricating their monetary lives autonomously.

“I see many couples have great success with a ‘yours, mine, ours’ system,” said Frailich. Each spouse has separate accounts but contributes a portion of income to a shared household account. “Having open conversations about your finances, spending and debt is vital … but you can do all that without putting all your money into shared accounts,” he said.

4. “Use your age to determine asset allocation.”

Tricia Rosen, the founder of Access Financial Planning, based out of the greater Boston area, said she used to work at a large mutual fund company during the 1980s and 1990s. Back then, it was standard to give the following asset allocation advice: “Subtract your age from the number 100 and that is the percentage of your portfolio that you should have invested in equities, with the remaining percentage in fixed income, adjusted each year as you age.”

Today, numerous financial backers actually observe that guideline of thumb. In any case, as indicated by Rosen, that exhortation isn’t just obsolete ― it’s conceivably destructive to your future profit.

“Today, we have a lot greater venture decisions accessible to the normal financial backer,” said Rosen. “We have a superior enthusiasm for an individual’s singular capacity to bear hazard and individual monetary objectives. An individual’s ideal resource distribution is more interesting to the distinct individual than was recently remembered,” she added.

So instead of following a strict approach to investing, consider talking to a professional about how you can tailor your portfolio to your personal risk tolerance and goals.

5. “Save 10 percent of your income.”

The 10% investment funds rule used to be the best quality level when putting something aside for your brilliant years. Today, tragically, 10% of your pay most likely isn’t sufficient to resign on.

“While it’s a fine beginning and unquestionably better than nothing, it surely shouldn’t be utilized to benchmark achievement,” said Michael Troxell, a senior abundance chief at USAA. “That number will not be sufficient for 90% of people, particularly with longer future and rising medical care costs.”

The problem, he says, is that following the 10 percent rule ignores expenses. “It is the expenses that end up hurting retirements, not the savings rates during one’s working years,” said Troxell.

So rather than aiming for a specific percent, Troxell recommends saving as much as you can while still maintaining a good quality of life and focusing on cutting unnecessary expenses.

6. “Pay off your mortgage as fast as possible.”

For a great many people, a home loan is the biggest obligation they’ll at any point shoulder. So if the chance emerges to take care of that obligation early, shouldn’t you seize the possibility?

“At one time, when interest rates were twofold digits and speculation returns were a normal of 8%, that seemed well and good,” said Melissa Ellis, organizer of Sapphire Wealth Planning in Kansas City, Missouri.

She explained that today, however, the majority of homeowners have a mortgage rate of less than 5 percent, while they can still expect to earn 8 percent or more annually on investments.

“It’s better to make your payments on time, take your mortgage interest deduction on your federal income taxes and have more [money] invested for higher returns,” said Ellis.

7. “You need a prestigious degree to get a good job.”

In the past to get a “great job,” you needed to get a degree from a lofty college. That is the thing that our folks said, at any rate. What’s more, at least 20 years prior, they presumably would have been correct.

“The expense of school 20+ years prior was a lot of lower contrasted with compensation,” clarified Mark Struthers, author of Sona Financial. “Since compensation have not kept speed, and the cash needed to come from some place, understudy loan obligation has turned into the following enormous emergency.”

Today, if you spend too much money pursuing a degree, few jobs are good enough to warrant the cost. “If you buy the stock of a company… and pay too much for it, then the fact that’s it’s a good or even great company means little,” said Struthers. “The same holds true for college.”

Instead, students and their parents need to consider the return on investment when it comes to college. In other words, you should think twice about shelling out six figures for a private education in art history ― and maybe even consider vocational school over a traditional four-year degree.

8. “Renting is the same as throwing away money.”

Homeownership has long been a staple of the American dream. So when you send rent checks off to a landlord for years with nothing to show for it, you might feel like you’re failing at achieving an important goal.

On the contrary, renting affords you a life free from major expenses such as mortgage interest, property taxes, maintenance and more. Plus, it opens up opportunities to earn more money.

For instance, “paying rent means that you don’t have an expensive illiquid asset that would prevent you from taking a lucrative job offer in another market,” said Justin Harvey, the president and founder of Quantifi Planning in Philadelphia. “In cases like these, there is significant monetary value to being nimble with regards to your living arrangement,” he said.

Obviously, Harvey noticed this isn’t valid for everybody, as it relies upon your calling, area and that’s just the beginning. Yet, as a general rule, youthful grown-ups shouldn’t accept “that purchasing a house is the default choice,” as indicated by Harvey.

Cash is profoundly close to home. So with regards to your funds, you should accept any one-size-fits-all proposal tentatively. There’s consistently a special case for the standard ― and you could be it.