Young adults face financial complexities such as student loans, new mortgages, or car debt, coupled with low-paying entry-level jobs. With so much on their plate, those in their early twenties might feel overwhelmed by the words “saving,” “retirement,” or “investing.” If you’re in this situation, is it too early for you to start investing?

Whew!  Nothing like waiting until the very last possible minute for a November newsletter, huh?  We don’t care what science says these days, we still blame the tryptophan.

It feels like we have been writing about benefits elections ad nauseum recently, but after a quick glance back through the last few months’ newsletters, apparently that’s not true.  So with a couple weeks left to make or change your elections (at least for the Healthcare exchange and likely for your own workplace benefits platform as well), let’s go through a Rundown of different places you can put your money.  Just don’t eat the Konlobos, it’s worse than tryptophan.

What a World Cup!  I hope you all enjoyed that month of magic and drama.  Sometimes literally with the drama - did you see that Neymar spent 14 full minutes lying down?  That’s ⅙ of an entire match. On his back.

As for the real drama, Croatia, a country with a total population less than our very own Atlanta metro area, nearly pulled off a crazy upset by winning the World Cup over the likes of heavily favored Brazil, Belgium, Germany, Argentina, and Spain.  And they did it through two shootouts and an extra time win in the knockout rounds. In the end, however, it was like something out of a Hanson song, with France finally capturing the title that was just a Zinedine Zidane headbutt away 12 years ago.  In fact, France only conceded 6 goals the entire World Cup. Croatia gave up 9, England 8, and Belgium 6. The importance of saving, indeed!

After the World Cup, Cristiano Ronaldo got transferred to Juventus for roughly £105M (or £500,000-ish per week) and, to bring it back to things that matter in American sports, LeBron James moved to the LA Lakers for $154M ($740,000-ish per week for a four-year contract).

These guys are all set for life now, right?  Who needs four years, give us $740,000-ish per week for six weeks and we’ll be set.*  Unfortunately, more often than not that’s not how it works out.

Zoë Dawkins loves to live for today.  The 28-year-old communications specialist at Indeed.com, an online resource for finding job listings in Austin, says, "I really value the idea of 'happiness now', so I spend a lot of my money on travel, entertainment, and gifts."

Dawkins is the quintessential YOLO, a term coined by Millennials, short for "You only live once." It makes sense, especially since she grew up in a family that valued having experiences over saving for the future. "My Mom changed careers so many times throughout my life,” Dawkins explains. “She would give up an entire business based on whatever she wanted to do, and just take off and go to Thailand."

While some view that behavior as flighty, Dawkins sees it as freeing. “It made me realize that I could do anything!” she says. But before she began dating her boyfriend, who is also a financial adviser, money was flying out the door. “There have been times when debt has mounted up, or I wasn’t able to bail myself out when a medical crisis hit,” Dawkins says.

After working with him to fix her finances, she set a budget and began putting money into a 401(k).
Now, instead of spending thousands on a lux jaunt to Bali, or hitting happy hour daily, she tracks her weekly expenses using Google Sheets, which allows users to create and modify spreadsheets and share the data online. “Working with a financial adviser who understands my priorities and outlook on life has been incredibly helpful,” Dawkins says. "He gives me a lot of insight into my own spending and has taught me that saving/investing doesn’t have to be burdensome; it can be freeing."

Dawkins' budget includes $1,000 a month for food and entertainment, $500 for travel and $350 for gifts. And in January, she started automatically investing $400 a month in her company’s 401(k) plan. On top of that, Zoë's company matches 50% of the first 6% of her 401(k) contributions. She also has $10,000 saved in an emergency account. "It's nice to know that saving smartly and living a full life don’t have to be mutually exclusive,” she says. “Not only can they co-exist, but they can also lend to one another when properly informed."

Even so, she knows she’s being a bit skimpy on saving for retirement. Dawkins says she will likely invest more once she gets promoted and earns a higher salary. But at the same time, “I don’t regret any of the things that I spend my money on or all of the adventures I have had,” she says. “I want a life that burns with passion, and I feel I have that." Her best advice for other YOLO investors is simple: “Keep the balance,” she says. “Decide what you really need to be happy and what you need to do to be secure. Then, set those things up.”

Russell Robertson, a certified financial planner and owner of ATI Wealth Partners in Atlanta, says that Dawkins was setting herself up to be in a bad financial position. "Before Zoë met with an adviser, there was a tendency to spend a lot with no real emphasis on saving, aside from a cursory amount,” he says. Like Dawkins, there are steps that YOLO investors can take to start putting aside money for the future without giving up their lifestyle. Robertson offers this advice:

Save separately for emergencies: A lot of life is planning for the unexpected. Dawkins is saving more now for emergencies, but Robertson would like that money funneled to a dedicated emergency fund in an online bank like Ally, Capital One, or AMEX. “If your car breaks and you suddenly need $3,000 or $4,000, you’re not going to be able to take those road trips you planned,” he says.

Build toward life goals: For YOLOs, it’s difficult to commit to saving for retirement because it feels like a nebulous thing. “I try to frame it as not this big construct,” Robertson says. “We’re not just saving for retirement, but also for starting a family, buying a house, or taking a really lavish European vacation.”

Live beyond the moment: Robertson tries to convey this message to his YOLO clients: “Yes, this moment is important, but temper that with a little bit of FOMO for the future,” he says, referring to fear of missing out. You may have a great day today, but if you lose your job tomorrow, now what?

Make saving unconscious: Sign up for automatic deductions in the company 401(k). As a rule of thumb, Robertson advises people to save 10%-15%. “Start with 8% of your income, which is equivalent to contributing approximately 13% in your 401(k) because of the company match,” he advises. If you don’t see the money coming out of your paycheck, you’ll never miss it.
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Don’t be embarrassed by your budget: If you make saving unconscious, make spending very conscious. Write down everything you spent in the last month, categorize it, and follow that month to month. “You don’t have to adopt Draconian measures,” he says. If you overspend, address where and why. Creating a written budget makes you aware of what you’re spending on and helps you to conceptualize the bigger picture.

Brexits 1.0 and 2.0
First, a quick note on “Brexits”: unreal, right?  Losing to Iceland to get knocked out of Euro 2016 in the Round of 16?  Don’t think the bookies called that one...or the earlier one either, actually.  You know, the one 3 days earlier where England voted to leave the European Union?  If you looked at the headlines Friday morning and thought the world was going to end, we don’t blame you...but we’d like to point out that it has been a rather non-world-ending week since then.  
Be prepared for more headlines to come as this plays out over the next two years.  Yes, years.  The now-oxymoronic UK needs a new Prime Minister in a couple months, someone who theoretically will actually trigger the clause (Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty, for those keeping track) to start negotiations for exiting the EU (which, by law, can take up to two years, with the possibility of an extension).  And the front-runner, one of the two people who basically engineered the "leave" vote, just dropped out of the race.

Meanwhile, you have seven or eight other countries that will try to get their own national referendum held about EU membership, not to mention Scotland and Northern Ireland trying to break away from the UK so that they can stay in the EU.  Phew.  That’s a lot of ink yet to be written.
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As for how this will affect you personally...two things.