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Automatically translated version. May contain inaccuracies compared to the original.
Saving money only in dollars, setting aside savings only after your salary increases, and completely giving up loans are common beliefs about personal finances. At the same time, each of these statements has its nuances.
– ''Money is safest to store in dollars.'' Myth or truth? – Myth. The dollar is a stronger currency than the hryvnia, but there is inflation even in dollars. That is, living in dollars becomes more expensive each year – by 3%, 5%, 10%, in different years differently, but the annual price increase exists. Therefore, this is a myth. You cannot imagine Americans saving their savings in the same dollars under a mattress. That does not happen. Americans use dollars as a payment instrument and as an asset that is invested in something. Not simply stored as a commodity, but invested so that it already earns income. – ''If the salary is small, there is no sense in saving money.'' Myth or truth? – Also a myth. Saving a portion of your income is normal. If you wait for your salary to grow, you may sometimes miss out. On one hand, when you wait but don’t understand how to accumulate it, you lack experience. That’s also bad, because experience is better earned on small sums. There may be a wrong decision, losses, and so on. Therefore, it is better to test this with small amounts. Also read: Savings before winter: a banker explains how much to keep in foreign currency – ''Credit is always bad.'' Myth or truth? – Myth. Loans can be a good story if, for example, you don’t pay interest on them. We know there are banking instruments where a loan is interest-free, with some grace period. A loan to solve your own issues. It’s still better to use a loan to resolve the issue than to postpone it forever. This does not mean you should always take a loan, but as an instrument it is as sharp as a knife. It can be beneficial or harmful. So the question is how you use it. – ''Investing is only for people with large capital.'' Myth or truth? – Also a myth. You can invest with a small capital or with a large one. That is, with a large capital it will generate more income. But with a small capital it is better to start investing when you have the opportunity. The earlier a person starts investing, the more advantages there are. This includes experience, mistakes, accumulating a sum, and it becomes automatic. After all, wealthy people save and invest. – ''Buy currency when the exchange rate starts to rise.'' Myth or truth? – Myth. If you want to diversify assets across different currencies, for example, part in dollars, part in euros, you should do this consistently. For example, you decided that 20% of your funds lie in euros. You received some income – 20% of this income is used to buy euros and you hold it. So this should not be a shift from one asset to another just because one asset rose or fell. Also read: A credit card can increase spending: an expert explains how not to fall into a financial trap – ''If money sits on a bank account, it does not lose its value.'' Myth or truth? – This is a myth, though it can be true – depends on the situation. It depends primarily on the inflation in the country. If inflation is higher than bank interest minus tax, then you lose. For example, today bank deposits are about 13% annually. If you subtract tax, it’s about 10% annually. Inflation is roughly 10% annually as well. So today citizens who keep hryvnia on a deposit at 10–13% annually effectively preserve their money but do not earn. If you want to earn, you need either other instruments – like government bonds, funds, or some bonds – or financial instruments in other currencies. So hryvnia should have more profitable instruments. – ''Cashback is basically free money.'' Myth or truth? – Here it’s not possible to say unambiguously – myth or truth. If we take bank cashback, where does it come from? From the fee that the bank charges for carrying out a non-cash payment. For example, a company sells something for 1000 hryvnia, and 2% or 20 hryvnia of this amount is taken by the bank for processing this operation. From these 20 hryvnia the bank can give cashback, e.g., 5 hryvnia. In other words, because the seller includes this commission in the price, the price of goods is higher. The markup is 1–2%, so prices are higher, and of course, we pay ourselves cashback. But if you do not receive cashback, this opportunity is lost because we simply overpay for the goods. If you take cashback, you simply overpay less. Also read: Cashback without marketing traps: a banker explains how to get real value from purchases – ''A single big financial goal is better than many small ones.'' Myth or truth? – There is no definitive answer; a myth or truth either. You can have one goal or several. It depends on the situation, the person, age, and plans. There is no right answer. – ''First you need to fully pay off all debts, and then start saving.'' Myth or truth? – Myth. Because, for example, there is such a thing as a mortgage loan. Mortgage usually has a fairly low rate secured by housing. And often this rate may be lower than the cost of renting such housing. Such moments occur in the market. When saving, if you are especially savvy in this, you can get a much higher rate than you pay on the loan. So in this case you use the loan, pay interest, and instead of using those funds to repay the loan, you invest them for the future and you get higher returns. Plus other advantages – you gain experience, make some small mistakes, and then when you have more money, over time there will be fewer mistakes, more experience, and better investing. – ''To understand finances, you need to know economics and investing well.'' Myth or truth? – This is a half-truth. Of course, the better you understand economics, the better you can invest. But to invest in basic instruments, like deposits, government bonds, you do not need to know economics. To invest in complex, high-return, risky instruments, you need to know economics. And for simple ones, you don’t.
Read also: Why do we spend more than planned: an expert named the main causes of impulsive purchases
Document: PDF proof of the original version of the news item "Гроші в доларах, кредити та кешбек: Тарас Козак розвінчав популярні міфи про фінанси". It records the publication content at the moment of the first scan, the preservation date and the source: RBC-Ukraine.
