Alternative Financial Tips For People Thinking About Skipping College

College is good — very good. However, in order to survive the college process without being buried by debts, you’re going to have to really make sure that you get a major in a field that has a lot of high job growth. In a tough market, that can be something that’s difficult — if not downright impossible. Instead of pulling your hair out, why not just drop out of the system altogether?

There’s no law that says you have to go to college, and despite what the major financial outlets tell you, there’s nothing that says you have to get a degree in order to have a high paying job. There are a lot of people that would definitely beg to differ on that statement.

So what do you need to do financially in order to make sure that you have the best chances at a great future — even if you don’t go to college?

First and foremost, you will want to build your emergency fund. Yes, that sounds random right out of the gate but trust us — everything might seem peaceful now, but life has a tendency to move around in uncertain ways. This means that you will need to prepare ahead of time for the times where everything goes horribly wrong. This could be something as simple as just going to put aside £10 every week – think about all of the things that you buy every week that you don’t need. Even though candy bars taste great, you really don’t need the extra sugar, do you? If you put away a small amount consistently, you can end up growing a larger amount that can be used to cover times that get rough and test our patience.

From there, you will need to make sure that you’re building a budget. Far too often people get caught up into the excitement of living that they forget about budgeting. They think “oh, I’m not really spending all that much money”, and then they find out that oops, they actually are spending a lot of money. For example, going out to eat with your friends is fun, but too many nights out and you could find yourself living without many extras — and suffering along the way. It’s better to set yourself up a budget that works than to just assume that you’ll be able to control your spending without one.

Don’t forget to think about your credit. It’s tempting to assume that you don’t want to get into credit right now, or to assume that it’s something that you can wait for the future to tackle. Trust us, it’s not — the faster you establish some type of credit, the better your credit score will be. Part of what makes up your actual credit score is the time that you’ve held accounts open. If you don’t hold onto accounts well, then you’re not going to be able to have a good credit score. You don’t have to do much to get started — a few credit cards that are properly maintained can help a lot more than a bunch of credit cards that you know you won’t be able to pay for.

One of the last things that you need to think about is the future and learning. Even though you’re not pursuing a degree, it never hurts to learn new things. For example, if you want to be a freelancer online, learning how to program or write website copy is a good thing. There is always a market for service workers and an even stronger market for service workers that are actually good. Building your resume and talking to people that are doing the things that you want to do is always a smart thing to do. There’s never a bad time to do some networking, you know?

Thinking about the future can be scary, but don’t worry — it gets better over time!