KACHARAGADLA

I’m not just picking on Millennials. Well, maybe I am.  We have all read about the financial plight of Millennials, who are not only drowning in student loan debt, but other loans and expenses as well. These loans and expenses include car payments, rents or mortgages, and credit card bills. As a Baby Boomer, who has “been there, done that,” I feel your pain; however, it is time for Millennials to focus on the road ahead and find ways to secure their financial futures. Undoubtedly, the ability of Millennials to save and invest will be met by challenges.  According to a study by the  National Endowment for Financial Education , “Two-thirds of Millennials have at least one long-term debt (student loan, home mortgage, car loan) …” Even more shocking, the study found that “Nearly 30% of those [Millennials] with checking accounts had overdrawn their account in the prior 12 months… [and]… nearly 20 percent of those with a self-directed retirement account either took a loan or made a har

If you’re not a numbers person, finance is daunting. But having a grasp of terms like EBITDA and net present value are important no matter where you sit on the org chart. How can you boost your financial acumen? How do you decide which concepts are most important to understand to your work and your understanding of the business? And who’s in the best position to offer advice? What the Experts Say Even if you don’t need to know a lot about finance to do your day-to-day job, the more conversant you are on the subject, the better off you’ll be, according to Richard Ruback, a professor at Harvard Business School and the coauthor of the  HBR Guide to Buying a Small Business . “If you can speak the language of money, you will be more successful,” he says. After all, if you’re trying to sell a product or strategy, you need to be able to demonstrate that it is both practical and high margin. “The decision-makers will want to see a simple model that shows revenue, costs, overhead, and