Finance

Financial Expert Reveals 5 Key Tips to Help You Grow Your Income

Personal finance can often feel overwhelming, especially for many Millennials and Gen Z individuals dealing with student loans, high living costs, housing market struggles, and general financial stress. However, just like any challenge, improving your finances is possible with skill development and persistence.

Whether you're starting fresh or looking to advance your financial knowledge, there are steps you can take to better your financial situation. From basic tips to more advanced strategies, here’s how you can begin your journey toward financial stability.

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1. Create a Budget The first step to mastering your finances is understanding where your money goes. You might find, like my now-husband did when he was a grad student, that a significant portion of your food budget is going toward coffee.

Once you track your spending, you can cut back on unnecessary expenses and ensure there’s money left for debt repayment or saving. Creating a budget is key to this process.

Tools like the Canadian Government's online budget planner, the U.S. Federal Trade Commission's budgeting guide, and the UK's Money and Pensions Service can help.

After setting your budget, focus on reducing discretionary spending and redirect those savings toward your financial goals.

2. Boost Your Income Reducing expenses can be tough, especially in an inflationary environment where the cost of essentials like food and housing is rising in many places.

But there are still ways to increase your income without taking on extra jobs.

Though asking for a raise can be intimidating, your chances improve if you ask. Come prepared with data showing your productivity and work ethic, then rehearse your request with a mentor. If you don’t get the raise initially, use the experience to refine your strategy for next time. You could also look for a new job while employed, using a job offer as leverage for negotiating a raise. If that doesn’t work, it may be time to explore the new job opportunity.

3. Build Your Pension Older generations were more likely to have jobs with defined-benefit pensions, which provide steady income after retirement. Today, fewer jobs offer this benefit. A recent World Bank report revealed that about half of gig workers worldwide have no retirement plan, with some countries reporting up to 75% lacking one.

Check if your current employer offers a defined contribution pension plan, where both you and your employer contribute to a growing savings account.

If your employer doesn’t offer this, consider using a robo-advisor to set up automatic monthly contributions to an investment account. Over time, increase your contributions with each raise. You should also look into diversifying your investments, such as through stock indexes or a mix of stocks and bonds. Exchange-traded funds (ETFs) are a low-cost way to do this compared to mutual funds. While short-term market fluctuations may happen, your investment is likely to grow over the long term.

4. Steady Progress Once you’ve set up automatic contributions and established a routine of increasing them, you’ll see your investment account balance grow. Even if you start small, developing good financial habits will make a difference.

Your next step is avoiding the temptation to time the market by trading actively. To prevent this, avoid checking your investment balance month to month and keep contributing, regardless of short-term market conditions. Stay focused on your long-term financial goals.

TECH

Living Intelligence: The Next Frontier in AI Explained

Artificial intelligence has been dominating the tech scene, but it’s not the only emerging technology businesses should prepare for. According to futurist and NYU Stern School of Business professor Amy Webb, AI will eventually merge with other advancing technologies to create a new wave of personalized AI that can predict users’ actions and evolve independently. This concept, known as "living intelligence," could be the next major development in tech.

What is living intelligence?
Webb describes artificial intelligence as just one of three groundbreaking technologies reshaping the business landscape. The other two—advanced sensors and biotechnology—are "less visible, though equally important," and have been "quietly advancing." The combination of these three technologies will form "a new reality that will influence decisions across industries," Webb explained at the Harvard Business Review. She coined this emerging reality "living intelligence," or systems capable of sensing, learning, adapting, and evolving.

The rise of living intelligence could "drive a supercycle of exponential growth and disruption across multiple industries," Webb told Inc. "Some companies will miss this shift," she warned, emphasizing that focusing solely on AI could leave them unprepared for disruptions that arrive sooner than expected. AI will serve as the "foundation" and the "everything engine" driving the living intelligence technology supercycle, according to Webb's report published by her Future Today Institute. The growing costs of training large language models are pushing the creation of smaller models that require less data. This, in turn, will fuel the development of advanced sensors, a trend Webb likens to a "Cambrian Explosion." She predicts that personalized data from wearable sensors will lead to AI systems that can predict actions rather than just words.

CRYPTO

Bitcoin Hoarder's Stock Skyrockets 4,800% in Japan Amid Crypto Surge

The ripple effects of U.S. President Donald Trump’s pro-crypto stance are driving a surge in Bitcoin demand in Japan, with one hotelier’s shift to stockpiling cryptocurrency yielding massive returns for shareholders. Metaplanet Inc.’s shares have soared approximately 4,800% in the past 12 months, making it the top-performing Japanese stock during that period and one of the highest globally, according to Bloomberg data. Bitcoin itself hit a record high of $109,241 on January 20, the day Trump was inaugurated for his second term, although it has since lost some of those gains as his trade policies contributed to global instability.

Metaplanet is among several companies worldwide aiming to replicate the success of Michael Saylor’s strategy, once known as MicroStrategy Inc. The Virginia-based company has transformed into a Bitcoin powerhouse after accumulating over $45 billion in the cryptocurrency.

Metaplanet CEO, Simon Gerovich, a former Goldman Sachs equity derivatives trader, said he was inspired by Saylor’s approach after hearing about it on a podcast. Gerovich had been running Metaplanet, formerly Red Planet Japan Inc., as a hotel developer since 2013, but pivoted to a "Bitcoin-first strategy" in early 2024 after the pandemic forced the company to close all but one of its hotels.