Here is the reality — keeping financially fit is next in importance to looking after your health. To maintain a sense of control over your life and minimize stress, you have to start managing your financial affairs in a prudent, heads-up manner as a student and when you receive your first paycheck. To do so, follow these principles:

It is impossible to exaggerate the importance of preparing a monthly budget for the year, recording all of your weekly and monthly expenditures, and comparing your actual monthly expenditures against the budgeted monthly amounts right down to the nearest dollar. If you do not do this, you are flying financially blind and being irresponsible with your future financial well-being.

Discuss any big-ticket purchases beforehand with your spouse or partner. The same applies to taking on any debts. If both of you are earning an income, work out a fair sharing arrangement on rent, household expenses and any other monthly bills.

Educate yourself about the many options for investing your savings to achieve hopefully a higher return than what you will receive from a savings account. The best results from investing require patience, a long-term approach and a willingness to assume some risks. If your investments earn a 10% annual return, your money will double every 7.2 years. Find out if your employer offers some type of matching stock purchase plan.

To minimize the risks of anyone accessing your bank account or using your credit cards, practise prudent security measures when you go online. Be especially careful never to give out your birth date, Social Security number, passwords, PIN numbers or any bank account information online, regardless of how authentic the request appears to be. The same applies to declining any requests for such information on your phone. Legitimate financial institutions and payment services, such as PayPal, will never contact you online or by phone asking for this type of information.

Never click on an attachment or link contained in an e-mail you receive from an unknown sender. Doing so creates a gateway for hackers to infect your computer or smartphone with a malware virus that accesses all your files for the purpose of identity theft, harvesting your contact list to send out phishing e-mails, and installing ransomware as well as a keylogger to record your future keystokes. This will permit hackers to gain access to your financial and credit card accounts, plus establish new accounts in your name, without you being aware of what is occurring.

When you have to e-mail your credit card information to make a payment, use two separate e-mails to send your credit card number and expiry date, splitting each of these in half in each message, e.g., "6200-7100 (Expiry 12/)" and "1234-8765 (/19)". Also, avoid conducting any financial transactions online when you are using a Wi-Fi network in any public place, including airports, coffee bars and hotels. Finally, ignore e-mails asking for your personal and financial information in connection with any offers of money, “Security Compromises” or threats of legal action. These are always bogus identity theft messages.

For further information on keeping financially fit, I recommend Joe Dominguez and Vicki Robin’s book, Your Money or Your Life: 9 Steps to Transforming Your Relationship With Money and Achieving Financial Independence, and Lesley-Anne Scorgie’s book, Rich by Thirty: Your Guide to Financial Success. Also see Avoiding Identity Theft, Personal Fraud and Other Scams on the Other Stuff To Know section of our website at www.COTWguides.com.