Curious about what your friends and neighbors are thinking about when it comes to money? Look no further than the top internet searches to take the public temperature about money worries.
- Inflation and cost of living questions
- Budgeting, saving, and “how to manage money”
- Credit cards, debt payoff, and loans
- Student loans. 4million Google searches on that one.
- Retirement planning and investing for retirement. Yay, people are thinking long-term!
- Stock Market, Crypto, and “how to invest.”
- Housing, mortgages, and foreclosure risk.
- Insurance (auto, health, life). Folks are looking for ways to save on these big-ticket items.
- Side hustles, extra income, “how to make more money.”
So, it seems like a lot of attention on doing the basics right (budgeting, keeping debt under control, protection from unexpected disasters). Also, people are worried about rising costs and looking for ways to mitigate that (more income, higher investment returns, using debt).
What’s interesting is that even with the “things are different this time” narrative I hear about the current economy, the financial solutions people are looking for stay consistent every year (decade) that I’ve been in this business.
And my advice doesn’t seem to change much either: Focus on what you have control over, don’t jump in and out of investments to outsmart the market, and stop watching financial news shows.
