Anika Hedstrom

SETTING OUT INTO the business world, I was age 27 with a negative net worth. Among life lessons, there are many strong contenders, but nothing introduced me to “adulting” like debt. For that, I had undergraduate and graduate school expenses to thank.
Having secured a good job out of business school, I started to rebuild my finances. My grad loans had a relatively high principal amount and an interest rate of 6.8%, so I prioritized that debt over my undergrad loans,

WHEN I WAS IN graduate school, racking up my fair share of student debt at 6.8% interest, I knew I needed to get serious about financial education. I was studying finance, but had yet to encounter a personal finance class. It became my mission to filter through the endless websites and blogs to find what resonated with me. Here are my five go-to sites:
Ramit Sethi’s I Will Teach You to be Rich,

MY SISTER JUST HAD a baby, our family’s first grandchild. That officially makes me a PANK: a Professional Aunt, No Kids. This often-overlooked demographic takes an active role in the lives of children they’re close to. They spend not only time, but also money: 76% of PANKs lavish more than $500 a year on each of their nieces and nephews, resulting in some $9 billion in annual purchases.
The opportunity to buy adorable items for baby Henrik is not lost on me.

YOU COULD SAY I have graduated summa cum laude from the school of hard knocks—for first-time homebuyers.
From a financial standpoint, I did everything by the book. Over two years, my husband and I saved enough to put down 20% and cover closing costs. To ensure we didn’t buy more house than we could comfortably afford, we kept our purchase price to less than half of what some lenders pre-qualified us for. I aggressively analyzed and pursued the best financing options.