So you are in the early stages of your policing career in Houston and need basic financial advice.
We’re talking questions such as:
- Should I finance a home at a 15- or 30-year loan?
- Should I buy a new car or lease one?
- What insurance coverage do I need when I get married?
- What stocks – or bonds or mutual funds – should I acquire for my investment portfolio?
- What are some basic ways to save money for my kid’s college education?
These are just some of the basics. There are others, for sure.
HPOU has developed a method for you to get these and other more complex questions answered by resident experts from the on-premises Public Safety Financial Group.
The group’s Brian Craft has been hosting a quarterly series of financial planning seminars geared toward HPD officers just beginning their careers or who have been on the job only a few years and in need of guidance.
“We discuss basic financial planning concepts,” Craft told the Badge & Gun. “It’s geared toward those starting their career. We meet individually with those considering retirement. Their situations are far more complex.”
But Craft stressed that all officers are welcome no matter their tenure at HPD. The seminar venue is the Breck Porter Building. Four seminars have been held with the next one planned for sometime in June. Watch HPOU.org for the exact time and date.
“We’re trying to get more of the younger officers involved,” Craft explained. “A lot of people don’t think of financial planning until they have to.”
Craft illustrates his financial planning points by quoting a wide array of sources, including Leo Tolstoy, Charles Caleb Colton and, yes, comedian Chris Rock.
The latter once said, “Wealth is not about having a lot of money. It’s about having a lot of options.”
Craft rocks on with specifics. Wealth, he says, is measured in time, not dollars. Savings divided by cost per month equals time. This and other more elaborate equations leads to a well-crafted discussion about financial cushions.
Economist Adam Smith is quoted as saying, “Money, says the proverb, makes money. When you have got a little, it is often easy to get more. The great difficulty is to get that little.”
One of Craft’s basic financial planning messages is, quite simply, to start young.
This basic but often hard-to-commit-to adage marks the beginning of his seminar geared toward the financial success of all officers but especially those just starting their careers.
There are other wider slices of financial wisdom at the seminar. Please attend to pick them up and store them in the database between your ears.