
Starting in 2010, Tess Waresmith spent three years working on a cruise ship, first as a high-diver and acrobat, and then as a shopping guide for vacationers. For someone who had graduated from college a year earlier, it was a huge opportunity, Waresmith says. Not only was this a paying gig in an economy otherwise ravaged by recession, but food and living expenses on the ship were covered. “Over a couple year period, I thought to myself, ‘This is my chance to save as much as possible ,” Waresmith says. After a couple years of dutifully socking away cash, a friend aboard the ship suggested that she could be doing more with her funds than let them sit in the bank. “He was just like, ‘Tess, you can use the money you’re hoarding to buy things that make you more money,’” she says. “I knew that investing was a thing, but I’d never thought about it from that frame.” Waresmith, now 36, took that advice and ran with it. She currently has more than $US1 ($A1.6) million in stocks, real estate and other investments. In 2021, she founded financial education firm Wealth with Tess , with the aim of helping others follow her path while avoiding some of the pitfalls. In those early years, Waresmith remembers one pitfall in particular. “With stock market investing, I was really afraid to do it wrong, so I hired a financial adviser, and they made a lot of really bad decisions on my behalf,” she says. “I was paying over 2 per cent in fees. They sold me an annuity better suited for people in their 50s. I was 26.” Here’s how she says you can avoid falling into a similar trap. Waresmith did what a lot of experts might have suggested: hire a professional. But since she wasn’t too familiar with finance, Waresmith didn’t know that the advisor she chose was running a suboptimal strategy on her behalf. “It’s tough to identify red flags if you don’t have basic knowledge of investing. And when I say basic knowledge, I mean reading one or two books or taking one course,” she says. “You don’t have to have a Ph.D. in investing or be an analyst, but I didn’t really see red flags, because I wouldn’t have even been able to recognise them back then.” It took her a while to realize that her portfolio was lagging the market — both because her adviser had chosen underperforming mutual funds and because high fees were eating into her returns . Rather than charging a flat rate , her adviser charged a fee equivalent to 1 per cent of the value of her portfolio, plus a 0.25 per cent to use the adviser’s online investing platform. Some of the actively mutual funds her adviser chose came with expense ratios north of 0.75 per cent. The strategy, Waresmith eventually realised, was meant to make things more complicated than necessarily. “These were actively managed mutual funds and there were dozens of them,” she says. “It was way over-engineered.” Then there was the annuity, an often expensive financial instrument meant to provide income for retirees in exchange for fronting a lump sum of money. Waresmith put $US20,000 in — money she hasn’t been able to recoup. “When I turn 60, I’ll get a couple of bucks a month, or something from that,” she says. “It was a big mistake. No one should have sold me that.” Once she realised she was being charged for an overly complex, underperforming plan, Waresmith cut ties with her adviser and endeavoured to keep things simple. Instead of paying an expensive adviser to manage expensive funds, she opened her own account and invested in low-cost index funds. The advantages of investing this way are well documented. Index funds aim to replicate the performance of a market index, rather than trying to outperform it. While some active managers manage to beat the market, the vast majority don’t. Over the 10 years that ended in June 2024, about 29 per cent of active funds survived and outpaced their average indexed peer, according to Morningstar . Funds that track popular indexes, such as the S&P 500, give investors exposure to a broad array of stocks and come with very low costs. “Index funds are a great way to get started and to understand the basics of the stock market and to get your money invested in a really diversified, low-fee way,” Waresmith says. Advice given in this article is general in nature. Always seek your own professional advice taking into account your personal circumstances before making any financial decisions.
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In a bid to provide job opportunities under the Renewed Hope initiative, 4,876 people have been targeted to benefit in Kano courtesy of the National Directorate of Employment (NDE) in collaboration with the Ministry of Humanitarian Affairs and Poverty Alleviation. Speaking at the flag-off ceremony in Kano Friday, the Director General of the NDE, Mr. Silas A. Agara, said the current initiative had been designed to ensure that a total of 93,731 unskilled and unemployed persons benefitted across the country. He stated that inclusiveness had been a cardinal consideration, adding that the Directorate had ensured that a minimum of 10 persons from each of the 8,809 wards in the country were recruited to benefit from the programme. The DG, who was represented by the NDE state coordinator in Kano, Malam Saad Yarima Iya, said the Directorate under his leadership had ensured the adoption of cutting edge technology in the design and execution of the programme. In his remarks, Iya said the job creation initiative of the Directorate which was in line with the Renewed Hope agenda of President Ahmed Tinubu’s administration would also provide start-up capital equipment and working tools at the end of the training.
NoneSome people criticize the current state of Christmas as the quintessence of capitalism. They argue that Christmas in the modern age has steered too far from the origins of the holiday. But much to the chagrin of contemporary Christmas naysayers, the modern conception of Santa Claus has its roots in the marketing ploys of the soda industry mogul, Coca-Cola. Prior to the 1860s, depictions of Santa were inconsistent — different cultures' and artists' representations of the figure ranged from a small little elf to a slender gift giver. The contemporary image of Santa Claus can be traced all the way back to the Civil War when Thomas Nast designed political cartoons that showed Santa's support for the Union, characterizing him as a short elf. Over the course of 30 years, Nast continued drawing Santa and his work began to eke out the image of a red-coated human. While Nast pioneered the current image of Santa, the Coca-Cola Company perpetuated the look of a hefty, jolly, bearded man dressed in bright red. After the Civil War political propaganda circulated, images of Santa Claus continued to vary. Once Coca-Cola began its seasonal marketing, however, the present day image of Santa truly began to solidify. Where does Coca-Cola fit into the Santa Claus story? In an effort to sustain successful sales in the winter months, Coca-Cola launched its first Christmas marketing campaign in magazines in the 1920s. But it wasn't until the 1930s that the carbonated beverage giant spread a design of a rounded, white-haired older man. Coca-Cola worked with an advertising agency who suggested creating a human-looking, jolly Santa with a red coat. Haddon Sundblom was commissioned to paint the new and improved Santa, and he sought inspiration from "'Twas the Night Before Christmas," a classic holiday poem about Santa's Christmas Eve visit to a family's home. From there, the image of an affectionate, tender Santa was born. Like Nast, Sundblom continued to design images of Santa for Coca-Cola's marketing for 30 years. But after the 1960s, the company decided to remain consistent with Sundblom's first drafts. Today, Coca-Cola and Christmas have almost become synonymous — the company's marketing campaigns are ubiquitous during the holidays and have become some of the . Once November hits, blankets, commercials, billboards, bottles, and cans are all decorated with images of a rosy-cheeked Santa sipping on a coke. So, if , consider leaving out a coke for St. Nick alongside these . Recommended"Indiam" Popcorn: A Healthy and Delicious Festival Choice