of boxing pledges attending Mäkelänrinne sports high school Johannes Suhonen and Veera Tuomikoski everyday is busy. The days consist of training, studying and sometimes also international competitions.
Aiming for the top requires not only time, but also money.
– At the moment, the parents finance everything. A lot of money is spent on competition trips at the moment, such ten thousand euros a year might be fine, says Johannes Suhonen, who won an international tournament in Denmark in October.
Veera Tuomikoski, who lives on the Mäkelänrinte Urhea campus, has recovered from her injury. Although everyday life is currently concentrated in a small area in Helsinki, in the future, creating a sports career will require versatile financial skills.
– I mainly take care of it myself and then my father helps. Or I ask for help from somewhere else when I really don’t understand yet. But here you learn at the same time.
The training is organized in the sports academies of the capital region in cooperation with the Olympic Committee and OP. The goal is to increase the conditions for young athletes to manage their own finances better.
– Moving to a career as a professional athlete from second grade can be a big step for many. In that, the support must be versatile, a lot of different skills are needed. Finance is one important part of making sports happen, the Olympic Committee’s sports academy program specialist Jarno Parikka explain.
For a young athlete, managing their own finances can be more difficult than for others.
– The income is irregular, the amounts may vary quite a lot. There is no such regular monthly salary, OP Uusimaa’s marketing manager responsible for responsibility Ulla-Kajsa Lemmetyinen explain.
Still, the financial skills taught to young athletes can be useful for ordinary citizens as well. Urheilu collected the lessons that are offered to young athletes in training.
1. Get the basics right
The rule of thumb for financial skills is that expenses should not exceed income. It is important to anticipate when the money will come. Mandatory expenses are paid with the received income and other expenses are planned based on it.
– In the economic skills class, I usually tell the young people that the economic skills math is the easiest math ever. Income minus mandatory expenses. Then you can spend a little money on nice things. And something should be saved, says Ulla-Kajsa Lemmetyinen.
Due to the irregularity of athletes’ incomes, it is advisable to plan your finances months, even years ahead. Saving is especially important so that it acts as a buffer at the point when the sports career changes to another kind of work career.
2. Credit matters
If a young athlete needs to take out a loan, it is important to compare their prices. You should pay special attention to the actual annual interest rate.
– Credit issues are discussed at a very basic level in financial skills classes. For some young people, a student loan may be a topical issue, some have already looked at car financing. Together we talk about the price of financing. What is the interest rate, what are all the costs associated with financing. We also tell you how to compare loan issues, Lemmetyinen explains.
– Let me remind you that the effective annual interest rate is an important tool for comparison, as is preparing your own budget. Regarding loans and invoices, we also talk about what to do and who to contact if the money is not enough. If the money is not enough to pay the bill, it is important to promptly contact the sender of the bill.
3. Saving and investing
An athlete’s career is not as long as a normal working career, so you should know how to do financial planning with a very long time span already at a young age. Young people are encouraged to think about when their sports career might end. Then it would be good to have savings.
Young people are also interested in investing. Many have started saving for stocks, says Lemmetyinen.
– There is no one right way to save. Everyone saves in their own style. Others are more willing to take a risk when saving, others are fine with an ordinary savings account.
According to Lemmetyinen, a friend’s tips or things you read on social media are not necessarily always the right solution for yourself, the most important thing is to understand what kind of saver or investor you are.
– What kind of return are you aiming for, how much risk are you willing to tolerate? What is the goal of saving, and how long do you want to save? Do you have enough time and interest to follow the investments, or do you want a more ready-made solution?
In education, young people were particularly interested in information about the athletes’ fund. The athlete pays income tax on the funds and income accumulated in the fund only when he uses them after his career. You can read more about the athletes’ fund here.
4. Entrepreneurship
Young athletes have many dreams and plans related to entrepreneurship, some related to sports, some not. Many are interested in social media and personal branding, some would like to design clothes. In the trainings, we try to give snacks on the entrepreneur’s path and tell you how to find help and sparring.
– In training, you notice that many young people are interested in entrepreneurship. We don’t want to stifle dreams, but support everyone to find their own path. A young person who plays sports with purpose knows how to take responsibility in his sports career, so the responsibility brought by entrepreneurship may not feel strange or scary either, Lemmetyinen reflects.
Schools often organize courses that talk about entrepreneurship and becoming an entrepreneur. The training also encourages networking with other entrepreneurs, and getting to know, for example, the services of new business centers and local business development organizations.
5. No frowning
The trainings emphasize that managing money is not about frowning. When you think a little, you can focus on other things. Dreams and dreams can be made possible with saving, planning and entrepreneurship.
– Let’s make sure that there is enough money so that it doesn’t become a lot of stress. We encourage transparency in all financial matters. You should talk about your own finances with your friends, parents and coach, Lemmetyinen concludes.