Contracts

0:01- So let's talk a little bit about contracts. Sometimes it might be referred to as an agreement or even say a term of service. Now, usually contracts like this, they have a lot of words in them, and it might feel a little tedious to read everything, but depending on what the contract is for, it's really important that you read, especially the most important parts of the contract.

0:24Because if you don't, you could end up with unexpected consequences. You might end up paying more than you thought, you might be restricting yourself more than you thought, or you might not be getting what you thought you were going to get. So let's think about a few of the major contracts you're likely to see in your life.

0:43You have things like lease agreements. You might be renting from someone. You are leasing an apartment, you are leasing a car, and it'll have what you would expect, how much you're expected to pay, things like what is the deposit. But say you're leasing a car, it might have limitations on how much mileage you put on that car.

1:03And if you go above that mileage, they might charge you per mile. That's a pretty important thing to consider if you plan on driving a lot. Your lease agreement for an apartment, it might talk about situations where you may or may not allow pets. Can you sublease it to someone else, let's say if you're going to be away from the apartment for a while?

1:22How many people are even allowed to stay in the apartment? What are the policies around noise, around other things? You have to read that fine print because you might realize that there are conditions that are being put, even if the rent looks pretty good that you might not be able to actually live by or that might restrict you too much, or that you have to give a certain amount of notice before you leave the apartment.

1:44Make sure that you pay attention to all of these things before you sign those contracts. When you get a job, sometimes you might see an employment contract. Some of that might just say, "Hey, you're not allowed to share the information from the job with other people."

1:59But there might be things like a non-compete clause where even if you leave that job, you're not allowed to compete with the company. So it might restrict what your next job is. So once again, sometimes people say, "Read the fine print." I would just say read the print however fine or not fine it might be just to make sure it's not restricting you.

2:16And many times you might just need to ask someone a few questions like what does exactly this mean, et cetera, et cetera. Now, I already talked about leases. There could also be agreements around loans. It could be student loans, it could be loans for a car, it could be a mortgage.

2:32Once again, someone's gonna give you money. They're usually gonna put a lot of, or lend you money, I should say. They're usually gonna put a lot of restrictions on it, a lot of expectations. You have to look at the interest rates. Under what conditions can those interest rates move?

2:45Under what situations might there be some flexibility in payment? And what situations might there not be flexibility in payment? So look at all of these things in detail. Insurance policies, you're getting insurance because if, heaven forbid, something bad happens, your car gets into a wreck, or maybe you have to go to the hospital, you're hoping that the insurance is going to be there to cover those expenses.

3:12But there might be fine print. They might say, "Look, we will cover your, let's say, your home, unless it's one of these situations or we will cover your car unless it is one of these situations, or we'll cover your health insurance unless it's in one of these situations."

3:26So you really, once again, have to make sure that that policy is right for you and that you can really sit by the terms and the conditions on it before you sign it. Now, above and beyond that, and there's many, many types of contracts in our life, you might have things like service agreements.

3:42When you get a cell phone, you expect to pay a certain amount, but you might see in the fine print that there's other things that might be considered roaming charges or you're making other types of payments, et cetera, et cetera. At minimum just to know what you can expect to pay, what happens if you wanna cancel it?

3:55What happens if you wanna switch to another carrier? How much are you locked in into that agreement, your cable, whatever else you're using, your internet service, all of these things. I know it might take a little bit of extra time, but trust me, if you take the time to read it, understand it, ask people questions if things are confusing, not only will you be better protected in life, but actually you'll frankly learn a lot about the world.

4:20And you can also even start to think about, "Okay, well, what protection should I make sure I have?" As opposed to just seeing what are the protections that this person who's drafted the contract is coming up with.