Starting your career is an exiting time and is truly one of the most important parts of your life. If you take it seriously and do what you need to do to succeed, you will give yourself plenty of opportunities to greatly improve your life. Too many young people a year or two out of college still act like they’re a year or two away from graduating high school. It’s not all about the clothes, but nice leather belts that go with professional suits are always a plus, but just saving up your cash to actually buy things that will help you in your career, rather than just wasting it at the bar or on fast food, can give you an upper hand.

Here are a few necessary items that every young professional should have:

• Leather Totes — Leather totes for women and men both look 100 times more professional than a book bag. It’s unfortunate that this is true, because book bags certainly are convenient, but you you’re trying to get people to see you as not a student, wearing a book bag has the opposite effect. Fine leather goods like leather totes or a professional leather handbag can make you look much more professional.
• Comfortable Laptop — You don’t have to buy the biggest, fastest, most expensive laptop on the market. If you’re a working professional you will most likely be on your laptop for many hours each day, so comfort is extremely important. Try out actually typing and working on a laptop before you buy it because you’re going to be spending a lot of time with this device.
• Reliable Smart Phone — Again, you don’t need the iPhone 42 or whatever the newest one is, but if you’re serious about your professional career you probably should have some kind of smart phone. You’re going to want to access your email and other important apps on your phone throughout the day and if you can’t do it on the go you could run into some serious work issues.
• Watch — A great way to not only look more professional and also keep your phone in your pocket until you need it is to have a watch. If you only have your phone to check the time every single time you pull it out you’ll probably not even know it but you’ll end up wasting 15 minutes on Facebook. Limit the distractions and just quickly glance at your watch.
• Pad and Pen — If your manager stops and asks you to complete a quick task, it might look a little odd and unprofessional if you pull out your cell phone to start typing in what you have to do. You don’t want to not write it down and completely forget about it, however, so always keeping a pad and pen on you will enable you to jot down important items at anytime.