Tips for Young People

As I am now entering my 30s, I thought I'd offer some tips I wish I had paid attention to in my youth:

1. Put 20% of your income toward a house deposit from the second you get a job.

2. Either do STEM if you're academically gifted, or do a trade. Trades are very underrated, and if you play your cards right you can exceed the pay of university graduates much sooner. You get paid while you learn instead of paying the university. A well qualified 22 year old tradie is an enviable position.

3. Make marriage a priority early on if you're that way inclined. You might even know your great grandchildren if you start early.

4. Join social organisations (sport, chess, whatever) and stick to them. You will make actual lifetime friends instead of transient idiots who don't care about you and won't stick around in the hard times.

5. Avoid drugs and alcohol if you can. They make you fat, lazy and can ruin your life. If you are going to do drugs, make sure you don't know the supplier or have any way of independently obtaining them. If you have a problem, admit it early and get help.

6. There are 3 types of things you can spend your money on: things that appreciate, things that depreciate, and consumables. Focus on the first two.

7. Charity is less selfless than it seems. Nothing provides fulfilment more than helping others, and the ladies dig it. Go join a grassroots volunteer organisation or start your own.

8. Spend time outdoors. A lot of time. It really puts the modern world in perspective.

9. Enjoy your freedoms while you can, society continually erodes them and they rarely come back. Resentment gets you nowhere.

10. It's not what you know - it's who you know. Network as much as you can, don't burn bridges.

11. Get rid of your smartphone, read the classics instead. Again, the ladies dig a guy who can recite the classics, and they're interwoven into all culture. Smartphones are cancer. If your friends aren't okay with calling or texting you they aren't real friends. If you read a book a day from 18 to 100 that's only 4500 books. Get started early.

 

This may or may not be good advice. In the interest rate environment I bought in, putting money down represented a huge opportunity cost and would have been a big mistake.

 

Idiocracy here we come.

 

I don't defend that but it is how the world works, like it or not.

No. 11 should go far to save us from Idiocracy (great movie btw).

 

I guess just pay some mind toward purchasing housing early on.

 

I am under 30 and plan to pay off my mortgage in a lump sum at the end of this month. Bought a fixer upper at way below asking because nobody else made offers because 2.5% mortgages meant they could buy move-in ready and am still fixing, had inheritance money to kick start me, and have put every penny in the mortgage I could spare. Hasn't been easy but I am going to be losing my job at the end of the year when my work shuts down so I at least want to have that off my plate. I plan to have this place forever either as a primary residence or a rental, so it is nice to have that part of my future buttoned down already. Have also gotten into vegetable gardening and permaculture so if crap ever goes too sideways, at least I can grow a lot of my own food. Not really a prepper---I just distrust putting all my eggs in someone else's basket these days. The business and political climates are too schizophrenic to rely on others not to screw you. am also liquidating the last of my stocks until the recession comes and goes and my work future is more settled.

As for the rest of this thing we call life, who knows where it will go. Paid off my car early several weeks ago, so right now I will be going into next month with no debt other than student loans and usual household recurring bills---phone, utilities, internet, insurances.

My advice to everybody, young and old, is if you have the opportunity, you are an idiot not to at least contribute up to your match on your 401K. That is free money. Even if you cash out, the taxes and penalties are being more than covered by your employer contributions for most people.

 

For a young man, that is very astute advice. You missed a few things that I know well, but I've had a lot more years to learn. It's a progressive process, but you are wise ahead of your age.

I have a grandson, who at 18 couldn't make anything work. I helped him out, but he didn't learn.... so I quit helping and let consequences do the teaching for a few years. He eventually came back to me for help. Not financial, but on how to change his course. I started by taking him with me to the Berkshire shareholders convention in Omaha, and exposing him to the many ordinary people who have become millionaires just by making prudent choices. He listened to Buffet, met Bill Gates, and learned. To make this story short- he got hungry to learn how to succeed, and listened to advice. As his focus changed, his fortunes changed. Over a ten year period, he's gone from zero net worth and no credit to owning a very nice home, having low debt and a net worth around $250K. Getting married soon too.

We don't learn until we're ready to learn. Those who get hungry will learn and they will succeed. Those who don't learn... get to take the course over until they do!

What I felt at your age was that there were too many rules to the game of life, and too many of those rules kept changing. I had turned my search to finding the rules that didn't change, which I suspected were the key to understanding all the ones that did, and being able to stay on course to the goals I wanted for myself. That turned out to be true, and I've lived by three rules for over 40 years, very successfully. They lead to rational logic and conclusions.... including the items on your list. I've been teaching the process all that time too, which is surprisingly difficult at times.

The sad part about trying to give that wisdom to others is that most want the answers to fit neatly into what they already believe so that their problems will go away, but they don't have to make changes.
Instead of asking themselves how they can, many tell themselves why they can't, and nothing changes. But if we keep putting the real answers out there, more people will find them, and more lives will improve.

 

On paper, that sounds like a good idea but in practice I don't know if 20% is realistic, given the way inflation and the economy is going right now and everything progressively getting more expensive.

 

I would like to add to 'stay away from drugs and alcohol' -- also don't get tattoos, don't grow facial hair, keep your hair cut and groomed, don't wear your cap backwards, wear your pants around your waist, don't wear jeans with the knees ripped out, don't wear all-black, clean up your language, be friendly, be polite, and be honest. If you're looking for a life-mate don't look in a bar, try clubs and church.

 

If you want money do not start pumping out kids...they cost millions...and they are not guaranteed to be around to comfort you in your old age....but money will be.

And why do you think this "advice" is only for men?

 

It's for a younger me, and I'm a man.

 

FoxHastings said: ↑
If you want money do not start pumping out kids...they cost millions...and they are not guaranteed to be around to comfort you in your old age....but money will be.

And why do you think this "advice" is only for men?

So this advice is only good for men, not people? I think if everybody followed your advice it would benefit them....

 

Planning financially is good advice. But I would focus more on happiness in my cautions to young people. It seems to be in short supply these days.

Helping others is a sure way to happiness. Being kind is another. Understanding differences in others rather than judging them. Take many jobs - learn what you can - acquire many skills - then do what you love to do. Find a life partner who will put your cares/needs above their own and then do the same for them...its a win/win. Let go of grudges. Listen more, speak less. And surround yourself with people who believe you are 'enough'.

 

Cash is King.

Don't sweat the small stuff.

If something is upsetting, ask oneself, will it matter in 50 yrs.

 

Very astute, and shows the truth of common sense and down to earth practical values, as opposed to parsing and intellectualizing the hell out of things.

#2 reminded me of an old saw about a dentist who called a plumber. The plumber fixed the problem in two hours and presented a bill for $575. "What for??!!??" hollered the dentist. "$400 for the two hours of labor and $175 for parts." "Hells bells," yelled the dentist, "I'm a dentist and I don't make $200 and hour." "Yeah, when I was a dentist, I didn't make $200 and hour either."

 

Not at all, it's just written from the perspective of me talking to a younger me, and I happen to be a man. Most all of it is applicable to anyone, and some are even more relevant to women.

 

The man who can't look back and learn from his own experience will repeat the same mistakes over and over.

 

I would agree with all but #3. only do that if you leave the country. a divorce will interfere with #s 1,2,4,5,6,7,8,9,10.

I would say, never depend on others for happiness.

 

My number 1 tip: the gap between how dumb this generation is and how smart it thinks it is has never been bigger—you might want to appreciate that fact before thinking you know enough that burning down society to rebuild in your image is a good idea.

 

Tip 11 - Read the classics.

"I know that I know nothing" - Socrates

 

Just cuz you got it doesn't mean you gotta use it. If you can get into a house and keep the deposit, you're even that much further ahead.

 

That's advice I wish I woulda listened to in my 30s...

 

Lots of good ideas here from lots of smart people.

"Smart people learn from their mistakes. BRILLIANT people learn from the mistakes of others."... Bismarck

I would just add one thing said to me by a secretary decades ago. (Sometimes the most valuable wisdom comes from the most unexpected places.) She said, "Being in the world and only living in only one place is like living in a library and only reading one book.".... Worth thinking about.

 

My own tip: What you perceive at the time as major traumas and set backs often don't seem so when looking back on them a decade or two later. Sometimes that horrible thing that happened to you ends up being the best opportunity you ever had. Don't miss out by wallowing.

 

Everyone has a purpose in life even if it is only to serve as a warning to others