50 and older, I’m sorry, but in my personal experience, your advice has been a little out of date.
Your teeth and feet are hopefully with you for life. Take care of them.
Look, I brush and floss on a routine and haven’t had a cavity since I was a kid.
But what am I supposed to be doing with my feet? I get that my teeth can rot out, but I have never worried about feet falling off…
what am I supposed to be doing with my feet?
Brush and floss… is that not common knowledge?
what am I supposed to be doing with my feet?
quality footwear and custom orthotics.
401k now.
I think I maybe signed up for it when I was 23? I’ll have to look into it again
I was a dumbass and withdrew my first one when I changed jobs around age 26. That job had profit sharing too. Such a waste.
Check that your fund allocation is appropriate (e.g. a target-date fund or otherwise 80%+ stocks). It would be an absolute disaster if your money has just been sitting in the cash sweep account this whole time.
Also, up your contribution percentage to max it out.
The stock market is insanely overpriced and due for a downturn. Maybe the US government will bail them all out again, but already 40 trillion in the hole, probably close to 50 by 2028 even without a crisis, and the indigestion in the bond markets right now, would give me pause in dumping cash into the market now.
It’s also helping to prop up the worst companies in the world. And managers of the funds take a big cut despite not doing better than random choices, or a monkey throwing shit against a list of stocks to choose. Seriously.
Yeah, but timing the market is always iffy. For all you know the bubble will burst so far out that it’s still better to buy today.
Plus, you can invest in other countries. I myself hold some of an everything-except-the-US ETF.
Learn to cook & meal-prep. Invest time into your health and fitness. Self-host as many techy services as you can (bonus points for Arr stack - streaming services are expensive). Try to “BIFL” where possible - Terry Pratchett said it best:
The reason that the rich were so rich, Vimes reasoned, was because they managed to spend less money. Take boots, for example. … A really good pair of leather boots cost fifty dollars. But an affordable pair of boots, which were sort of OK for a season or two and then leaked like hell when the cardboard gave out, cost about ten dollars. … But the thing was that good boots lasted for years and years. A man who could afford fifty dollars had a pair of boots that’d still be keeping his feet dry in ten years’ time, while a poor man who could only afford cheap boots would have spent a hundred dollars on boots in the same time and would still have wet feet.
Don’t assume the future will be better than the past
Nobody under 40 thinks the future will be better
… You know, this is kinda true. I can’t think of a single young person who looks at the future (writ large) with hope rather than dread, or at least YOLO-ish apathy. The difference between people is in degree, and if they think it will eventually get better again.
Even most old people know the outlook is kinda fucked.
Don’t worry about money, worry about your health. Form the habits now, and stick with them.
Everyone will tell you that, and you’ll just ignore them, we all know it. But, we feel like we should say it anyway.
It’s really fucking important. Far more important than money.
Without money health suffers. It’s a balance.
This is good advice, but do kinda worry about the money. Just don’t obsess about the money. Save what you can without sacrificing too much. Tomorrow is never guaranteed. Talk to a financial advisor that you trust ideally one that answers the question “are you a fiduciary” with a straight up “yes” anything else they aren’t one and fuck em. Work out a plan and find what’s realistic to accomplish, and how to get there. Start that today. Not tomorrow. Investments and savings work on time not just your deposits, and every 5 years you wait you double your contributions to stay at the same level of 5 years before. Be it $50 a week or $500k a year there’s no such thing as too little if that’s what you got. Also max whatever your explorer match is on the 401k. It’s free money basically. There is so much more but the truth is none of us are likely qualified to answer this your your situation or even in general.
But yes have fun. Live for the moment. Take time off. Spend time with your family and friends. No one will remember you for your dedication to the grind, but perhaps they would be filled with resentment.
Just save your money as much as you can, dont suffer but live in the studio until you’re ready to buy a house. The car and the two bedroom and all that shit just keeps you perpetually a decade away from buying a home.
That’s funny because I live in a shared house which has 8 bedrooms but only 1 kitchen. Even if I worked 40 hours a week I couldn’t afford a studio in my city. New Zealand rentals are unaffordable, here I’d need to have a professional job and be married just to rent a 1 bedroom apartment with almost no space.
im in the US but yeah i moved halfway across the country to go to a lower cost of living because I just couldn’t make it work in a HCOL area like you’re describing. I mean, im just way happier now but i understand that NZ is a smallish country where you can’t just find a lower cost of living area further away.
True. I’ve looked for rentals further south of me but it’s the end of the world at the bottom of New Zealand. Every time a “cheaper area” pops up in the news, everybody from Auckland floods the new “cheaper area” and it ends up like everywhere else after 1-2 years (more pressure on house prices).
Drinking water and mountain home meals. I’m afraid their value will skyrocket sooner than later.
No matter what the situation, you’re not financially behind yet, but if nothing changes in 10 years, you will be.
Save and invest. If you don’t have at least $200k net worth by the time you’re 40, you’re probably never going to retire.
Get in the habit of wearing a backbrace. When you move something heavy, when you work in the yard, whenever you need to bend or twist a lot. Backbrace.
Save your back. Don’t bend over to pick stuff up off the floor unless there are at least 2-3 things down there to get.
Good boots, gloves, kneelers etc. Good quality tools. Your tools (your body especially) are an investment. Buy quality. Buy to last. Take good care of them. Per the literals. I swear by Kobalt and Dewalt.
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Marry someone rich.
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Get lucky
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Don’t have health problems
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Don’t have children (even if you find someone rich)
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Win the lottery (backup for if you can’t marry someone rich)
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Get out of the usa
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Don’t eat anything approved for eating in the usa
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Exercise
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Don’t listen to anyone born before 1980. They don’t live in the same world as you.
Don’t. Just don’t. Ever.
There is no hope without a revolution.
But also whenever you get a raise or pay off a loan take the majority of that money you would have added to your regular paycheck and put it in your superannuation (or your country’s equivalent retirement fund) as an automatic deduction. That way you’re saving without feeling the pinch of giving something up.
Also once you reach an age you start dealing with funerals you’ll realise how nightmarish and expensive that whole process is, so get a proper legal will made up.
Cheap used EVs are great, but if you are still in college, you don’t need that much range, so a beater leaf is even cheaper.
Your refusal to go into credit card debt in your 20s was great. Continue not fucking doing that.
Denying every indulgence makes you explode in spending desperation once you eventually get a windfall. Instead, ration indulgences, don’t forbid them. Get familiar with “this was expensive. I shouldn’t do that often.” It will make resisting temptation much easier with the new shiney XL+909T comes out when you’re older.
money (you need enough) so keep dollar cost averaging into ETF, don’t forget the world is a big place, so international as well and consider the debasement trade.
Switch to income investing when you “retire”, don’t try and time markets.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCuNKV0CMgcVUiJNdA-JNlJA
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCxU4PhPfJEBgaeYT1rMhvCg
and physical health ; no smoking, no drinking, moderate cardio (running cycling etc) and lift weights to help prevent muscle loss and osteo.
and mental health: hike, enjoy the woods, spend time with friends and family you care for
Am 61, retired at 40 , gf is 57.
money (you need enough)
sounds like legitimate financial advice
