I recently came across an interesting series of posts Money Matters for All Ages. There are two articles giving advice for those of us in our twenties. Both articles have a pretty standard combination of tips that I have seen in various money advice posts but having them geared towards age specifics added an interesting spin on things. Without reposting all of the advice given in these posts here are snippets of advice that stood out to me.
Financial Advice for your Twenties at Remodeling this Life
This is the best age to be frugal because living frugally early on is the foundation for the rest of your life and will give you the opportunity to live well while also living below your means.
Money Tips for the Twenty Something Crowd at Cash Money Life
Your career and your ability to create income is your greatest asset. During your twenties, you should be more concerned with taking the job that offers you the most professional opportunity – not necessarily the highest salary. Professional opportunity is the currency that will define your options as your career progresses and lead you to more satisfying and higher paying paying positions.
Thanks for the mention! We are all making the “Money Matters for All Ages” into an eBook that we will be giving away free on our sites. It should be done in a week or so. I hope you’ll come by and download it. :)
Oh, and I just noticed I have a typo in my paragraph… “paying paying positions.” I don’t think I would have noticed it if you didn’t quote it. Thanks! ;)
The second quoted paragraph confused me some between the first sentence and the rest. Still, I think the rest is very solid advice. I know for myself as the job market is confronting me (and I it), it’s difficult to look at it in terms of taking a pay cut for professional opportunity. Especially for me as I do a lot of startup stuff, which means say hello to sweat equity and goodbye to salary.
Will definitely keep the 2nd tip in mind – it’s so tempting to just take a job that pays more rather than one that suits career goals! (instant vs delayed gratification comes into play here, at least in terms of money – and let’s face it, money can give us a lot of instant gratification!)
Did my mum write the second tip? Just wondering….
Very good advice. I am lucky enough to be debt-free – paid all my uni fees and my car off about a year ago. No credit card debt either. Now just saving and saving and saving…
I keep hearing that my twenties are the best time to save money, that I should start early and I’ll get that million dollars before I retire. it makes perfect sense. Unfortunately, youth isn’t about perfect sense and logical decisions, it’s about experiences and making mistakes that you can learn from.
It’s funny — I know what I *should* be doing, but it almost never happens that way. Books have been written about financial advice for college kids for decades…few seem to be following the wisdom of that came before them.
Then we hit our 30s, realize the error of our free-spending youth, and then go write a book about it…lecturing twentysomethings on the advice that we didn’t listen to in the first place.