50 and older, I’m sorry, but in my personal experience, your advice has been a little out of date.
HSA > 401k > Roth or backdoor your Ira. High yield savings charge every time you can get an extra half point of interest.
Do not, I repeat do not touch your fucking hsa unless you absolutely must and are dead dying on the ground. Take out a small loan before you touch your hsa. A little interest will be cheap as fuck compared to a years loss of hsa funds.
Look at how hope much fees cost. They are sneaky. Vanguard is the standard with low cost target date and index funds.
do not fuck with day trading unless you feel like gambling
Set aside some time to understand how your pension and the tax system works.
It’s dull as hell, but you will need it.
Don’t assume the future will be better than the past
Daily intermittent fasting is a great way to save on your food and toilet paper expenditure.
Spoken like a true capitalist \s
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.
Don’t smoke, don’t drink, learn composting, grow a garden and learn foraging.
Fuuuuck, I do both, though I’ve been… Trying… With the smoking. I have been working on my tomatoes though!
You can grow your own tobacco. Once you do, never buy someone else’s (big tobaccos) crops.
It’s cheaper, you’ll probably smoke a lot less of it (you have to make each harvest last until the next crop is ready!), and you’ll have more fun with it when you do (pipe or rolling your own smokes, bragging rights, etc).
As much as i hate smoke, i would respect that
Tomatoes are great, especially if you make passata and use your garden waste for canning/pasteurise fuel.
I like it that you’re keeping it in the nightshade family, shit add some eggplant and you got the trifecta!
401k now.
I think I maybe signed up for it when I was 23? I’ll have to look into it again
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.
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.
Just do all the crazy shit. You live only once and soon your back will ache every day.
If you can afford a house, try as hard as you can not to buy a house that you can barely afford with a 30yr mortgage. Limit yourself to a house where you can afford it with a 15yr mortgage. I did that in my 30s and now in my 40s I don’t have a mortgage anymore. Obviously with the current housing market this advice won’t help many.
To those people, I’d say: stop using a basic savings account. Get a High Yield Savings Account. They pay 3.5-4% interest at the moment. Zero risk, and you can even havd a card attached to it for spending. They’re liquid. Got 1k sitting in savings? That’s $35/yr free money you’re missing out on. 10k? $350/yr. Best part? When inflation starts going crazy and the fed increases interest rates to control it, your money starts making even more money. Not enough to fix everything, but it does help a little.
If you can, max out your 401k. Put money in a Roth IRA too.
If you want to play with stocks safely use index funds. Something like SPY for the S&P500. 98% of day traders lose money. Every trade someone makes is measured against the market. The trade you made increased 2% in the last week? Well, the market was up 2.8%. It’s like gambling and the market is the house. The market eventually always wins and everyone else loses.
Only one problem with the S&P500: a massive chunk of it is AI speculation, like 30%+, and that bubble will pop. Recommend bonds or metals until it does. Then switch back.
If you can afford a house, try as hard as you can not to buy a house that you can barely afford with a 30yr mortgage. Limit yourself to a house where you can afford it with a 15yr mortgage. I did that in my 30s and now in my 40s I don’t have a mortgage anymore. Obviously with the current housing market this advice won’t help many.
I got a 30 year mortgage at a fixed 2.something % 15 years ago and am very happy with that because I could invest more in stocks with a higher rate of return.
'Course, with the current interest rates that won’t help many either…
At least contribute to your 401k to get the full match from your employer if offered. More if you can afford it. Time in the market is huge. Make a budget, have emergency savings. There’s little point in investing if an emergency happens and you have to withdraw your retirement at a potential loss, and that’s before penalties and tax. Take care of your body, especially joints. Be even a little bit active regularly. Figure out a decently healthy diet. These will help prevent health issues which can be expensive. Plus you might look better and feel better too.
All of this sound like too much? Pick one or two and try doing them consistently even if it’s half assed. Half assing something consistently for a long time is much, much better than putting in a ton of effort, burning out, and returning to old patterns. It’s a marathon, not a sprint.
Sorry I know that kinda veered into fitness but I see a lot of parallels in personal finance and fitness/nutrition. Both involve budgets and benefit from a plan and spreadsheets.
30-50 are most people’s highest sarnings years, so if you aren’t happy with your career, nows the time to fix it and get on a better path. Career changes get more difficult at 40 and 50.
Save even more than you think you can afford.
If you have IRA offered by your employer as a work benefit, try to contribute the amount that maxes out the employers contribution. This amount will vary by plan structure and also IRS limits. But basically you want to max out the amount your employer compensates you and even moreso for savings that compounds over time.
Consolidate and eliminate consumer debts.
If you need a car, buy used and let the first buyer take the depreciation hit.
Buy a house if you can afford to insure and fix everything that goes wrong with it also. Furnaces and AC and roofs are expensive.
If you plan to have a kid, start a 529 for their education now. Even if the contributions are small, time and compound interest is your ally here.
Don’t get on TikTok or Instagram as it becomes an envy/peer pressure/consumption trap. I don’t have the Amazon app on my phone either. I have to manually log in at a PC if I really need something from them. This reduces impulse purchases. Limit the Ubereats and Doordash expenditures also.
