[alexmingoia]

Start saving money now and planning for retirement now. The earlier you start the more of an advantage you have.

Stick to the 50/30/20 rule: When paid, put 50% into an account for bills, 30% into a savings account, and 20% into an account for spending. Setup auto-billing and never touch bills and savings accounts. Live on less than 50% income and let the extra money in bills account roll over as additional savings.

Once you’ve saved one year’s living expenses, invest new savings into an index fund. Saving one year’s living expenses should only take 1-2 years if you’re living on 50% or less of income and saving 30%.

If you stick to 50/30/20 and grow your income, by the time your 30 you’ll have at least $250k if you only earn $60k, but probably over $1,000,000 if you increase your earnings over that time.

If you start planning now you can retire by 35-40 just by working a job and being financially disciplined.

I could go into more detail with a financial plan, email me (in my profile) if you want more info.

[throwawaymsft]

Yep. Most of the advice here is about how to be a better employee and navigate a system that doesn’t have your best interests at heart.

Instead, work to free yourself from needing that system at all. Then you don’t need a life of playing politics and keeping CYA emails from your manager.

[HenryBemis]

If I may suggest (only because I have become a fan of the guy's principles), check out Dave Ramsey and his 7 baby steps. I wish I knew these 35 years ago, I could have avoided most of the "stupid". I know that his ecosystem is about sucking you in and but all his books, but still, if you can phase out the too-much-Christianity bits, he gives some solid advice. (YMMV)

[wil421]

Dave Ramsey is good but I think a sane mortgage can be healthy. Another thing I like about him is being wise with money instead of being cheap. Some places like /personalfinance are focused on being as cheap as possible and I feel like you can’t have fun.

[rubidium]

Dave Ramsey is Really good if you are starting from a bad place financially (eg credit card debt, no financial plan).

He looses steam when you’re in the actual wealth building phase. Boogle head and other resources are better there. Tax law is hardest and for that it’s probably worth paying someone (once you have >$200k in assets).

[gfodor]

For a completely different perspective on this advice (the advice given here is the consensus view on how to build wealth) read "Unscripted" or "The Millionaire Fastlane" by MJ Demarco.

[alexmingoia]

Starting a business can be a great way to earn more income, and the income potential is unlimited.

My advice applies to whether one chooses to start a business or not.

[gfodor]

Your advice is to use your savings to generate capital growth via the stock market via index funds. This isn't necessarily good advice. It may be, and it's common advice, but the books I mentioned explicitly advise against doing that.

[alexmingoia]

My advice is living on 50% of income, and saving. It doesn’t matter if income comes from business or a job. Even if you don’t think index funds will grow, which is going against 100+ years of historical returns, you have to park money somewhere for capital preservation.

After saving one year’s expenses as cash in the bank, where would you park savings for low-risk passive capital preservation? Cash gets destroyed by inflation. Bond yields are too low. The historical track record of 20 years in a good stock index is unbeatable, no matter what year you started.

Where do you keep your savings, right now?

Even if you focus on growing capital by starting a business (what The Millionaire Fastlane recommends), you still have to park the profit somewhere.

[gfodor]

One of the points of the book is you aren’t going to “park” capital but instead hand it over to income generating investments.

Also, I’m in cash and private equity, whatever that’s worth. Have never owned an index fund.

[_l8xu]

Thanks for that tip. I personally will start putting like 25€ away for saving every month. I will note the 50/30/20 method for the feature if I have a regular income none based on my parents.