About a month ago I had the opportunity to contribute to an article with advice that I would give to someone in their 20s and I started thinking about the financial actions I should have taken in my 20s. I believe in living my life without regrets so I’m not dwelling on it but I could have made some better financial decisions in my 20s but hindsight is 20/20.
Here are the 11 things I should have done in my 20s.
Lived off of 50% of my income. So in a previous blog post, I told the story of how I graduated from college broke because I was laid off from my part-time job and my unemployment ran out. I got a job maybe 2 weeks after I graduate and I was still trying to catch up on what I owed but looking back I should have lived off of 50% of my income, saved 20% of my income to build my emergency fund quickly, and use the other 30% to pay off debt and invest in business opportunities, real estate and investments.
Start contributing to a Roth IRA outside of my 401k earlier. Now if you didn't already know this about me I used to have my securities licenses, so I helped clients invest money daily at work. It took me awhile to get on the Roth IRA bandwagon. Mostly because I needed my tax liability to decrease immediately, I wasn't concerned about my taxes when I retire, I figured I could always convert later (before I retired) when I had the money to pay the taxes. Looking back, I would have put split my money between a Traditional IRA and a Roth IRA, so I could reduce liability and still contribute after-tax funds to my retirement.
Experiences over things. I live by this, I believe in having experiences that you can share with others over buying a lot of stuff that in a year or two you don't even want. Instead of buying clothes, shoes, and rims when I was younger I wish I would have used that money to pay for more experiences. Now don't get me wrong I had some great experiences when I was younger, but when I think about how much stuff I bought I realized I could have put more money toward experiences. I remember the trips and the great things I did for my son and others. I really can't tell you what I bought.
Negotiate all job offers. I decided to learn how to exercise my negotiation muscle after I took my first job and realized people with no experience were making more than me (I had experience) because they negotiated their salary and I just took the first offer because I was desperate. Now if there's an opportunity to negotiate I do it (I even try when it's not). I know now that I should have negotiated and if it doesn't work out it just didn't work out, what God has for me is for me.
Don't let the market change your dreams, take the risk. I’ve had real estate mogul dreams since I was in college, I let the 2008 Housing crisis scare me off and now I am ready to finish what I previously started. The house I own was actually purchased as a 2-year flip because I was trying to avoid paying capital gains by living in the house for 2 years while I fix it up, which was going well (I was almost done) until the housing market fell out a year after I purchased it. I lost all of the equity in the home and then some. I let that scare me off from real estate investing for a while when I should have gone full force ahead and bought more properties because everything was on “sale” and people were looking for rentals. I could be so much further in my Real Estate Ventures if I would have taken that chance, even if I have failed it would have been worth it, instead of just sitting back in not doing anything.
What other people think of me is none of my business. There are few times in my life that I let other people’s opinions affect my actions, that was a few too many. Thank goodness I have matured and have realized I shouldn't care what other people think they're not living my life, not paying my bills and they're not going to make me happy at the end of the day. My actions are what makes me happy, so I finally had to get to the point to say who cares what “ they” think. I have missed out on a few opportunities because of that.
Start saving early for your child's college tuition. I should have started saving for my son's college expenses as soon as he was born even if it was $20 a month. I started saving for his college when he was around the age of 5 which is still early for some people but there were periods where I would stop and then start again. Which was a bad idea especially when we look at how much the cost of tuition has increased over the years. When I graduated from college I think total tuition & fees was around $9,000 a year for a state institution (North Carolina), that includes room and board and your meal plan and my kid is looking at schools who out-of-state (yes, he could go in state but I want him to get out of NY) tuition is between $16,000 and $30,000 a year, so I wish I would have started earlier and been more aggressive about saving for a college.
Pay off debt early. I should have stayed at my parent's house longer after college, paid off all of my debt and then purchase a house. When I purchased my house I had significant savings but I still had student loans and if I would have known the ins and outs of student loans like I know now, I would have stayed and paid them off. Yeah, it was nice having my own space but my parents would have let me stay for free while I was knocking out my student loans and since my expenses were low I could have paid off my debt in 2-4 years.
Buy cars cash. So I love cars and I'm not just a girl who just likes pretty cars like I like a little bit of power under my hood. I’ve owned few cars over the years and at least 3 of the cars have had a car payment. If my priorities were right, I would have paid cash instead of taking out a loan a a car that declines in value.
Don't depend on your job as your only source of income. So I mentioned my layoff story earlier and in a previous blog post, it was a lesson for me that you can't depend on your employer only. I learned from that experience and Over the years I have had income streams from multi-level marketing companies, mystery shopping, uber before uber existed (among my friends), teaching, peer-to-peer lending, surveys, etc., but I wish I would have known before the layoff.
So those are things that I wish I would have done in my 20s. So if you're reading this post don't let fear hold you back from working towards your financial goals even if they're risky. Taking a risk and failing is better than not taking the risk at all. What if you're successful?
What’s one thing you wish you would have done in your 20s?
