Start saving and investing as early as you can. If you haven't, do it on a war footing. Get rid of debt.
The more you invest, the more you are likely to benefit over time.
In fact you may be surprised more than anything else out there. In many cases, even more than careers, job, raises and promotions- investments play a very critical role in how well you are going to do financially.
> Start saving and investing as early as you can. If you
> haven't, do it on a war footing. Get rid of debt.
Yeah, maybe. My net positive worth went red about age 18, and stayed that way (sometimes drastically) until I was about 30, when I finally clawed my way back out of the debt hole.
The decisions I made, the things I learned, the rash choices I made, decisions to quit jobs and do something exciting when I couldn't afford it, randomly moving to another country without any kind of security net, dumb startups that I didn't have the savings to bootstrap properly, holidays I took that I couldn't afford, needing to execute on things because without it I wouldn't eat, starting (and then finishing) an expensive degree I couldn't afford, the partying I did...
I wouldn't change it for a thing. If I die tomorrow, I will have lived.
Those experiences are what have put me in the very solid earning position I'm in now. I save nearly 70% of what I earn, I've been out of debt and had solid savings for a while, and I have a great standard of living.
Leaving it all to Lady Luck and hoping that it works out OK in the end is obviously a risky strategy, but the idea that your 20s should be about scrimping and saving rather than getting out there and screwing stuff up is equally risky.
The more you invest, the more you are likely to benefit over time.
In fact you may be surprised more than anything else out there. In many cases, even more than careers, job, raises and promotions- investments play a very critical role in how well you are going to do financially.