this post was submitted on 09 Sep 2024
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For the purpose of this question, the target age range is 20-30. Asking because I feel like I'm wasting my youth.

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[–] [email protected] 26 points 2 months ago (2 children)

Save up an emergency fund. If you can manage to keep six months to a year's worth of expenses in a savings account, it will give you a huge psychological cushion in rough times. Beyond that, save and invest as early as you can.

Learn how to do basic maintenance on a bicycle, car, motorcycle or whatever else in your life that you depend on. That knowledge and experience will pay dividends the rest of your life.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago (1 children)

3-6 months is plenty. At the 6 months mark you take literally any job you can get and then keep looking for one that you want. The other site had a pretty good personal finance community. Their flowchart does a great job of summarizing things. https://i.imgur.com/lSoUQr2.jpeg

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

It might be plenty, depending on your emergency. But you never know when you might be asked to care for an ill family member, suffer a health setback yourself, or end up out of work in a soft labor market - which we are currently in. It's a risk based decision, but as price-to-earnings of potential investments is currently incredibly high (suggesting unrealistically high future return expectations), I would hedge on the side of more savings rather than earlier investment.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 2 months ago

Save up an emergency fund.

I'll second this by repeating something I said yesterday: it costs more money to have to patch things with bandaid solutions rather than quality solutions. The example I gave was someone not able to pay to turn their electricity back on because they had to keep buying candles for light. I couldn't save to buy dishes because I kept having to buy disposable plates for my meals.

When you're absolutely strapped, you waste a lot of money on what you can get while prolonging getting a real solution. Having an emergency fund that you can go to when you get sick or your car fails or whatever else is really an investment in your own wellbeing.