berryjam[Serious] What should every young person do?
SavvyWolfVote.
BlackoutI'd also add participate in local politics. There's no law saying a 20 year old can't be any elected official but president.
There is, it’s the constitution. You can’t be a member of the House without being 25 or a senator without being 30.
However there exist countries with own constitutions outside of the US
Even in the US, state-level representation hardly counts as local. Neighborhoods, towns, counties, etc. all have people representing them.
It’s cool to care about and build up your community.
Boozilla20 years ago I would have said invest regularly in an index fund.
Today I think you should learn all you can about DIY water filtration and growing edible mushrooms in caves.
Have to invest points in radiation resistance.
recursive_recursion [they/them]Enjoy nature before it gets clearcut for money
Travel, live abroad if possible, and experience living in a big, culture-rich city. Unfortunately the economic realities of the 2020s are making this increasingly out of reach for many youth, but if you have the resources and opportunity, absolutely go for it. As you get older, responsibilities and lack of energy will likely sap much of your ability/desire to move around as much (this isn’t true for everyone, but it’s extremely common). Even if traditional travel is impractical for you, there still exists cheaper opportunities for exploration that are a bit off the beaten path, such as the WWOOF program.
Regardless of your situation/location, one thing that basically anyone can do is get involved in a cause. Find something you’re passionate about and throw yourself into it. Make sure it’s something that you can do in-person and not virtually… as in, there are local groups you can join for this cause, although if there aren’t you can always try making one or forming a local chapter of a larger org. With the right networking you’d be surprised how many other people will join you, especially for causes that involve your local community. This is a great way to meet other people, get to know the issues facing your neighborhood/city better, and learn to navigate your local government/NGOs. Again, as you get older responsibilities/exhaustion can make this sort of thing a lot harder.
solsangraalexperience living in a big, culture-rich city.
don’t move to a big city if you’ve never spent a significant amount of time in one. i don’t care how “culture-rich” it is. true, a lot of people love the noise, crowds, crime, stink, traffic, astronomical prices for literally everything, and all the other crap that’s tangled up in city life, but there’s no amount of money anyone could pay me to put up with even one of those things ever again. if you’re in your 20s, maybe you’ll love the night life. but that gets old quick. or you better hope it does…
I mean, obviously it’s not for everyone, but it’s important to actually experience urban living for yourself before deciding you hate cities. Especially given the political situation in the United States right now, where so many suburban and rural residents are bashing cities and urban living without having properly experienced it for themselves; I think there would be a huge bite taken out of the urban/rural divide if more people had experience living in cities, and got to personally see the good and the bad for themselves. Plus your twenties is a great time to learn street smarts, because that way you’ll be less likely to have a bad experience when you do visit a big city in the future, whether it’s for something fun like a concert or something serious like going to a medical specialist. There are a lot of basic lessons like “never ever leave anything visible in your unattended parked car”, how to use public transportation, being able to firmly say “no”, and general situational awareness that are just good life skills that city living forces you to pick up.
I’m not at a point in my life where I want to live in a big city anymore, but I’m so, so grateful that I did in my youth.
As my father who traveled constantly for work said all big cities and airports start to look alike.
kinklesProtect your hearing. Listen to loud music in moderation and use earplugs in loud environments.
Most practical advice I’ve seen in this thread. For anyone who wants to protect their hearing at a concert without making the music sound muffled, check out these flat frequency ear plugs:
ER20•Plugs® Earplugs
ER20 High Fidelity Earplugs feature a traditional stem and triple flange design for a superior seal, offering unmatched noise reduction without sacrificing sound clarity. Perfect for environments where preserving speech and music quality is essential, ER20 earplugs ensure sounds remain clear and rich, just at safer volume levels.
Those are great but I recently switched to these. They are a little more expensive but they come with three different filters for different decibel levels.
I’ve always had the anti-neighbour style setup. Much less harmful to your ears than headphones
Please wear them at shows. Coming home with your ears feeling like you are underwater and ringing is a sign you’ve damaged them. I don’t know why they insist on making shows so damn loud.
Floss and make regular dentist visits, prioritize fitness and make it a habit for the rest of your life, and don’t allow negative people in your life
Roth IRA
Save money into a retirement fund. Be consistent about contributing to it. Compound interest is very much your friend at this age
Learn a paid skill you can do with your hands. Welding, painting, HVAC, long-line fishing, building PC’s, anything. Get proficient.
You may never use it again. Hopefully you develop a skill-set that pays you better/is less physically demanding/is sexier.
But you will never starve and may be able to feed your family even if your primary occupation falls out of favor.
Meditate as much as you can. An hour a day would not be overkill.
UsernameblankfaceMake a budget. Live by that budget for a month. On the first of the next month, make another budget.
You don’t actually have to do this forever, but long enough to get the basic ebb and flow of money into your head. Planning to put more into x category means having less for y category.
Build up savings, a little at a time. Get used to dipping into that for emergencies.
Disregard if you’re a billionaire or entirely living off the land.
Get out of your comfort zone.
Lvxferre [he/him]Take care of your body. It’s only getting worse after that age, so you need to ensure that it doesn’t go too fast.
Take care of your mind. Culture yourself, have fun, rest properly, cut off from your social life people who cause you psychological harm.
Set your own values. It’s fine if you change them later on, but you need some way to ground your actions that is not “do what other people tell you to”.
Learn your limits. Some are higher, some are lower, than the average person; just don’t assume that you can handle vodka, work nonstop, or scale cliffs as well as someone else does. Stop punishing yourself for those limits being too low, and stop abusing the limits that are higher.
Learn how to budget. “Economise money” is easier said than done, I know; but once shit hits the fan, it’s best if you know which expenses you can cut, temporarily or permanently, as well as the impact of doing so in your life.
Find people whom you can rely on. Even if you’re an introvert, even if you hate dealing with people. Family, friends, you call it. And make sure that they can rely on you, it’s give-and-take.
Breathe
Grow some plants. Whether it’s a small succulent or a big lemon tree; it’ll definetly make your life more enjoyable watching them grow.
Grow some herbs and such. It is fun going through a recipe and thinking “Oh, I can run outside for this ingredient.” I like to tell my wife “In a way we are eating our lawn.” lol
Don’t use harsh shampoos like Head and Shoulders if you want a shot at keeping your hair.
Curse you, Head and Shoulders! fist shaking
I second the request for a citation.
Feel free to refute this, but here’s an article I found that suggests there’s little evidence that Head and Shoulders is bad for your hair - at least the ones that aren’t Clinical Strength.
Minor anecdote: I used to have severe dandruff, then I started using Aveeno’s Apple Cider Vinegar products and that helped a LOT, but now I use the ACV H&S and I haven’t had any real complaints since the switch.
I’ve been using it for twenty years and have just the slightest thinning in one small spot. You can’t even tell when my hair dries.
Noble ShiftDon’t have kids.
FoxSave 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.
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. i.imgur.com/lSoUQr2.jpeg
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.
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.
Have an existental crisis. I’m serious. But have a low level one, a high level will paralize you.
Move away from parents home if you haven’t already. Preferably to live alone. The feeling of having a whole place to yourself is amazing.
As best as you can, max out Roth IRA with an S&P 500 fund like VOO or a targeted date index fund. Also contribute to a 401(k) as much as possible.
If you are not American, this is a retirement account thing.
The Roth IRA is great advice. I think a 401k is good as long as you are maxing your company’s contribution. Any higher than that would be better invested in another account so you could use it for an emergency before retirement
Ideally, you set aside 3 to 6 months worth of your typical monthly spending to cover (some) emergencies and job loss, then invest everything else. 401(k) is still tax advantaged in the same way as an IRA, and you can typically do roth contributions to a 401(k) too. So there are benefits to going above your employer match.
But, you’re right that you don’t want to trap all of your money into a retirement account either. You’ll probably want to make large purchases like a car or house. In that case, you plan out a timeline and invest in less risky things depending on how far out you plan to purchase said thing.
The overall idea of “invest in index funds as much as possible” can be applied generally, but the amount that you contribute and in which types of accounts heavily depends on the individual.
I just wanted to point out that 401(k)s without employer matching are basically just IRAs with high yearly caps because it took me a few years to realize that, and I fancied myself financially literate. It can be a good idea to contribute more, so long as you don’t need the money elsewhere.
Dr. WeskerHave sex with as many different attractive people as you can, using protection. You’ll understand when you’re older, feel older, and look older. It’s a window that doesn’t stay open.
Live alone and single at some point in your life.
It's shocking how many people never learn to just be themselves, by themselves. And I don't mean for a month or two. Get to know yourself before you settle in together with somebody else.
In THIS economy?!
socsaFuck a lot.
irreticentAnd if you do, use protection.
u/lukmly013 💾 (lemmy.sdf.org)Well, I do fuck up a lot.
Does that count?
Are you male or female?
BlisterexeWhy does it matter?
I want to hear what you have to say for either case.
Travel on the cheap while you’re still willing to put up with it.
Seriously. Save up a couple thousand dollars. Go see stuff.
Make sure you have enough in your emergency fund to get home if you screw it up.
Students in a lot of countries get discounts to different stuff like travel expenses too! Here in Ukraine, for example, I only have to pay half of the price for train tickets
Save at least $30,000 for retirement within ten years of your first adult job.
If you can, put 15% of your check into your retirement every single check, at minimum.
That will set you up for retirement, especially if you’re entering the work force in your late teens or early twenties.
This for sure! I never understood the power of a 401k being a tax shelter and the power of employer matching. Do as much as you can, even if it’s 50$ a paycheck. It’s best of you can put in as much as the employer will match.
Learn to cook!
It’s great fun if you can get into it, it fulfills one of your basic needs in a much more fun and satisfying way, and it can be a good and attractive quality in a future partner and / or fun to do with them.
So many people I know who after college ended up living on crap. At best they only knew how to boil pasta. I got a cookbook on my favorite cuisine at the time and started trying all sorts of recipes when I first lived on my own. I tell my wife “If you can follow instructions you can cook” and she said “I hate following instructions.” lol
VanthFigure out how to make and keep friends. It only gets more difficult as people are out of school, have their own families, have less time for short-notice adventures, etc.
At the same time, figure out what you want in a friend that is worth investing in to you. Not every friend is worth keeping as we all naturally grow in different directions.
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Acquire new skills will pay off in the long run.
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Build habits like exercising, eating well, and prioritizing mental health which can set you up for lifelong well-being.
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Build deep friendships, relationships, and connections. It’s the decade where many lifelong bonds are formed.
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Learn about budgeting, saving, investing, and managing credit. Financial literacy will greatly benefit you in the future.
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Failing in your twenties is part of growth. Whether it’s in work, relationships, or personal goals, each failure is a stepping stone. Embrace failure and learn from it.
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Focus on collecting experiences, such as concerts, festivals, road trips, or spontaneous adventures, rather than material goods. For memories, don’t collect shot glasses, you’ll regret it later.
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Learn to enjoy your own company, reflect on your goals, and become comfortable with solitude.
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Work on understanding your emotions, how to manage them, and how to empathize with others.
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Expand your mind with literature, self-development books, and works that challenge your worldview.
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Spend an extended period in another part of the world which can give you an appreciation for different cultures and provide life altering experiences.
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Learn how to prepare your own meals- a valuable life skill which can help you live healthier.
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Understand the importance of looking after your mental, physical, and emotional well-being.
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Spend time thinking about where you want to go in life, and set both short-term and long-term goals.
Learn how to learn. Having the ability to look up things on the internet, watch YouTube videos, go to the library and find books, ask people for help and even show you how to do something. Most people are willing to teach others if you’re willing to learn.
I wouldn’t necessarily recommend it unless you feel comfortable with it but sometimes money is tight and it’s easier just to replace that 10$ part rather than call a repair guy. I’ve looked up how to replace a part on a water heater on the internet because it was cheap at Lowes and I didn’t want to pay weekends rates for the plumber.
Also learn how to do basic things like learn how to change the oil on your car, replace your belts and change a tire. You’ll save some money and feel good about being able to do these little things. Look for tools at yard sales and pawn shops if you don’t have a lot to spend on tools.
whotookkarl“So live your life that the fear of death can never enter your heart. Trouble no one about their religion; respect others in their view, and demand that they respect yours. Love your life, perfect your life, beautify all things in your life. Seek to make your life long and its purpose in the service of your people. Prepare a noble death song for the day when you go over the great divide. Always give a word or a sign of salute when meeting or passing a friend, even a stranger, when in a lonely place. Show respect to all people and grovel to none. When you arise in the morning give thanks for the food and for the joy of living. If you see no reason for giving thanks, the fault lies only in yourself. Abuse no one and no thing, for abuse turns the wise ones to fools and robs the spirit of its vision. When it comes your time to die, be not like those whose hearts are filled with the fear of death, so that when their time comes they weep and pray for a little more time to live their lives over again in a different way. Sing your death song and die like a hero going home.”
- Tecumseh