What financial advice would you give a young adult about to get his or her first job and be out on his/her own for the first time?

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"Try and enjoy the here and now. The future will take care of itself somehow. The grass is never greener over there." -- Howard Jones

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Start your 401k NOW.

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"Poor people work for their money. Rich people make their money work for them."

Live within or beneath your means.
Try your best to avoid debt- except for buying a home.
If you can not pay cash then you can not afford.
If you think this way- you will be helping yourself out in the years to come.
Also like the above post- start to think of what way you are going to be putting $ away for your future.

If you have student loans, do NOT defer them if at all possible. Ande don't consolidate.

And don't get pregnant! lol Unless your situation will allow you to not have to work for the first year, at least. We're in a spot where there isn't realiable daycare, and even if there were a safe place to leave DD, I wouldn't want to. But I had no idea I'd feel that way when I got pregnant.

The three S's:
Save some (retirement, savings account, car fund, vacation fund)
Share some (charity)
Spend some (enjoy life a little)

Plus, don't use credit cards to acquire debt!

I don't think it is so much about what to say but how to get them to listen. Young adults just aren't as level headed as older ones. The emotions and hormones are still running high and that really clouds their thinking. It was painful to experience the mistakes myself and seeing my kids and neice and nephew now make the same mistakes is even worse.

The optimism of youth works against our best advice. We ask them to prepare for doom and gloom when all they want is to rush into greatness.

Cathleen

Good question! My niece is about to graduate from High School this year and my sister & I plan on giving her Dave Ramsey's book as a gift! (plus cash cause I know she won't be excited about the book)

I plan on marking special pages for her to read. Especially the one with the chart on how much you can have for retirement if you start young. Do it when you're young for 10 years or so and you can stop and still have WAY more than someone who starts when you stop and continues till they retire! Hopefully if she gets this she can retire a millionaire!

Also - live within your means - DO NOT sign up for Credit cards in college!!!! Its amazing how many college kids graduate with debt and how many of those are filing for Bankruptsy - such a shame!

Good question!

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Stay at home mom to my 3 boys... ages 4 1/2, 2 1/2 & 6 months!

I can do all things through CHRIST who strengthens me. Philippians 4:13

Credit card knowledge.

My best advice is to become knowledgable about credit cards and thereby credit/debt issues in general. Challenge him/her to go out and find the very best credit card choice for themselves.

I don't think that credit cards are bad. I had my first when I was 16. My dad made me look into all these different credit card offers and pick one. I had to learn to look at fees and interest rates and all that. By learning about the process instead of just signing up for the offer with the free t-shirt I learned to make educated decisions about debt.
This kind of thinking kept me out of the college CC game and also helped me to understand other financial decisions that dealt with the time value of money. Other decisions like retirement savings and car loans, etc.

I plan on doing the same for DS when he is older.

Plus you don't want to finish college and have no credit history. While you will not be in debt you will find it very difficult to get a good rate on anything like car loans and mortgage rates even with money in the bank. Very infuriating for my best friend who thought that she was doing everything the right way only to end up with a TERRIBLE loan rate on her car and couldn't get approved for a mortgage without a cosigner.

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Live beneath your means
Be very careful with credit cards- don't use them if you don't have any money to pay them
Have an emergency fund
Save money for retirement
Donate money to charity

i wish someone had said to me, "Dont use credit cards!!" Oh wait, someone did... My Mom...