Read 'who moved my cheese' sooner and go looking for new cheese.
-------------------------------------------------Do you consider 28-30 too late? Just curious.
I would say it's never too late to start investing.
^^Bingo. It is never too late to start investing. It's just going to take a bit more work than it would had you started earlier. Basically what you're doing is playing catchup, hence the higher contribution rate into your 401K at a later age. So instead of only contributing a small percentage in your 20's (say 5%) you now have to make up for those lost years of compound interest by increasing your contribution percentage(as jond suggested 15%).No. Just max it out.
Cut cable and put 15% into your 401k.
You'll be better than 95% of people in 35 years.
All this is fabulous advice, but be honest, your younger self wouldn't have listened. I know I didn't. There's a point in our teen lives that we actually think we know more than our parents.:wink:
I would tell my younger self to learn the true meaning of "value" and how to properly place a value on something, whether it's real estate, a business, or other asset.
Funny thing is, I know when gas is "cheap" and when it's "expensive." My wife knows when corn/apples/whatever is cheap at the supermarket and when they're not a "buy."
When I first started in real estate, my ability to place a value on something was skewed. Nowadays, not so much. But my portfolio would look a lot different now had I had my current mindset then.
Difficult to say. Definitely advice about money -- like most kids, I was dumb with money, up until I was about 30. I could be a lot better off now if I was a lot smarter then.
I'm tempted to give my younger self advice about girls. There are a couple girls I chased in my late teens/early 20s that I wasted a lot of time and money on but didn't turn into proper relationships. I could tell my younger self to cut my losses and let them go -- but then I may not have met my wife, whom I've been happily married to for 22 years now. Those early mistakes may have been prerequisite to my current life. Probably best to just leave the past as is.