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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Max out retirement starting day 1 of a professional job;

Live below your means -- whether that's living on one salary/saving the other; or if you're single/or married but can't do the 1 salary thing -- make it a goal to save 25-50% of one salary at least.

And then what you save from living below your means -- invest it -- at least most of it.

[b]Invest invest invest, even if it's $1000 here and $3000 there, it adds up. For example when I was at a job with a transit benefit, I kept track of how much I was saving by using company funded public transit vs. driving and parking each day -- subtracting out the days I drove anyway or took Uber. I kept track of the amount saved and every few months when that amount added up to $1500+, I threw it in the market. As I saw it, I'd be spending that amount anyway if the co. took away transit, so why not act like it's being "spent" now by throwing it in the market.[/b][/quote]
I think this is probably the most important lesson my (rich) father taught me. Invest every spare penny, and do it early. He help me set up CDs for any birthday money I got in high school. In college, he helped me set up a Roth IRA and offered to match any contribution I made to it, even if it was just a couple hundred dollars a year. I learned later that as long as I set aside something, he maxed my contribution...but I didn't know that at the time.

The other couple of things:
- Establish credit early on by getting a CC that you pay in full every month. I started off with a $500 limit on a card I pretty much used only to buy textbooks, but it set me on the path to an excellent credit rating.

- Always, live below your means. I guess this is corollary to the above...since I was taught never, ever to carry a CC balance.

Of course, all of these things rely on having a certain amount of money to begin with...and obviously most people's parents aren't maxing their Roth contributions. But even if he hadn't done that, I think just the lesson to invest was an important one. DH's father taught him about investing early on as well, and I think it really colors how we both think of things. None of our siblings have the kind of savings that we do, but they all live "fancier" than we do. In the end, it might not matter with the amounts we will all inherit...but at least in DH's sister's case, we've been able to tell his parents that we've already fully-funded our kids' 529s so they can set any money aside to contribute to SIL's kids college instead.[/quote]

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