For the purpose of this question, the target age range is 20-30. Asking because I feel like I’m wasting my youth.
Protect 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:
https://www.etymotic.com/product/etyplugs-high-fidelity-earplugs/
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.
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.
I’ve always had the anti-neighbour style setup. Much less harmful to your ears than headphones
Vote.
I’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.
Wear. Sunscreen.
If you absolutely hate sunscreen for sensory reasons, check out UPF jackets and other clothing. I live in a place where the UV is 11+ every day in the summer and it works great without being suffocatingly hot. Being able to just throw a jacket on and go outside without worrying about sunburn is pretty great.
Woman in tropical countries cover themselves in very light long sleaved tops. I bought one in Vietnam for my wife.
Wear a wide brimmed hat too. You’ll look jaunty while protecting your head.
What is the material like, does it get hot inside? Is there a brand that you recommend?
The one I have is from REI and made of modal (similar to rayon, made from wood pulp), it’s the only one I’ve used but it feels very nice, soft, and lightweight. I don’t ever feel like I’d be better off not wearing it if I’m in direct sunlight, and sweat dries from it fairly quickly. I’ve been hot while wearing it but not any hotter than I would have been standing in the sun to begin with, you know? I’ve also never had it fail and result in a burn, and my dermatologist was enthusiastic about it when I brought up that I’d been using that instead of sunscreen.
The main reason I went with that brand was because I couldn’t find any non-polyester options anywhere else. There’s nothing wrong with them functionally, I just try to avoid polyester in general.
Don’t feel guilty if you don’t know what you want to do with your life.
The most interesting people I know didn’t know at 22 what they wanted to do with their lives,
some of the most interesting 40 year olds I know still don’t.
Oh yeah this one. Plus, wear a hat. My hairstylist found skin cancer on my scalp a year or two ago and now I have a bald spot where they removed it because scalp skin doesn’t have a whole lot of excess to close a wound. So cute. Thankfully, I can hide it, but it pretty much requires me to wear my hair up every day.
Eta: I feel like it should go without saying, but maybe doesn’t, that I was incredibly lucky that it was basal cell, not melanoma. A big scar is one of the best outcomes I could’ve had.
My wife got it on top of her foot from wearing sandals for decades
I recommend face moisturizer with SPF for all genders. Put it on every morning. Start young.
I haven’t watched that in years! I’d almost forgotten how much young me liked it and now older me sees more wisdom in it.
True. Nothing else in your skincare routine matters if you’re not wearing sunscreen.
Get sunscreen that you don’t mind applying in the morning. I love this one: www.amazon.com/dp/B09DGPRM22
Get sunscreen that you don’t mind applying in the morning.
Does it last all day or were you just suggesting morning because some people forget it until later?
Realistically you should reapply, but in the morning is a good start to the routine
Why?
Skin cancer is a removed.
Don’t fry yourself or use tanning beds. Getting your skin scraped down to a weeping ulcer is not fun and even that is much better than what you could get.
Do you mean wear sunscreen every day, or just when needed?
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
20 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.
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?!
That’s a good point. We’re going to have a lot of really stunted people who never got the chance to live alone and learn about themselves because nobody can afford rent anymore.
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
Enjoy nature before it gets clearcut for money
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.
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.
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
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.
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.
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.
– Acquire new skills that will pay off in the long run.
– Build habits like exercising, eating well, and prioritizing mental health which can set you up for lifelong well-being.
– Build deep friendships, relationships, and connections. It’s the decade where many lifelong bonds are formed.
– Learn about budgeting, saving, investing, and managing credit. Financial literacy will greatly benefit you in the future.
– Failing in your twenties is part of growth. Embrace failure and learn from it.
– 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.
– Learn to enjoy your own company, reflect on your goals, and become comfortable with solitude.
– Work on understanding your emotions, how to manage them, and how to empathize with others.
– Expand your mind with literature, self-development books, and works that challenge your worldview.
– Spend an extended period in another part of the world which can give you an appreciation for different cultures and provide life altering experiences.
– Learn how to prepare your own meals- a valuable life skill which can help you live healthier.
– Understand the importance of looking after your mental, physical, and emotional well-being.
—Spend time thinking about where you want to go in life, and set both short-term and long-term goals.
Learn about retirement plans. Compound interest is a young person’s best friend. Compound interest makes rich old people.
Every dollar you sock away in your 20s is worth so much more than waiting until you are in your 50s
Take care of your body and keep it healthy. You have plenty of time to acquire habits helping that and slowly get rid of those damaging it - use that time before the issue is forced on you.
I tell people to keep an eye on their diet. Once you hit your early 20s that whole teen “I can eat a whole pizza and be fine” is gone. It is incredibly easy to go over your calorie needs in a week and after a year you’ve gained 2-3 lbs or more. Before you know it by 30 or 40 you are 50+ lbs over and obese and now you are struggling to lose it. It creeps up on you.
Roth IRA
