What financial advice would you give your younger self?

[JinksySaur]

What advice would you give your younger self?

I'd probably tell my 18 year old self to stop spaffing my year-out job money up the wall, and invest it instead 😂

I'd tell my early-20s self to open a pension and drip a bit in each month.

I'd tell my early-30s self to increase salary sacrifice.

Love the idea to invest rather than just save - such an important distinction.

Thank you - these are great 🙂

Pensions pensions pensions!!!
Save hard
Have different “pots”/ bank accounts for different savings purposes
Buy property
Be careful of investments that can erase all your capital 😫
Make your own lunch, snacks, coffees etc
Delay gratification (but not too long)
Know the difference between wants and needs; minimise wants
Never lend to family or friends
I’d probably go into the civil service if I could start over, the private sector is brutal

1st job was mid 90s..i already had student debt so thought nothing of store cards etc. Then bank would give consolidation loans...and spend again. Went out all the time and spent too much
Never saved..my family never saved and loved in overdrafts and credit so I saw as normal.
Finally bought own house ar 50 when everyone else is paying off their mortgages. Im totally skint and its v hard 😪
So would tell me at 21 to not go store card crazy and try and save.
But I had great holidays. Was going to amazing nights out/clubs. I had a great time
Home wasnt easy as have a parent with SMI so I think i tried to buy a fun life?!

Prioritise buying a property
get out of working in charity/third sector- the pay is shit
its worth investing in training and qualifications but make sure they will lead to a job in a stable sector.

Start Penson even
a low saving

Growing up in Croatia during the 80s and 90s, my parents' mantra was to always invest and save for emergencies. I wish I had learned more about investing and managing my money earlier, instead of relying solely on a financial advisor.
S&S ISA is gold, I'm so glad we have it here in the UK, you can invest £20k per year each and it's a tax free. I don't know any other country that offers that.
Also, I would say to my younger self, it's not all about investing, enjoy your 20s.
Merry a man that shares the same view on the finance as you.
Start contributing in your pension with your first job and never opt out.

@Boreded - I actually made decisions for my DC when they were small.

For example, I started their pensions when they were 10 and 12. Which means that DD (22) has the same pension projection at 60 as I do (I pay a lot more into my pension - more than 10x the amount I put into hers). Compounding is amazing - make the most of it!

Prior to that I set up S&S child trust funds. They transferred these into ISAs when they reached 18.

My advice would be:

Do not drop to PT. I know childcare is expensive, but having a career and keeping up with your pension contributions is really important. Plus there are so many more flexible working options nowadays.

Increase the amount you save when you get a payrise. You don’t miss money you’re not used to spending. So save it rather than adapting your lifestyle to your new salary.

Tracker funds are a great way to start investing. You don’t need to know much. You can just pick a fund that tracks the FTSE or whatever.

Don't bother with bonds/gilts. They’re supposed to be low risk, but my experience is that they’re not really (and tracker funds tend to outperform them by some way).

Put the money for your annual tax return in Premium Bonds. It’s not really your money, so you have to save it somewhere - and it’s fun to see if you’ve won each month.

Invest rather than overpaying your mortgage. This seems counterintuitive. But over 25/30 years the compounding effect of investing is likely to beat the amount of interest you save by some margin.

Understand tax. Know what is taxed and what isn’t. Monitor the latest policy changes. Think about salary sacrifice if you’re close to a cliff edge.

Plan for retirement. Pensions are a really tax-efficient way to save. But the money buoy receive from a pension is taxed as income. ISA savings are made after you’ve been taxed, but the money isn’t when you access it. A balance of both gives you flexibility.

Tall to your children about money. Because they need to learn. Being coy isn’t going to help them.

Should in invested money into a global fund and not shares in companies. Lucky I lost and made it back but would of performed much better in a fund.

I’d tell my 19 year old self! “Buy the house, it seems like a huge commitment now but it’s worth it”.

@OublietteBravo In my late-20s/early-30s, I prioritised paying off my mortgage (alongside renovating the house) over investing.
I've never really dug into how this played out financially a whether/how much better-off I'd be if did the opposite.
But it feels incredibly freeing to be mortgage-free quite young because our housing costs for life are potentially "done".

Do what you did and have fun. Plenty more years to be sensible. We’ll be working til 70 anyway, be frivolous in your 20s

we just did the opposite though, had fun; travelled etc in our 20s and 30s and then take a mortgage later.

Invest in stocks and shares

I have always been a saver and partly chose my job because of the pension, but the financial advice I'd give my younger self would be to not binge/hoard shop. I did that for nearly 20 years. Money down the drain. I like having nice clothes, but I have learned I can have them without the more addictive hoarding approach.

Work out how much you benefit in terms of employer pension contributions, private healthcare etc when comparing jobs rather than the headline salary, the bigger salary isn't always best financially.

Don't live beyond your means, but after that... Money is there to use, no point dying with loads in the bank. Work to live, don't live to work. Buy cheap, buy twice. I am guilty of worrying about money unnecessarily. I find it hard to part with, when really, that is what it is for.

Not have kids

Money in the pension earlier! As much as possible

To resist peer pressure regarding education and send my children to state school from the start.
To have fewer children, though I love every one of them individually.
To divorce my first husband sooner than I did.
Not to marry my second husband. It was a good decision in most regards and everything has worked out fine, but from a financial point of view it was a really stupid thing to do.
When I tell myself I should have started investing sooner, I have to remember that I was spending almost all my income on family things back then and investing was much more complicated and expensive then than it is now.

I disagree on stretching when young. If we had done that we’d be absolutely fucked now that DH is suddenly severely unwell. We’d have lost our house. Make sure you only buy what you can afford on one salary.

Don’t buy a house with him and go travelling for a year instead!

• Start a pension when you start work
• get life insurance started while younger as your premiums will be cheaper
• never a lender or a borrower be

Don’t marry someone who thinks working is optional, running the household is your job too and spending on a hobby will always be more important than what the family needs.

Copy your brother, learn to save. Ask Dad to teach you to budget. Don't buy cheap shit just for the sake of spending money. You will thank me when you are living on disability benefits.