People will just be giving you advice based on their own subjective values. It might be stuff like "spend more time with your family" or "make sure you're contributing to your pension" or some other abitrary thing someone older is kicking *themselves* about. I'm turning 29 soon. One thing I've learned is you should make sure you are able to listen to yourself and live life according to your own values whatever they may be. We all have to die sometime so I guess make sure you're making the most of your time here on earth according to what *you* truly value. That will surely be time well spent. I understand that this might be paradoxical given I'm clearly giving you advice based on my own values which is self knowledge. My conclusion is why look to others for life advice given that there are practically an unlimited number of ways you can live life, you probably have the answers inside yourself. (EDIT: Psychotherapy might help you find those answers)
Get your personal finances in order. Pay off all non-house non-car debt. Spend less. Start saving for retirement. Get a promotion and put all of that extra money in a boring low fee target date fund. You can expect to be able to live off of 4% of your investments for at least 30 years. For example, if you have $1M in investments, you can safely withdraw $40k / year from that. Plan accordingly.
This should actually be advice given to 20 year olds. Compound interest is magic:
If you put $5,000 aside every year and invest it at 7% p.a. from age 20-30 and then stop putting more money aside for the remainder of your life, you will have more money than if you started investing $5,000 each year starting at age 30 and for the rest of your life.
Comfort level is huge. If you don't feel like you can talk to them, they aren't worth having. You need to be able to be completely open for it to work.
Also, setup automatic funding every month and never sell anything. Buying is easy, selling is easy, holding is hard but you'll be glad you did during every dip.
This. I knew better and still tried to play games last March/April and I'm ~5-10% poorer for my efforts.
Look back at "The Great Recession", had you bought anything, anytime between 2006-2012, you're better off today (Assuming you stayed employed and were not over-leveraged).
This is different from HODL-ing. If you double your money in a few hours, you were probably gambling and you should look for a less volatile asset to move into while you're ahead.
Money should flow to things in roughly this order: Max out your employer match, pay off high interest debt, Fully fund your Roth IRA, continue to try to max out traditional 401k then modify contributions to Roth 401k as you can afford. Once you're saving that ~24k per year and are debt free, then look to retail investing, paying off a car/home early.
If you aren't in a home but will want to be, there is some truth to the housing ladder and home equity is no joke. But remember home ownership isn't an investment, it is a lifestyle.
Can you say more about what you mean about home ownership being a lifestyle as opposed to an investment?
I'm guessing what you mean is that houses require upkeep and they also come with certain benefits (e.g. more freedom with what you do with the house), but I'm wondering if you meant something different?
Vanguard has some nice funds for this for people who just want to invest and forget about it until retirement.
They have one targeting people retiring in 2065 (born 1998-2002), one for 2060 (born 1993-1997), and so on down to one for people who retired in 2015 (born 1949-1952), and one for people who were born before 1949.
Each of these invests in other Vanguard funds. As it gets closer to their target year, they decrease their stock fund holdings and increase their bond fund holdings.
The 2055 one, which would be the one aimed at someone who is currently 30, is 90% stock, 9% bonds. The stock fund portion is split about 60/40 between a Vanguard total US stock market fund and a Vanguard total international stock market fund.
Amen. I'm 43, and started putting money into Vanguard around the age of 40. I absolutely wish I'd started at the age of 30; even just a bit here and there. I have money in index funds, and a Roth IRA. I have seen overall returns of 20%, though I understand that's an anomaly from the past few years.
What's the alternative to vanguard for someone living in the EU? I looked into it, and in my country it doesn't seem possible to do anything with vanguard itself.
Don't follow trends and hype, health and fitness is key, the sooner the better, find someone who makes you want to be better for youself, them and the world.
Spend less and save more.
And the great Kardnial Offishal has imprinted the following quote in my head for life.
"Half the bullshit I thought, I'm glad I never said it"
Without knowing anything about your personal situation, my specific advice will have little value. A better exercise would be this:
Imagine you could have a half-hour conversation with yourself 10 years from now. Once you're done with the "what stock is about to blow up?" and "who will win the world series?" questions, what advice would you seek? What do you think Older You would say in response? Bonus points for journaling it out.[1]
I've found this exercise especially valuable for certain problems and goals. You can draw some pretty remarkable insights by separating from the emotions of the current moment and reframing your perspective.
Whatever you decide to do professionally, focus on craftsmanship, particularly when no one is looking. The people that focus on craftsmanship enjoy their work more and get better results.
I'm turning 32 in 9 days. Here's what I would like to have said to myself, given the chance:
Start thinking about yourself. I mean it. Figure out what you like, what makes you feel good, what you can own and enjoy. Stick to that special something, don't forget yourself. Don't try to please everyone at your own expense. Take vacations, pay attention to your mental health. You are entering a new decade, that's going to feel shorter than the one already past you. Learn how to concentrate your efforts. Hindsight is 20/20, use that to your advantage, learn from your past mistakes.
Your frame of reference for time is changing every day. Each day feels relatively shorter than the day before.
Strangely though, some years feel very long. To me that's explained by how much activity is going on, day to day. Like how when work is not busy, everyone says "slow day." 2020 for example was less busy for most people (stuck at home), so it was a "slow year."
Time is also related to what you kept in your memory for a specific time frame.
You spend a week at work vs you spend the same week on a nice vacation making lots of new memories. Which one you'll feel took longer despite being the same?
You are going to need to fight to maintain your physical fitness levels from your 20s. If you didn't need to do much to stay fit before you may suddenly find yourself having to do a lot just to keep the same basic level, and you may not be prepared for how much self-motivation will required to do that.
Take care of your body. Stretch. Warm up. 30 is the threshold where you start to really lose the ability to heal. You can injure yourself now and your body just won't heal back to 100%. Ever.
Can confirm this, sadly. I turned 30 right around the time COVID hit and immediately stopped my usual exercise activities due to restrictions. A year later and I’m constantly nursing stupid injuries from nothing. My body simply isn’t bouncing back like it used to
Maybe you can increase your Lysine [0] intake. Amazon sells pure Lysine tabs [1]. I should warn you though, they're a bit big to swallow and have a slight after-taste.
Lysine is an amino acid so you can just get protein from varied sources and you’ll likely get enough. Taking a lysine supplement is like taking a bcaa supplement. Entirely unnecessary if your dietary protein intake is high enough and from varied sources
Not sure about that. I’m in my late 40s and have smashed the crap out of myself quite badly in the last 20 years. I’m sure it’ll catch up with me eventually but at the moment I am peak fitness.
What is important is being healthy enough to heal. That means you need to eat well, exercise regularly and give yourself time to heal if you have to.
Edit: to be clear the injuries are obtained through risky sporting activities not through general wear and tear and general exercise.
To clarify my point about healing, most people don’t give themselves time to heal properly at any age and end up with a compromised outcome.
Don't spend 3 years without going to the dentist like a certain idiot who is commenting on your post. Just because you're not feeling pain it doesn't mean the little creatures aren't eating the insides of your teeth.
Toothbrushes are cheaper than fillings. And fillings are cheaper than root canals. I think we need better ways of terrorizing kids about their oral health because it seems like a lot of lessons don't stick.
Around this age people get comfortable in their ways and many stop learning new things. Fight this. Learn and try new things professionally and personally. Get out of your comfort zone and try new stuff.
If you don't like exercising or aren't able to do so conventionally, keep exploring until you find something you enjoy that keeps you fit. You lose what you don't use. The benefits are proven and unenumerable, everything from improved mood and better overall health, plus being strong or a good lover improve your well-being in non-obvious ways.
Tremendous advice for any age, but especially for 30.
Why? Because at 30 you still have time to develop great habits that last the rest of your life. Also the time when you can develop good muscle mass to prevent additional stress on your joints and delay potential back/joint pain from say 40, to 50-55.
I would argue that the whole idea of thinking about exercise as something you have to enjoy is overrated.
Do you enjoy cleaning your house or doing your taxes? Do your enjoy taking your car in for maintenance?
Sure some people enjoy some or all of those things, but you still have to do them regardless. They're a part of being a responsible adult.
Likewise, regular exercise is a part of being a responsible steward of your own health and well-being. Establishing the habit, regardless of how much you enjoy it, is as important for your long-term well-being as regularly contributing to your retirement account.
Now does that mean you have to choose an exercise modality that you hate? No, of course not. But there are some tried and true modalities that are extremely effective and don't have to be torture. You might find them boring at first, but they're effective and if you could bottle their effects in a pill, you'd be the richest person on the planet.
I get where you are coming from. The idea of finding exercise that you enjoy doing is based on the thinking that you're more likely to continue to do something you enjoy.
Unlike cleaning or doing taxes, there are lots of very different ways to exercise. And most humans are conditioned to enjoy some form of exercise. It's likely you can find some activity that will give you a nice dopamine hit to keep you encouraged.
Plus, you never know what you might enjoy until you try it. I never thought I liked sports until college, when I discovered a love for playing tennis, squash, and flag football. I still hate watching any of these sports on TV, but I do love playing them.
- Buy and hold BTC, keep it simple. Quit job when you can live from 4% of your wealth and sell a few years worth of BTC at that point to stomach the volatility
- Regular health checks: you will start having health problems, but nobody knows what exactly
- Dating may get harder in 10 years, decide fast if you want wife/children
- eating the same amount of food that you did will get you fatter. You can balance it of course.
I guess that's it, so enjoy being 30, I loved it :)
Think about if you want to have kids later. If you want and your path there is not obvious yet, now is the time for you to prioritize finding that special someone.
Keep in mind that the character traits that make someone an exciting one night stand might be the opposite of the character traits that you'll want in a long term term relationship where you live together all the time.
I know that covid makes this advice very difficult to follow :(
Try to keep the ambition and drive that you had when you were younger. I'm young myself, so I haven't had to face this, but I often see driven and motivated people become complacent once they hit that 30 mark.
Happy birthday! If you made it this far, your life expectancy is a lot higher now. That means you should probably start thinking longer term -- whereas in your late teens you thought about college, in college you thought about your twenties, and in your twenties you were busy with your career, in your thirties you should start thinking about retirement.
The two items that are going to dominate your retirement are your finances and your health. If any one of these suffers, the other will as well. So start saving if you haven't already, or increase your savings otherwise. Be mindful what you put in your body, not only drugs and alcohol but food as well. Stop "trying" to exercise, do both aerobic and anaerobic exercises, consistently.
That said: you're not done with life. So keep learning, keep growing, keep enjoying every day. Set goals and work on them.
90 comments
[ 3.2 ms ] story [ 170 ms ] threadEasier said than done.
This should actually be advice given to 20 year olds. Compound interest is magic:
If you put $5,000 aside every year and invest it at 7% p.a. from age 20-30 and then stop putting more money aside for the remainder of your life, you will have more money than if you started investing $5,000 each year starting at age 30 and for the rest of your life.
2. Find a good therapist.
3. Speak with the therapist about inconsistencies between your thoughts, feelings and who you want to be.
don't be afraid to keep looking, I suppose. some people go through a dozen before finding one that works for them!
https://ritholtz.com/2014/02/the-best-investment-advice-youl...
Look back at "The Great Recession", had you bought anything, anytime between 2006-2012, you're better off today (Assuming you stayed employed and were not over-leveraged).
This is different from HODL-ing. If you double your money in a few hours, you were probably gambling and you should look for a less volatile asset to move into while you're ahead.
Money should flow to things in roughly this order: Max out your employer match, pay off high interest debt, Fully fund your Roth IRA, continue to try to max out traditional 401k then modify contributions to Roth 401k as you can afford. Once you're saving that ~24k per year and are debt free, then look to retail investing, paying off a car/home early.
If you aren't in a home but will want to be, there is some truth to the housing ladder and home equity is no joke. But remember home ownership isn't an investment, it is a lifestyle.
I'm guessing what you mean is that houses require upkeep and they also come with certain benefits (e.g. more freedom with what you do with the house), but I'm wondering if you meant something different?
They have one targeting people retiring in 2065 (born 1998-2002), one for 2060 (born 1993-1997), and so on down to one for people who retired in 2015 (born 1949-1952), and one for people who were born before 1949.
Each of these invests in other Vanguard funds. As it gets closer to their target year, they decrease their stock fund holdings and increase their bond fund holdings.
The 2055 one, which would be the one aimed at someone who is currently 30, is 90% stock, 9% bonds. The stock fund portion is split about 60/40 between a Vanguard total US stock market fund and a Vanguard total international stock market fund.
And the great Kardnial Offishal has imprinted the following quote in my head for life.
"Half the bullshit I thought, I'm glad I never said it"
Imagine you could have a half-hour conversation with yourself 10 years from now. Once you're done with the "what stock is about to blow up?" and "who will win the world series?" questions, what advice would you seek? What do you think Older You would say in response? Bonus points for journaling it out.[1]
I've found this exercise especially valuable for certain problems and goals. You can draw some pretty remarkable insights by separating from the emotions of the current moment and reframing your perspective.
[1] derived from this discussion: https://tim.blog/2020/02/27/josh-waitzkin-beginners-mind-sel...
I know people are indifferent of sam altman, but I really like this article he posted https://blog.samaltman.com/the-days-are-long-but-the-decades...
I'm 32 as well. Why does it feel like years go by quicker as you age? I can barely remember anything in my first 2 years of this decade.
When you're 2, a year is 1/2 of your life.
When you're 3, a year is 1/3 of your life.
When you're 30, a year is 1/30th of your life.
Your frame of reference for time is changing every day. Each day feels relatively shorter than the day before.
Strangely though, some years feel very long. To me that's explained by how much activity is going on, day to day. Like how when work is not busy, everyone says "slow day." 2020 for example was less busy for most people (stuck at home), so it was a "slow year."
I dunno, that's my experience anyway.
You spend a week at work vs you spend the same week on a nice vacation making lots of new memories. Which one you'll feel took longer despite being the same?
[0] https://www.healthline.com/nutrition/lysine-benefits
[1] https://www.amazon.com/Amazon-Elements-Complex-Vitamin-Veget...
What is important is being healthy enough to heal. That means you need to eat well, exercise regularly and give yourself time to heal if you have to.
Edit: to be clear the injuries are obtained through risky sporting activities not through general wear and tear and general exercise.
To clarify my point about healing, most people don’t give themselves time to heal properly at any age and end up with a compromised outcome.
Right... isn't that what they're saying happens if you don't exercise enough so proving their point?
If you don't like exercising or aren't able to do so conventionally, keep exploring until you find something you enjoy that keeps you fit. You lose what you don't use. The benefits are proven and unenumerable, everything from improved mood and better overall health, plus being strong or a good lover improve your well-being in non-obvious ways.
Why? Because at 30 you still have time to develop great habits that last the rest of your life. Also the time when you can develop good muscle mass to prevent additional stress on your joints and delay potential back/joint pain from say 40, to 50-55.
Do you enjoy cleaning your house or doing your taxes? Do your enjoy taking your car in for maintenance?
Sure some people enjoy some or all of those things, but you still have to do them regardless. They're a part of being a responsible adult.
Likewise, regular exercise is a part of being a responsible steward of your own health and well-being. Establishing the habit, regardless of how much you enjoy it, is as important for your long-term well-being as regularly contributing to your retirement account.
Now does that mean you have to choose an exercise modality that you hate? No, of course not. But there are some tried and true modalities that are extremely effective and don't have to be torture. You might find them boring at first, but they're effective and if you could bottle their effects in a pill, you'd be the richest person on the planet.
Unlike cleaning or doing taxes, there are lots of very different ways to exercise. And most humans are conditioned to enjoy some form of exercise. It's likely you can find some activity that will give you a nice dopamine hit to keep you encouraged.
Plus, you never know what you might enjoy until you try it. I never thought I liked sports until college, when I discovered a love for playing tennis, squash, and flag football. I still hate watching any of these sports on TV, but I do love playing them.
- Regular health checks: you will start having health problems, but nobody knows what exactly
- Dating may get harder in 10 years, decide fast if you want wife/children
- eating the same amount of food that you did will get you fatter. You can balance it of course.
I guess that's it, so enjoy being 30, I loved it :)
Keep in mind that the character traits that make someone an exciting one night stand might be the opposite of the character traits that you'll want in a long term term relationship where you live together all the time.
I know that covid makes this advice very difficult to follow :(
Happy Birthday! :)
The two items that are going to dominate your retirement are your finances and your health. If any one of these suffers, the other will as well. So start saving if you haven't already, or increase your savings otherwise. Be mindful what you put in your body, not only drugs and alcohol but food as well. Stop "trying" to exercise, do both aerobic and anaerobic exercises, consistently.
That said: you're not done with life. So keep learning, keep growing, keep enjoying every day. Set goals and work on them.