Start saving for retirement now. You can make literally millions by putting away 10% of your income early on. Do it automatically so you never even notice the money gone.
If you are worried about making the wrong choice and your company doesn’t have a 401k, open an IRA somewhere (Fidelity if you need someone to make the decision for you) and pick a date targeted fund. Set up auto deposit. Never look at the balance.
You can always make it better later but for now the best thing to do is start. Don’t let analysis paralysis get in the way.
If 20 year old me put away 10% of her income, it would just mean borrowing more. Current me would just have more debt and be worse off than now.
Yeah a lot of people in there twenties can’t even spare 5%. I’m thirty and I can’t.
“Save money for retirement” Yeah so I can pick up painting? The only thing I’ll be able to paint is the ceiling if I want to retire.
Have you seen the price of emulsion?
Oh I was going to use the free stuff and use a 12 gauge brush
Some companies in the US have a deal to where they match on 401k. One such organization puts in 5% for your 2%. Two percent is low enough it wouldn’t be a hit to almost any cash in your pocket given that the money is taken out pre tax.
Question: If I had money saved in a 401k or Roth IRA, what if I died before I retired? What would happen to the money? Would it go back to the government or to a close relative?
You can (and should) assign a beneficiary for the account. They receive the money if you die.
You declare your beneficiaries when signing up - it goes to them, I believe.
I don’t want to come off as insensitive, so I’ll try to phrase things carefully.
If you have even the slightest spare money per pay period, like $30, and a 401k or 403b is offered to you, you really need to do it.
That money comes out of your check before taxes, so you will be investing more money than what actually comes out of your check. By deduction 6% of a $15/hr full time job, you’re putting in $36, but your paycheck will only go down about $30-free money!
Many places will match you some, say half of that first 6%, so now you’re saving $54 while only being out $30. You’ve almost doubled your money in one week!
Come tax time, you’ve saved $1872, and you’ve been given a free $936. It doesn’t stop there though, because now you only are paying income tax on $29,328 instead of $31,200. If you get a tax rebate now, you will get even more back!
So now you’re saving $2808 a year at age 20. Let’s put that in one mutual fund, a SP500 index fund. Over the last 10 years, that has returned 12‰, but let’s be conservative and call it 10. If you never make a cent more per hour, by age 65, you will have saved $84,000 and your job has chipped in $42,000, over a year’s pay! But with that 10% compound interest, you have $2,000,000! You are a multi-millionaire for $30/wk!
If you get a raise or get a better job in the future, this number can be even higher.
Please keep this in mind. Even if you can’t do it now, do it ASAP. Here are the same numbers, but starting at 30 instead of 20.
Still amazing, but seeing this difference is why we older on ones tell you not saving earlier was our big regret.
I hope this was helpful and doesn’t get taken as a “pick yourself up by your bootstraps” thing.
Yes that’s cool and all but I have to pay rent and food and as things stand now the average salary is like enough to cover ⅓ of the rent
You entirely missed the point he was trying to make.
No, I understand what he’s trying to say. The point is: doing what he recommends requires having money to save up in the first place, and for a big portion of people in their 20s that’s not the case.
It’s valid, and it sucks. If you can even do $5, it’s worth it. But the world is absolutely against you right now. A lot of older folk don’t quite get how bad it’s gotten.
However, saving a dollar today is worth more than saving two dollars ten years from now. And having an emergency fund might actually save your life.
Hopefully something happens to shake up housing. These prices are absolutely criminal.
That thing you want to learn but keep putting off? Jump in and learn it, by the time you’re 40 you’ll be amazing at.
DOn’t quIT
Also: being old doesn’t mean you can’t learn anything new. Sure, it would probably have been easier to have started earlier, but there’s no such thing as “too late”, unless it requires heavy physical exertion
Control your sex drive or it will be used to control you, and invariably very much against your own best interests.
I got lucky, and found my own partner quite early on (28 years together, now). But I did not stop observing other couples around me, and those men who failed to adequately control their own sex drive were the ones who almost always were taken advantage of and manipulated against their own best interests.
Ironically, RP (and to an extent, BP) information is a great base to understand how you can and will be manipulated, with MGTOW a good framework to insulate yourself against manipulation. Just understand that blaming others is a toxic and counterproductive path, seek to improve yourself to make RP/BP truths work with you and your best interests, and not against you.
Recommending Men Going Their Own Way doesn’t bode well in regards to your opinion, so… OP, please disregard.
Recommending Men Going Their Own Way doesn’t bode well in regards to your opinion
So working on yourself and improving yourself, building self-respect, setting personal standards that you refuse to compromise on, and focusing on intrinsic motivation is somehow “not boding well”?
What a weird way of punching down.
And for decades now, women have been screaming at men to “leave me alone”, for men to not bother them or approach them or hit on them or engage with them in any way unless engaged with first… yet you have issues with men who do exactly that? You have problems with men whose entire philosophy is to ignore women in exactly the ways that women have been demanding?
Again, what a strangely hypocritical criticism.
The entire point of MGTOW is to give men a path out of “incel-dom”, to show them that there is an alternative path to fulfilment and peace and effective happiness that is entirely self-achievable because it does not hang on the sharp hooks of female approval. That any man can fully divest themselves of this cycle of bigotry and external blame and the bigoted societal expectations of men to focus on what truly matters - themselves.
And in our society where ¾ of all suicide victims are men, we desperately need more men to focus on themselves, first.
So working on yourself and improving yourself, building self-respect, setting personal standards that you refuse to compromise on, and focusing on intrinsic motivation is somehow “not boding well”?
That is not what MGTOW means in reality, and you know it. Stop playing coy.
That is not what MGTOW means in reality, and you know it. Stop playing coy.
Ah, ignorance. It exists both as an innocent lack of information as well as an intentional rejection of facts. Yes, your cultivated ignorance is on full display.
Bye, Felicia.
What do RP and BP mean here?
Redpill and Blackpill, I’m assuming.
Incel-speak.
Redpill and Blackpill, I’m assuming.
Incel-speak.
Interesting how the first thing you reach for is the ad hominem of tying anything RP/BP to being “incel-speak”, in an attempt to silence any discussion in favour of the ideological narrative.
Yes, there are men in those communities who are despondent of ever having any “success” as society has defined it. That they face massive systemic barriers to success that they cannot affect, and extreme social punishments for failing to achieve that externally-imposed definition of “success”.
Throwing blame onto those who impose the rules is an understandable response by these men. An Immature, counterproductive, and inappropriate response, yes. But considering so many men have built their entire identity around societal lies and behaviours that were explicitly engineered to harm their chances of “success”, it is hardly a surprising response.
That’s why MGTOW exists - to show them that there is a path to life fulfilment and even happiness that does not hang from the sharp hooks of female (and societal!) approval. That there is a way to live that does not involve external blame and self-defeating hatred.
But most any RP/BP forum I have ever stuck my nose into has also had a fair amount of direct links to actual scientific research and/or real-world evidence which supports the female nature and behaviour that they have been experiencing and observing themselves. It doesn’t mean that they had any legitimacy in complaining or being upset about it, only that it wasn’t all in their head - it’s an actual IRL thing.
In other words, RP/BP is the “detox” from the societal brainwashing and psy-ops manipulation that most men have been subjected to all their lives, allowing them to truly understand why women do and act in the way that they do. MGTOW is the recovery that refocuses their attitude to intrinsic motivation and happiness, allowing them to live freely without any need for women.
And of course, a large proportion of women find that last sentence deeply frightening. A man who don’t need no woman? Who can live entirely on his own, happy and content? Heresy! It must be suppressed with all the social/verbal violence that can be brought to bear!
Hence, the derogatory term “incel”. It exists for no other reason than to shame men into compliance, as a thought-terminating cliché.
the ad hominem of tying anything RP/BP to being “incel-speak”, in an attempt to silence any discussion in favour of the ideological narrative.
We don’t need to “discuss” misogynistic postulates, the same way we don’t need to “discuss” if black people have souls. The request for “discussion” beliefs your position and reveals you’re beyond any possible redemption and that conversation is pointless.
What do all these abbreviations mean?
Use sunscreen and lotion up. That’s the best way to prevent looking like an old catcher’s mitt by the time you are 40.
My partner played lots of outdoor sport in his youth so he has some skin damage but from his mid 20s when I met him I encouraged proper sun safe behaviours and to moisturise. We live in Australia for Christ sake, this sun is not fucking around.
He’s got mates of all ages but some of the blokes in their late 20s seem to think looking after their skin is a feminine trait and they play outdoor sports. When he’s been out with these guys, people think he’s the youngest despite being over 10 years their senior.
It’s so silly. Put some sunblock on and moisturize. It’s not that hard.
Spend quality time with your parents (assuming you’re on good terms of course).
I lost my dad when I was 30, after a short and unexpected illness, and I regret not spending much more time with him when I could have.
This hit me like a truck. I lost my father at the beginning of the month due to some tragedy that occurred.
We weren’t on speaking terms (a decision I made), but I’d always planned to one day see if I could turn things around, which will never happen now. Never in a million years would I ever have expected it to come down to this.
Aw mate… I’m so so sorry 😔
That’s a really hard situation, and I hope you’re doing ok. Take care.
Lift with your legs
Brush your teeth
Eat healthily
Exercise regularly
Wear ear plugs at concerts
Try to take the time to care for your mental and emotional health when you need to, then, instead of stewing for years and years. I made the mistake of rolling with it, turned 35, and I’m lucky to still be here at 40.
Still struggling. Wish I’d spoken with someone years ago.
The starting gun has already fired. Don’t be idle and wait for life to come to you, you need to go get it!
Compatibility is probably the most important quality to look for in a romantic partner.
Save money and keep in shape.
Whatever you’re thinking, don’t.
Think it very thoroughly if you want kids
As someone nearing his 40s, I really do want to have kids, though I’m really afraid my sedentary body won’t keep up
I ain’t trying to scare you, but if you live a statistically average life you’re about to hit a downward trend in your mood which will last a couple of decades. By the time you’re thirty you’ll likely have a boss, a spouse and kids, all of whose needs will have to come before yours. Things start to improve again at age 47 when the kids have moved out and you’re at the top of your career.
Maintain your friendships. It’s so easy to make them a low priority, but having good friends and being a good friend to them is the way to make it through.
appreciate what you have now. take your time, you have tmie right now, don’t worry about finding your dream situation in live be it work, love, living, whatever just experience life. you’re young, you hopefully have some money, so experience it if you can. If you’re going to drink, do it now cause when you hit my age hangovers last 2 days and after one or two beers you’re pissing up a storm.
Don’t complain about a week taking forever and you hope the weekend comes soon because once you hit your 40s all that “time” snowballs together and you’ll be begging the days to go by slower. Things start speeding up and people start leaving you and you have no choice but to go along for the ride and hope for the best. You’re still in your 20s, cherish the time you have. hold onto it. apprecaite it. Take as many photos as you can, take as many videos as you can and save them. Friends and lovers will come and go but those memories from your 20s will last forever. make it easy to remember them.
Recover
