I've recently turned 20. What highly specific advice you, lemmy users, would offer me?

moreeni@lemm.ee to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 62 points –

A lot of people answering this struggle to understand what highly-specific means. I'm looking to, for the sake of experiment, highly-specific advice that gives a reader clear understanding of what they should do. Unlike the vague advice, on the contrary, that may be too abstract to get implementing it right away.

Inspired by this post but I wanted to change the question a bit to avoid the really vague answers as well as lower the age bar of target audience for the advice.

I'll start with a bunch myself, to give a better example of what I'm talking about:

  1. Read The Art of War by Sun Tzu. Ironically, because this is a post about specific advice, dude wrote a book with vague rules on how to do war, but the way it is worded is ridiculously good. If you take your time to think about the advice, you can find their appliances in the most unexpected fields.

I, for example, have improved my skill in videogames, out of all places, after reading the book. Sun Tzu said "If it is not advantageous, do not move". Instead of rushing into combat, I now consider whether my position, current health, location of health packs etc. work to my advantage. Sun Tzu made me realise team-based PvP shooters give you room to avoid and disengage combat, you can make more impact for the team if you choose your battle and have everything work for your advantage.

  1. Exercises are not just about a lot of dedication, long commutes to the gym, expensive memberships and the fear of being judged by other gym members. 7 minute workout is a thing and it will give you all the benefits at your own home without the need for equipment, and it won't take much time either.

  2. Buy an old used Kindle. For dirt cheap, you will get a device with a good e-ink screen that works without Internet connection, still has decent battery, is light and small. A new thing that makes reading so comfortable will trick you into reading more and books still happen a good medium for sharing information.

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Save 15%. Even if it absolutely sucks to do so. If you have to dip in to the 15%, it better be for life or death. Skip meals to save that 15%.

1$ saved at 20 is like 20$ saved at 40.

Also, don't cash advance from a credit card, ever, for any reason. I once bought a 6$ taco at age 18 on cash advance, and once I finally cleared it off, that taco had cost me almost 500$. I did the math.

If you make less than $20K, there's no real way to save up. 15% of 0 is 0. But if you can afford some extras, definitely send an automatic 10% to 20% of your paycheck to your 401k plan or whatever. You will genuinely not notice it.

Use this calculator to see how saving for the future will benefit you:

https://www.bankrate.com/retirement/retirement-plan-calculator/

Starting at 22 saving 15% of 35K will get you $1.8 million by age 62.

you used to be able to buy dollar coins from the US mint with free shipping. that was the cheapest way to get money off your credit card without extra fees