How Everyone Around You Is Getting Money Wrong

You're not crazy for feeling like something is off.

You're watching people:

• finance cars you don't understand how they can afford
• swipe with no restraints
• make good salaries but still complain they don't have enough money

This all looks fine on the surface.

And in your 20s, most people aren't making bad decisions on purpose, they just inherited or learned a bad system:

• spend first
• save what's left (if anything)
• wait until "later" to invest

 I must sound like a broken record, but the old advice still holds

• spend less than you earn
• avoid high interest-rate debt
• start investing asap

We all know this, but we see everyone else having SO MUCH FUN and wearing SUCH NICE CLOTHING and TAKING SO MANY UBERS, and it wears us down.

Look, growing your wealth may require some sacrifices.

You may find yourself wondering why you must deny yourself some basic human comforts, like UberEats on a Friday night when you're exhausted, or something that seems so slow-moving and invisible.

But then (trust me!) a decade will go by (faster than you ever dreamed possible!) and you'll have a few hundred grand in your account, and you'll be able to put a down payment on a home or go to grad school, or start the business you've always wanted to start.

Or, you'll be sitting with the person you want to marry, having 'the money talk' over a beer and some tacos, and when the financial stuff gets revealed, their eyes will go wide. In the good way.

Or a family member will need help, and you'll be able to write a check.

Or you'll be in a bad work situation, and you'll have the ability to say – no thank you.

Or you'll want to pursue a passion (like teaching or working in a museum or staying home with a baby or many babies) and you'll have enough savings or income-producing assets humming along in the background to allow you to do that.

From our Instagram this week @theorchardmethod – this is someone who invests $500/month from 25-65, accumulating $3.2m.

If they'd waited to start investing until 35, they'd expect to accumulate $1.1m.

That ten year gap would cost them $2,000,000.

Start.

Now.

Live below your means.

Avoid bad debt.

Start investing asap.