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:
- 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.
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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.
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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.
Smoke weed erry day.
The gals at the strip club don’t actually care about you.
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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.
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
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.
If you’re American, your credit score affects a whole lot more than your creditworthiness. A bad, or even not as good score can affect your chances at getting a job, getting a place to live, and more commonly, how much you pay for car insurance.
We give a lot of shit to China over their social credit score, but we’ve had ours for years, we just pretend it’s only for creditworthiness. When your job does pre employment checks, they can also do a credit check. Many apartment complexes do the same. Hell, even utility companies can check your credit and decide you are a risk and ratchet up your deposit.
It’s not a guarantee that anyone does this, but it is a possibility. Be on your best behavior, citizen, the credit bureaus are watching.
For anyone reading this, FICO and VantageScore are two dystopian credit scores, either of which is mandated for every citizen in USA. China’s “social credit” system is not even mandated and is a kindergarten joke in comparison. Not to mention it does not cripple Chinese people like the ones in USA cripple Americans.
Floss, brush your teeth daily and see a dentist at least once a year, eat less sugar and cut out soft drinks. Nothing worse than in losing or nearly losing one or two teeth in your 30s or 40s. Even without cavities, if you don’t take care of your gums, you can lose perfectly healthy teeth because the gums were eroded away.
Do some weight training and keep up an exercise routine … you can easily build muscle tone over the next ten years, after that you have to work a whole lot more to gain the same amount of muscle tone.
Eat less and eat healthy … learn to eat better and just eat less but better food … the sooner you learn this, the longer you’ll keep the habit and the longer the habit in your life, the longer you’ll live and the longer you’ll live healthier. What’s the sense of living to 80 when you end up sick and unhealthy for the last 20 years of your life?
Read, read, read … read the classics, read history, and read as much and as often as you can to fill out your knowledge and awareness of as much as possible.
Do all this now because you will never gain the time to do it all later.
Never assume that you can do things when you’re 30 when you’re 40 or when you retire because those times will either never come or when those times come, you won’t have the time or you will have so many other priorities that you won’t do these things anyway.
So do all these things now while you can because later may not arrive or when it does, it won’t be like you imagined it would be.
Sadly I already got a cavity at 15.
I don’t know whether to blame myself for that or parents. I even asked for toothbrush several times, but never got. I wanted to go to the dentist as I wasn’t there for years, but one of my parents would have to make the appointment, so as I said, wasn’t there for years.At least I have a good dentist. Apparently she’s not allowed to do anything without parents permission until I am 18 for some reason, but she’s helped me anyway.
When it comes to buying furniture: Get secondhand furniture handed down by relatives, or found at thrift stores, Craigslist, Facebook Marketplace, garage sales, whatever. It’s more eco-friendly to buy stuff that already exists, it’ll probably cost less than brand-new furniture, and the older stuff is sturdier than anything you’re going to get at Ikea.
With the money you save buying secondhand tables and drawers and such, buy a GOOD brand new mattress. You can cheap out on a lot of furniture, but never cheap out on a mattress. Decades from now, your back will thank you.
If you start college (assuming you’re an American) do not under any circumstances drop out. This goes double for grad school. What will happen is the at you’ll still owe money on your student loan, but will not have whatever advantages you might have accumulated as a result of having a degree.
Poop at work. Not only do you get paid to poop, you save money on toilet paper.
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Boss makes a dollar, I make a dime
Speaking of, get a bidet. It can be attached to most toilets, though you should check to make sure your toilet works. Actually get clean for once and you will never be satisfied with just toilet paper again.
If you can be a good boy/girl, get a credit card. Start with something that returns actual value, like a grocery store card or gas card. Something you can use for ABSOLUTELY EVERYTHING and then use the points or cash-back or whatever on necessities. Pay your bills with it, buy your groceries, use it everywhere you can.
Now, here’s the important part: pay the statement balance IN FULL on or before the due date. If you pay the statement balance every month, you’re basically getting a short term, 0% interest loan, and building your credit score at the same time.
Oh, and never get a credit card with any kind of annual fee or membership requirements. And when I said useful, I didn’t mean the Belle Tire card that gives you discounts on tires. WTF Belle Tire, how many tires do you think I’m going to buy?
In case you missed the part where I told you to pay off the statement every month, here it is again. Pay off the statement every month. No excuses. If you can’t pay for something in cash, don’t buy it with the card. Once you miss a payment, they start charging that ridiculous interest rate on everything you buy on the day you buy it. Once you miss a payment, you must STOP USING THE CARD until the balance is zero.
But if I find out you’re carrying a balance, I’ll find you and kick your ass myself.
Note, this advice on credit score only applies where positive credit ratings are a thing.
Countries that rely on negative credit ratings dgaf if you paid off lots of stuff so there’s no point.
In New Zealand for example a high credit limit could negatively affect the amount you can get for a mortgage.
Wow, really? Do they expect you to finance a mortgage with existing credit?
@DemBoSain no, not at all.
The problem is if you have a credit card they factor it in as another outgoing because you could potentially max it after you get the mortgage.
Do not fuck around with hard drugs.
I’d also say to develop a healthy attitude towards soft drugs like alcohol and weed.
Hard drugs can fuck your life up faster, but addiction to soft drugs can also do a lot of damage. Have fun, but keep perspective. You’re probably gonna be around people do stupid shit from time to time, but resist the temptation to be the person doing the stupidest shit.
Just gonna say that alcohol is, by all means, a legal hard drug.
I don’t genuinely think there are hard and soft drugs. I categorize them by physical and emotional dependence. Emotional dependence sucks and is hard to remove yourself from but drugs that lack a physical dependency are much easier to handle. Drugs you get physically dependent on and experience withdrawal symptoms from fucking suck and you should be very hesitant to use them. Drugs that have both should just be avoided (I include alcohol here but make an exception due to it being a social norm). There are also drugs that aren’t worth it for other reasons beyond these.
To give some examples of what I mean
emotional dependency:
- weed
- lsd
- mushrooms
- ketamine
- MDMA
Physical dependency:
- SSRIs (brain zaps suck ass brother)
- anti psychotics
- benzos (therapeutic doses)
- Ambien
- amphetamines (therapeutic doses)
Both:
- alcohol
- opiates
- benzos (recreational)
- (meth)amphetamines (recreational)
- cocaine
Other:
- deliriants (trauma + organ damage)
Obvious this is very subject to personal bias because it’s a classification system that is very useful to me. There are certain substances that could be argued in an out of their placement but I’ve placed them where they are with respect to how dangerous they would be to me if I were to try them.
No, drugs that produce physical dependence are so much easier to quit that drugs that create an emotional dependence.
To quit a drug with physical dependence requires staying off the drug for a week. To quit a drug with emotional dependence often requires years of therapy to resolve trauma.
That’s why I said it’s subjective and based on personal experiences
Take care of you knees and back. Nothing spoils your 40s like bad knees or a bad back.
And specifically the way you do this is you stretch your legs. This helps both knees and back keep from wearing out.
The joints are designed to move. They aren’t designed to move under the misalignment that tight surrounding muscles and fascia produce.
Stay off TikTok.
