What non-traditional personal advice have you received that turned out to be helpful?

[ua_guy]

I received the same advice from my dad years ago when considering buying my first house. Buy as much as you can, even if it might be a stretch. Real estate should always increase in value over time (and if it doesn't, there are bigger problems), and prices today will likely feel cheap in the future. That was my jump-off point when everyone in my peer group was saying the market is too high, it's about to crash, buying is a really bad idea*. This was in late 2005, and they weren't wrong in the moment, but they also weren't looking 10 years down the road. The slap for most of my peer group was when prices did fall during the crash, they didn't fall enough to be truly affordable, and borrowing requirements had increased significantly so they were still sidelined.

Dad gave me similar advice about college. If you don't know what you want to do, go to school and study something, anything. It's as much of a learning/growing experience as it is about finding a job later. Having a credential is better than not having one, and you aren't sentenced to working in your area of study. The cost is a mere pittance compared to potential future earnings... And I've never looked back.

The other piece of advice...somewhat controversial... he told me not to join the military if I was ever considering it. Said I didn't need the discipline, didn't need it to pay for education. Obviously, he said because I was an adult I was free to join if I really wanted to, but he, as someone who had served in the military, steered me away. Said other people want to fight for those causes right now, you don't have to, and for that we show gratitude and thank them for their service. And so I didn't. Thank you, if you did.

He also advised me to save 10% of everything I made, even if I couldn't afford it. Find a way to afford it, he said. He meant that as a base savings rate. I've tried to heed and balance that advice in my more challenging years as a kid (see above advice about first home purchases).

[jenn_jenn]

Maybe even something that goes against traditional advice. Did it work in your favor by chance or was there something else to it?

This came up because my sister was recently bought her first house and I gave her the same “bad” advice my mom gave me when we bought our house and am so grateful for it. She said, when you’re young and shopping for your first house, it is okay to feel a little stretched. I caveated this advice with but know your risk tolerance and be prepared to make sacrifices.

My mom’s reasoning was that in your late 20’s, you’re still entering prime earning years and your income will likely increase meaningfully. It might feel tight for the first couple of years, but you’ll grow into it. Obviously, this can’t be a blanket approach and is very person and career dependent.

It was playing with fire, but worked out in our favor. I think some of it was luck and some of it was calculated risk. I wouldn’t hand out this advice as a rule of thumb, but it was helpful for us and for my sister.

The house we ended up with was a little outside of our initial budget and felt so scary at the time. I joked that we’d be eating PB&J’s for life to afford the mortgage. Within 6 months, we’d easily grown into it. And 4 years later, we wish we had gone even more over budget, but wouldn’t have changed our decision knowing what we did at the time.

Similarly, my sister bought her house a little bit outside what they were initially hoping to spend. They felt a bit squeezed but opted to spend the extra money for the nicer school district. Less than 4 months later, both she and her husband received promotions that make it easily affordable.

So what (if any) non-traditional advice have you received that might be helpful or make sense in certain scenarios?