Best investment advice you wish you could go back and tell your younger self?

[bjl584]

I started investing and saving at 25. I wish I started sooner, maybe just out of college.

Avoiding debt early on would be another.
I had a car payment (like everyone else, or so I thought)

[disneysteve]

I would tell my med school years self to take out less in student loans and just live leaner during that time. It's not like I was living high on the hog but I was borrowing to fund everything so every little bit I cut back would have resulted in owing less at the end.

On the other hand, I'd probably also tell myself to focus more on investing and less on repaying those student loans. When the loan interest rates were relatively low, throwing a bunch of money at them every month rather than investing more might have made me feel good at the time but I could have accumulated a lot more in the long run had I just made the regular payments and invested the rest.

[kork13]

Gratefully, there's really not alot better advice that I could give my younger self than I already received ... Maybe besides "buy Apple & Amazon stock" or similar hot tips.

My parents always taught me to be frugal where feasible, to save money on a regular basis, and to buy quality when you need something to last. Then as a college junior, an advisor randomly pulled me & a handful of others into his office one evening. He spent a couple hours teaching us about stocks, mutual funds, retirement plans, budgeting, and other topics. I started my Roth IRA later that month, and was maxing it out by the following year (and ever since). I started into taxable MFs & I-Bonds that year as well. His discussion also indirectly led me to these forums all those years back, and I've definitely learned alot from everybody here & elsewhere.

I guess I could always tell myself to avoid the little amount of debt that I've had over time, or to not speculate on niche investments where I've lost a few thousand dollars ... But really, even those mistakes taught me valuable lessons. I'm lucky to have generally received a pretty good financial foundation.

[ua_guy]

Hindsight is always 20/20. I wish I would have taken more risks and I wish I could have been more open to change. But I think that's typical of someone aged looking back on their younger life in general. Had I known then what I know now, right? As a married couple, we turned down a few job opportunities which would have greatly accelerated our trajectory had we been willing to move far away from family and live in undesirable places. We did so once, and it turned out about as well as I expected: Not well. I temper those thoughts with the reality that money isn't everything, and we've significantly enjoyed the path we've taken. But, could I have been more open? yes. Could I have seized more adventure? Yes.

[myrdale]

Buy Bticoin... and maybe work the Roth IRA into paying off the mortgage.

[cypher1]

Off the top of my head, start investing in Roth and working out more regularly in my early 20s. Take more risks in investments. Spend more time networking in professional circle/field. Buying a house save 20% for down payment. Also, don't bother dating anyone with kids.

[LivingAlmostLarge]

Invest in QQQ instead of VTI or VOO when i was 25. Invest only in QQQ and earlier the better. Do not buy your house or condo. We bought a house at the wrong time and had to sit through the 2005 housing recession. We'd be 10x richer if we had taken the money and stuck it in the investment accounts.

Don't buy my $5k timeshare. Buy only used cars. I bought some new cars along the way and yes we kept them a LONG time, but still they were new.

Have kids earlier. Who cares about money or time. You'll figure it out. It's easier when you are young and have no money to have kids. SAVE more in college funding for them and buy them QQQ instead of VOO. I bought them VOO since birth in their ESA, should have bought them QQQ. They still doubled their money but well I would not mind more.

Figure out life insurance more earlier. I bought $4m for DH and $500k on me. it was $1500 for him and $200 for me, but I heard if we had bought it 5 years earlier for 30 years instead of 25, we could have gotten extra years for the same price or lower. We only bought it the year we had our first child. I bet i could have gotten it for under $1k on DH if we'd done it 5 years earlier.

SPEND more along the way. We spent many many years being too frugal. We saved and OVER invested too much. I bet many will laugh but we could have enjoyed traveling and spending more these past 15 years. We were uber conservative and we ended up with way more than we needed. Of course one can argue we wouldn't have if we had been spendy.