I'm 22 and I'm worried about high interest rates and how the cost of food has doubled. Getting a house is out of the question right now because I want a stable job rather than starting a business. Mind you I have more prospects than most; I'm at a top XX school's CS program.
In high school I worked at a car wash and I met people who'd worked there for twenty odd years. Well not 'there' as they usually bounced from place to place, but at other car washes, fast food, what have you. These people have no clue about starting businesses, arbitrage trading, SaaS whatever.
So if I'm thinking to myself that the future is kind of shaky, I might have to wait for a new house, then hundreds of people are thinking the future is kind of shaky, I might have to skip dinner for a couple days.
I think you are stunting your growth and forgetting to live life. The world works on a Benjamin Button sort of deal where the best you will ever be physically is when you are the most financially destitute and vice versa. Thus your risk adverseness is also reversed where the time to be risky with wealth and job and life in general is your youth and the least when your in retirement age.
The best thing you should worry about right now is figuring out a budget that allows for constant savings into bellwether stocks or savings bonds THAT YOU DON'T DESTROY ON A WHIM to tap the power of COMPOUND INTEREST. Heed Warren Buffett's advice and get into the habit of saving money early along with the discipline of not touching it for any reason until you have sufficient resources to readjust the performance of whatever it was invested into.
If you don't have money working for you by collecting interest or grown by investment whether by wall street or a main street business, it will not keep up with inflation - that was learned by many in the 1980's when deregulation began eroding the financial industry.
But the real point is that you should be young and take risks now as when you are older, you won't have the time or possibly the freedom to do it without other factors being in play (job,family,responsibilities for young and old, etc..)
> But the real point is that you should be young and take risks now as when you are older, you won't have the time or possibly the freedom to do it without other factors being in play (job,family,responsibilities for young and old, etc..)
I hear this all the time but I question how universal this strategy is. There's this statistic about the average age of the entrepreneur (42) and how successful businesses are started by the older side of that curve. Personally, I know I can't start a business anytime in my 'youth' because I'm still learning to manage my ADHD and lifestyle, let alone actual real world shit.
My plan is to start stacking as many practical skills as early as I can so when the time comes, I can compete with industry and put my weight behind something that's not just lucky. Until I have the self confidence required to do that sort of thing, the idea of business responsibilities just makes me nervous.
In high school I worked at a car wash and I met people who'd worked there for twenty odd years. Well not 'there' as they usually bounced from place to place, but at other car washes, fast food, what have you. These people have no clue about starting businesses, arbitrage trading, SaaS whatever.
So if I'm thinking to myself that the future is kind of shaky, I might have to wait for a new house, then hundreds of people are thinking the future is kind of shaky, I might have to skip dinner for a couple days.