The Smartest Advice Ever
I'm a sucker for "the best money advice you've ever received." There's just something about a lot of good, solid financial wisdom in a small number of words that I love. In fact, I've run several series on the topic including the following:
So when I saw that Money magazine had a series on "the smartest advice I ever got", I knew I had to post on it.
They asked 40 "great minds" for their smartest advice. Here are a few of my favorites. The first is swear off debt:
Borrowing money is like wetting your bed in the middle of the night. At first all you feel is warmth and release. But very, very quickly comes the awful, cold discomfort of reality.
Ha! I LOVE the picture that that paints!
The next is live within your means:
Save your money first and get used to living on what's left over.
The final two are similar. There's you can't fight the market, so join it:
My school experiences taught me to buy index funds. As far as I'm concerned, they're the only starting point for an individual investor. You can't control market risks, but you can control costs.
And the less you pay, the more you keep:
It's hard to be certain of anything in our uncertain financial markets. But I feel very confident about one piece of advice: Minimize your investment expenses. The less you pay in mutual fund fees, brokerage costs, sales fees and taxes, the greater your net return.
So true -- costs matter (and they're fixed.) That's why I like index funds.
What the smartest piece of financial advice you've ever received?











