Has this ever happened to you? What are some of your peeves when you first wake up in the morning? Tell me about it…

Take out three times as much in student loans as your first year’s salary – This is an excellent point to keep in mind that was never brought to my attention when I was going to school. My major as a freshmen was secondary education. Yet I went to a private, liberal arts college. In general, it’s a safe assumption that a teacher’s salary isn’t going to do you many favors when you’re taking on tens of thousands of dollars worth of debt in student loans. This doesn’t mean you shouldn’t go to an expensive school unless you have a trust fund. But you do really need to way the pros and cons of each school you’re looking at and really think about your income and debt over the next couple of decades.

Trash your college enemies and/or yourself on Facebook and Twitter – This should be common sense but just in case… Social media is a very public forum. Just about anyone can see what you post and say online and it’s impossible to take something back once it’s on the web. Even when you “delete” messages, pictures, and profiles, there’s no guarantee they don’t still exist in some corner of the web and there’s no telling who may stumble across that badmouth rant or compromising photo and that’s the last thing you need when you’re trying to get ahead in life. 

Accept your first job offer without negotiating — I know it may feel  funny to be seeking an entry-level position or to be pretty low on the totem pole but still ask for more money. But remember that you’ve got a degree. This is what you studied for and what you want to do as a career. You deserve the best that you can get. However, you should still be mindful that this is negotiating. If you really want this job and your would-be boss won’t budge on salary, that doesn’t mean you can’t accept. The important thing to remember is to try to get more money. It can’t hurt to ask. The worst they can do is say no. But if you don’t, than you’re not setting yourself for years of being underpaid because it’s much harder to get raises when they’ve already lowballed your salary.

Spend $2,000 on your new corporate wardrobe before getting your first check –  This should be common sense but it’s still hard to fight the urge. I’ve done this before (not $2000 but enough…) and it’s not typically necessary. Maybe a nice outfit or two for the first couple of days but don’t blow a good portion of your salary before you’ve even earned it. And if you really are desperate for a new wardrobe, then acquire it slowly. Allow yourself one new item of clothing a paycheck and after a few months, you’ll have that fabulous new wardrobe and you’ll still be able to put food on the table in the meantime.

Co-sign a car loan for your best friend – Or more importantly, co-sign anything for anyone. There are very few circumstances where it’s fiscally wise to co-sign on a debt that does not benefit you in any way. And the fastest way to strain any relationship is to get money involved. And if you’re in a committed relationship, do NOT do anything without discussing it with your partner first. My hubby co-signed on a student loan for his younger brother when we were still engaged. We had just purchased a house and a new car and we were a few months out from the wedding. And I found out about this after he had already done it. Needless to say, it’s still a sore subject and I am now way too invested in my pot smoking, graphic design artist of a brother-in-law…

Pay off a credit card with a credit card, without closing one of them — The concept of paying off a high interest rate card with another, low-interest credit card by transferring the balance is just fine. But you have to follow through with closing and getting rid of the high rate interest card after you transfer the balance. And make sure you put the transfer balance information on the application so it’s done as soon as possible. I once opened a credit card so I could transfer a balance from a high rate card… but I never even transferred the balance. I started using the new card for this and that but I never got around to transferring the balance from the old card and before I knew it, there was no room on the new card to transfer the balance of the old card and I was stuck paying on two cards now. It’s a lot harder to get yourself out of debt than it is to create it. Don’t make stupid decisions that will affect you for years to come…

Don’t go to the doctor — You’re young. You’re fit. You may still be on mom and dad’s health plan. You may have recently graduated and become too old for their health plan but not yet gotten one of your own through your dream job. It’s easy to put things off but you really need to take care of yourself. Go to the doctor. Have regular check ups. Any and all health problems are easier to resolve/manage when they’re caught early. And just because you’re in your twenties doesn’t mean something can’t be wrong. I have a non life-threatening health condition that I was only diagnosed with about a year or two ago. But I’ve had symptoms for nearly a decade. I’m not going to die from this so I guess it’s not the end of the world but my life would have been much easier and treatment would have been simpler had I caught this early but I never went to the doctor because I was fine. Go to the doctor!

Buy a house without an emergency fund/Don’t put any money down on that new mortgage/ Stretch to get into a new home because it is a good investment –  These all go hand in hand. I’d heard them all before but did I listen? Of course not. My husband and I purchased a home a few years ago just when the housing market was starting to drop enough to be a “buyer’s market” but before it was a full-blown catastrophe. As a result, we purchased our home for a considerable amount over what it’s now worth today. Everyone said it would be such a great investment. Maybe when the market was great it was a great investment. But the market has tanked and so has our investment. That’s life. Now, if you can purchase a home for the same amount a month as you’re paying in rent already and you don’t plan on leaving the area any time soon, it’s not necessarily a bad thing to purchase a home. But if you’re doubling your rent payment for your mortgage just because owning a home is the next step in your life, think twice. And make sure you’ve got some savings set aside when you do buy your home. Life happens and things break. Our basement has a huge water problem that’s going to cost thousands of dollars to fix but it wasn’t an issue until about six months after we bought the home. Nearly all of the appliances in our kitchen need replacing. And just when you think you’ve got some extra money to make those changes at home, something else goes wrong. My husband and I purchased our home when we both had really good jobs with good pay. Shortly after we bought our home, I left my job for a bigger and better job which didn’t work out. So then I was stuck finding a lesser job just to have a paycheck (which was no fun because as I said, the housing market and shortly after, the economy, tanked just a short time after we bought our home). And then my husband totaled our car so we ended up using our leftover wedding money that was meant to get the rest of our registry gifts on a down payment for a car and medical bills for our injuries. And within a few months after that, my husband (the bread-winner by a large margin) was laid off from his job for six months. Life happens and sometimes, it sucks! Really think before you jump into a big investment and be prepared for life to take a turn for worse.

Eat out every single meal –  When my hubby and I were first living together, we were making good money and I never felt like cooking. So we ate dinner out at restaurants nearly every night. And if we weren’t in a restaurant, we were eating fast food. And that’s just dinner. We also never used to pack lunches for work. Our kitchen would go days and sometimes weeks before it saw any action. What a waste of money! We learned our lesson the hard way when life took a turn for the worse as I mentioned above. And let me tell you, going from restaurants nearly every night to mac-n-cheese with hotdogs every three days was not a fun adjustment.

Don’t set up a monthly budget — Had my husband and I set up a monthly budget and lived by it instead of blowing our salaries when we were making good money, we probably would have had a much nicer cushion to fall back on when he was laid off and the adjustment wouldn’t have been nearly as severe. Budgets are hard. They’re no fun and they’re tough to stick to. But they work and will set you and your loved ones up for success in the long run instead of setting yourself up for failure. Make a budget and stick to. And make sure that budget includes putting money away in savings. You’ll need it eventually when something breaks or something goes wrong. And if you have enough money in savings, it doesn’t have to be your life-took-a-big-dump-on-me fund. You can treat yourself every now and then too. But you need to be able to put money away and save before you can do big spending, good or bad. And the only way to do that is to live on a budget.

As I said, these are just a few of his points and my (ample) two cents to support his points. It’s easy to think you don’t need to worry about these things in your twenties but the more you do in advance, the better off you’ll be in the long run. Are there any other points that you think were missed? Are there any points you disagree with? Have you learned some of these lessons the hard way? Tell me about it…

I realize I have some lofty goals and they’re going to be difficult to accomplish given my limited knowledge and experience in computers and programming. Hopefully I will pick up on the logistics quickly and the readers will follow. But more importantly, I hope that active participants will follow. Because my goals and experience have a bit of a disconnect at the moment, I’m kind of nervous to be honest. I’m really excited about this new endeavor and I want it to be successful. I tend to over think things and when I have a great, exciting new idea, I don’t do anything with it. I sit and I think and I sit some more. I tend not to act because I’m so busy planning how this will work and be such a great success and I’ll be so happy. By the time I’m all done planning, I have something so specific and epic in my mind that it’s almost daunting to go about even trying to start it. So I’ve decided to act. I’m still planning and hoping and strategizing for this community. But I don’t want to stand in my own way. So I’m diving in. It’s going to be a work in progress and I hope you’ll bear with me. But more importantly I hope you check in and participate often. I hope if you like what you see, you’ll share it with a friend or two. And I hope if nothing else, you find this to be a welcoming corner of the web where you can stop in and explore, even if it’s only for a few minutes.