Successful Investors Share: Investing Secrets I’d Tell My 25-Year-Old Me
Do you know that old adage that hindsight is 20/20? If we could all find a time machine to go back to our mid-twenties and start our investment journeys all over again, we know one thing for sure: we would be very wealthy at this point in our lives!
It’s good to learn from the mistakes of the past, but if you were the one who made them, it’s hard to go back and correct them. To help guide you to successful investing, three seasoned Motley Fool contributors share valuable advice on what they would do then if they knew what they know now. By learning their lessons, you will avoid repeating their mistakes and have an easier path to retirement glory.
Go invest, young!
Eric Volkman: The only (open) secret I’d tell in my mid-twenties, Eric would simply be to invest. Invest now and don’t wait. I was 27 when I bought my first stock (Brno Trade Fairs in the Czech Republic, in case you’re curious) while working for a European investment bank.
But there was no reason to hold out that long. I had been interested in stocks in particular and finance in general for years and had enough analytical mind to identify promising investments. I was far from rich, yes, but there were bits of disposable income here and there that could have been used to buy securities.
Yes, Eric at 25 was still a few years away from the dot-com frenzy of the late 1990s / early 2000s, and sometime after that the long-tailed bull run that followed the financial crisis. Still, there were good stocks to be had (as there is in almost every era, I would say now).
In my 25th year, for example, consumer goods pillar Estee Lauder went public at $ 26 a share – I could have afforded 10 or 20 shares even in those lean days. If I had shelled out $ 520 (plus trading commissions – remember?) For that last amount and done my usual shopping and maintains, these days I would be sitting on over $ 23,163 . It’s not bad at all for a couple hundred bucks of a post-college kid’s money.
Many financial professionals warn that a good investment is not for the immature. The more seasoned and knowledgeable an investor, the better their chances of not spending their money on an unnecessary investment. There is something to that, but ultimately it is knowledge that can be acquired even by very young people, and title selection is a skill that can be honed through practice.
If you are “of tender age” and have a few dollars in your pocket, open an account with a brokerage house – which can be done these days with a few clicks on a smartphone – and start investing! If you’re motivated and informed enough, there are few downsides – $ 520 is what some people spend each month on take out – and all the reasons to start “early.”
Avoid debt or pay it off quickly
Barbara eisner bayer: When I was 25, investing was the farthest thing from my mind – because I was too busy managing and accumulating debt. And owing money is not being able to invest, which deprives any 25-year-old of taking advantage of the compositional power.
Not only did I have several college loans that I was paying back, but as a budding New York singer / actress, I wasn’t making enough money to afford everything I needed to be successful in my career, including including rent, lessons, portraits, clothing, lessons and travel expenses when I noted work results. See, I didn’t mean to deprive myself of whatever, so I turned to the almighty credit card to buy whatever I wanted.
This led to overwhelming debt. And because I was spending all the money I was making, I was only paying the minimum amount on my credit cards – which got me into more and more debt. I was like that little hamster circling around in its cage wheel – always working hard, but never going anywhere.
Obviously, this indebtedness meant that there was no money to invest because all the money I had was being used to buy things I needed or to pay off debts. But even when I cut down on what I owed, I usually took on more debt. It was a vicious cycle – with an emphasis on the word vicious.
It took me until my mid-30s to get rid of all the debts, and it was thanks to the Dickensian benefactors – my future in-laws – who didn’t want me to start my married life with such a burden. financial.
I had constantly prayed that if I ever found a way to get out of debt, I would promise never to find myself in this situation again, and to this day, although I have used the debt wisely through mortgages, 0% credit cards, and Home equity lines of credit, I have never been in a situation where I couldn’t cover it with the funds in my savings account. It was just another financial tool that I could use to positively manage my financial life.
Once I became debt free, I was able to begin my investment journey and was fortunate enough to build up enough nest egg to have a happy, worry-free retirement. But if I could have started investing a decade earlier, my nest egg would probably be double what it is today.
If you are in debt, make a plan to get by. With a little discipline and perseverance, it is possible. You might not have fairy gods like me, but you CAN get out of debt if you think about it.
Get your retirement money in a Roth style plan
Chuck saletta: When I started working full time, my employer did not offer Roth-style 401 (k), providing only a traditional type plan. Recognizing the importance of starting early when it comes to saving for retirement, I invested in the plan from the moment I first became eligible to start building this very important nest egg.
The benefits of this move were that it allowed me to take advantage of funding early in my career and put my retirement savings on autopilot. The big downside, however, is that all of this money – and the growth it generates – is on track to be fully taxed as regular income when I take it out in retirement.
On top of that, since withdrawals from traditional retirement accounts are considered income, withdrawing money from this plan could increase my health insurance costs and subject my Social Security benefits to taxes. At some point in retirement, these additional taxes and costs may become unavoidable. From age 72, minimum distributions required Obligate money to withdraw from traditional retirement accounts.
After all of this, if I could go back in time, I would urge my 25-year-old self to figure out how to ask my employer to come up with a Roth-style plan at the time. That way, I could have started contributing much sooner, and that money would accumulate for my tax-free retirement.
Instead, I am very grateful for the nest egg I have been able to build, but also very aware of the fiscal and financial implications that I will face once I reach retirement age. A Roth style 401 (k) has since become available to me, and I’m now contributing fresh money to it. Additionally, I also expect that I will start converting the money from my traditional style 401 (k) to my Roth IRA over time once I retire and stop earning a paycheck.
While this decision is taxable, it will likely be at a lower tax rate than I would be facing now, as I would not have earned income pushing these conversions into an even higher tax bracket. It will also reduce the risk of higher Medicare costs and Social Security taxes, as Roth IRAs are not subject to the minimum distributions required during the account holder’s lifetime.
This article represents the opinion of the author, who may disagree with the “official” recommendation position of a premium Motley Fool consulting service. We are heterogeneous! Challenging an investment thesis – even one of our own – helps us all to think critically about investing and make decisions that help us become smarter, happier, and richer.