this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
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[–] mortalic@lemmy.world 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

Start buying a few shares of VTI every pay period. Use any left over cash to buy SPYG. Ignore the gains or losses, the market has never not gone up (eventually). Thank yourself later.

Max out your 401k when you get a decent paying job. But make sure you hit every pay period to maximize your employer contribution.

Consider using mass transit where possible, bike if you can, more or less avoid a car/insurance. If that's not possible get a cheap car like a used Nissan leaf ($7000 in my area, costs a few dollars a month to charge using a wall outlet and extension cord)

Minimize unnecessary expenses like using food delivery services. Meal prep on the weekends and make enough food for a week.

If you do all this for 10 years or so, you'll be in a really good spot financially. Buying a house will be a decent prospect, your VTI and SPYG will be making money, your taxable income will be small and you will have built up the ability to splurge on things without it making much of an impact on your finances.

I've been following the YouTube channel Chris invests and he gives lots of similar advice like this.

[–] Yokozuna@lemmy.world 2 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (2 children)

Yo those stock recommendations are actually nuts. I just looked at their 5 year and lifetime charts and you're not lying. It's 45 degrees the whole way basically.

[–] MonkeMischief@lemmy.today 3 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

All sound advice, but coming across the extra capital to invest, much less in your 20's, is a harder prospect than it sounds for most people these days.

I'm not sure if you can get fractionals of SPY or VTI, but $300-500 a paycheck or even a month of money you can't use on the moment is a hard ask for much of the working class.

It's less like "Stop the avocado toast and lattés and netflix" and more "If you stopped buying a new graphics card every month you could afford stonks that will be mature when you are elderly."

Lol like, we aren't living in luxury and frivolous with our money in the first place, it usually poofs away into food and rent these days. (And gas and the car, if you aren't in one of VERY few places that are walk and bike friendly.)

But for people who have it. This is a sound strategy. On that note, I have a relative who's got very few expenses, often broke...and they're constantly buying new full-priced releases on Steam. This degree of resource mismanagement vexes me so. Lol

[–] mortalic@lemmy.world 1 points 4 months ago

Yeah... Closest thing to set it and forget it I've found. I usually buy between 1-7 shares of VTI then a share of SPYG every other week. Been doing it for a long time now. Plus the dividend payout on VTI is really good.