The best investment at your age is in training/education to improve your take home pay or ability to relocate. Fuck retirement savings, you have to eat for 30+ years to get there first. Invest in yourself, not in the fucking casino controlled by billionaires that is the stock market.
My wife made a career swap 5 years ago after getting a master’s degree. We used our retirement savings to pay for the schooling because the ROI was under 1 year.
Training isn’t a bad option, though, especially since some jobs will pay you for it. Some trades do paid apprenticeships - the pay isn’t great, but it’s better than paying for training.
Alternately, manufacturing jobs can be pretty good. I had a friend who got a job working in a factory right out of high school - he started at $20/hour, with a sizeable raise after the first year.
The only way off the hamster wheel of paycheck to paycheck living is to find a way to make the paycheck larger. The entire system is designed prevent you from doing so of course. You can not save money out of poverty wages.
It’s counter-intuitive but financially going $10K into credit card debt just to survive, while paying $10K for targeted education/training from disbursed 401K funds is a better use of the money. You can increase your pay by $20-30k or more per year with marketable training/education. If you pay off the credit card it will just come back if you don’t increase your wages. Bankruptcy also can’t take away the education/skills you’ve gained.
Swapping jobs frequently for a higher paycheck is required today. Every 1-2 years in your 20’s as you fight the experience/poverty wages bullshit. Every 3-5 after that just to beat inflation. When you swap jobs the 401k becomes available for withdrawal. Instead of using it to pay down debts etc., pay for education/training to make the next job pay more. Usually signing up for the minimum amount of the 401K makes almost no difference to your take home pay but a nice little bit of cash at each job change.
I’m about to be 29, and have literally zero savings to speak of. I’ve been paycheck-to-paycheck pretty much my entire working life.
The best investment at your age is in training/education to improve your take home pay or ability to relocate. Fuck retirement savings, you have to eat for 30+ years to get there first. Invest in yourself, not in the fucking casino controlled by billionaires that is the stock market.
My wife made a career swap 5 years ago after getting a master’s degree. We used our retirement savings to pay for the schooling because the ROI was under 1 year.
Ah yes, telling the person that just admitted they’re paycheck-to-paycheck to pay for education, perfect.
Training isn’t a bad option, though, especially since some jobs will pay you for it. Some trades do paid apprenticeships - the pay isn’t great, but it’s better than paying for training.
Alternately, manufacturing jobs can be pretty good. I had a friend who got a job working in a factory right out of high school - he started at $20/hour, with a sizeable raise after the first year.
The only way off the hamster wheel of paycheck to paycheck living is to find a way to make the paycheck larger. The entire system is designed prevent you from doing so of course. You can not save money out of poverty wages.
It’s counter-intuitive but financially going $10K into credit card debt just to survive, while paying $10K for targeted education/training from disbursed 401K funds is a better use of the money. You can increase your pay by $20-30k or more per year with marketable training/education. If you pay off the credit card it will just come back if you don’t increase your wages. Bankruptcy also can’t take away the education/skills you’ve gained.
Swapping jobs frequently for a higher paycheck is required today. Every 1-2 years in your 20’s as you fight the experience/poverty wages bullshit. Every 3-5 after that just to beat inflation. When you swap jobs the 401k becomes available for withdrawal. Instead of using it to pay down debts etc., pay for education/training to make the next job pay more. Usually signing up for the minimum amount of the 401K makes almost no difference to your take home pay but a nice little bit of cash at each job change.