When would you have sold? Would you hold during the 2018 bear?
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That of course is the key question but in my case itâs moot cos I never got past setting up a wallet. The logistics of getting money to Mt Gox defeated me at the time.
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Another link to compound interest, the concept holds true even though it is in $s
:
http://uk.businessinsider.com/compound-interest-retirement-funds-2014-3
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Yes I am 54 years of age and I regreat that I havenât put enough money away for my retirement. If I had put a persentage away from day one of working things would have been a lot better.
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Listen to Dad. Heâs right.
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Compound interest is good but the chart doesnât really tell the whole story. It looks great when the annual interest is around 10% but redo it for 3% and it isnât so stellar.
Also, most of us have way more disposable income in our 50s than we had in our 20s. My income now is 10x what I earned in my early 20s, so I can put more money into my pension than I could then with a house to buy and a family to support.
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Iâm only 20 so not so sure I could tell my younger self much about finance but just in general, always put something into your savings account even if its only ÂŁ50pm. When I worked part time whilst at sixth form(supermarket job) I put half my wage per month into savings and since gaining full time employment put around 1/3 of my wage(after bills etc) into my savings account. Itâs crazy to see how after 3 years of saving how much money I could have wasted.
After you get into the habit of doing it you donât even think about the money thatâs in that account and when you come to need it for something e.g. house/car/unexpected bill etc you always have a nice safety net
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Lots of new forum members it would be interesting to hear from 
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Donât gamble. 
Simple as that !
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âBuy Amazon stockâ
Donât go to university. It will save you time and money.
If your goal is to learn, there are better ways to do it nowadays.
If your goal is to be financially successful, university education is not going to help you a lot with it.
Provocative? Maybe. I believe that universities are becoming more and more irrelevant in our times.
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Always go to university. It costs a lot but itâs worth it for the life experience you get, especially if you are not from a city
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I agree wholeheartedly, with a caveat.
I went to university in 2004 and got a history degree. Enjoyed the subject and the time but it never got me a graduate job.
I went back to university in 2011 to do a PGCE in Primary Teaching. That got me a job for which my pre-teaching pay for ÂŁ11k-ÂŁ14k per year jumped to around ÂŁ21k at first and ÂŁ30k now.
I agree, always aim to go to university, it is a fantastic experience, but make sure you go with an aim of a job at the end. On reflection, I wish I had done a BA in teaching rather than the History degree, waste years looking for a graduate job and then go do a PGCE.
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Or Apple before the iPhone was born!
Sadly at the age most youngsters go to university, they are not giving this enough consideration.
It is an adventure but it can also turn out to be unnecessary misadventure.
But I have to say that I see the point of going to university if you have no clue what to do in your life at young age.
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There is a reason that for many years the typical middle class parent encouraged their kids to do medicine, law or accountancy. All three set themselves up with significant barriers to entry - what weâd call a closed shop if unions did the same - and so artificially inflate the costs. What is interesting is how AI is advancing into these areas as they are all pretty algorithmic and straightforward in essence.
These days, if you want to earn a good wage and generally be satisfied, Iâd suggest a technical field such as engineering or software. Self reported job satisfaction is amongst the highest in these areas.
There are many degrees that have little hope of paying back their costs, but Iâm reluctant to suggest not doing them as they are still advanced education and it would be sad if all higher education had to be vocational.
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I think that here are other ways of looking at it.
One could go to university, and join the bottom rung of a well paid career at the end of it. When you reach 60 you could look back having earned a total of several hundreds of thousands of pounds over your lifetime and think, âYeah, definitely worth going to university.â
Or.
Go to university, end up with a low paid job in an unrelated field and look back on your life and think, âYeah, definitely worth going to university. I had a great time, engaged with several great thinkers, learned how to construct cogent arguments and went on to have a great life,â
Different folks, different strokes.
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Where to startâŚ
- Donât get a credit card when you graduate. Youâll only spend it on frivolous things and be paying it off long after youâre bored of them.
- Learn to budget as soon as you have any form of income & outgoings.
- Only budget money you have.
- Take advantage of the pension scheme whenever you can.
- Your parentâs were right - but you wonât appreciate it until you learn for yourself.
- Sit down and think about your long term goals, and write your budget accordingly.
- Be careful of lifestyle inflation; if you get a pay rise - try and save 80% of it.
- Wear sunscreen.
Lots of things Iâd do differently, and still want to do differently nowadaysâŚ
On the subject of student loans, as it has come up in this thread, this month my final final payment went out for it. Itâs been shy of 10 years since I graduated. Historic moment! 
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For me I would alter this. I would say you should get a credit card from as early as you can to start building a credit history.
I would however say donât use it for credit at all ever, just for the occasional small purchase to keep it active and have it set to pay off in full via direct debit.
A long clean credit history might come in useful later.
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Yes!