What's the best piece of financial advice you've given or received?

socal78

socal78

Well-known member
Q.: What's the best piece of financial advice you've given or received?

Money Magazine posted this question on its Facebook page. I liked reading the replies. They will feature some of them in an upcoming issue.

I've been given several pieces of excellent advice but my own favorite would probably be:

"Pay yourself first." - Dad

What's yours?
 
Always do the opposite of what is the considered common knowledge by the public.  If it is the cover of Time Magazine....run!!
 
It's more like a bunch of Taiwanese proverbs... But the direct translations are below...

Easy to make money... Hard to keep it... (Used more so in business... Concept is more like, its easy to start a business, but maintaining/growing it is the hard part)

Money is always "running"... Don't chase it... Have it carry you (use money to make/roll more money)
 
My grandfather used to tell me (loosely translated from Polish)..."the greedy always lose twice"...aka DON'T BE GREEDY! 
 
Don't think I got any specific advice.  I think I just watched my dad and listened to his answers.

If I had to give advice to my daughters, I would tell them to ignore what anyone else is doing or not doing.  Forget being part of the herd or being a contrarian.  Invest in yourself and decide for yourself.  Don't be afraid to be wrong, and when you are wrong, figure out what you can do to keep from repeating the same mistake.

The best financial lesson I ever learned was playing blackjack with my dad.  Losing money SUCKS!  The second best was the pain I felt from being upside down on a mortgage.  OUCH!  And the third best lesson was buying Enron after it had collapsed quite a bit and everyone else was selling.  Thought I was being a contrarian by going against the crowd.  I found out, SO WHAT!  Double ouch!
 
No Quarter said:
Randy Moss answering a reporter's question about how he intended to pay a fine in MN:

"Straight cash, homey... that's what you do when you're rich"
Click to expand...

That is one of my all time favorite quotes
 
Some of my own thoughts..

"Help others from the goodness of your heart, I find karma is looking for people"

Sacrifice today for a better tomorrow. I think that we all fight to have that balance especially younger folk as we get into our first jobs and want to go out and enjoy ourselves. I find that often times some of us forget about tomorrow because we're too concerned with today, life isn't that short.

"How hard do you have to work to make a hundred dollars is far different than what others have to do to earn that same hundred dollars. Help those that are willing to work for it."
 
Better to live rich and die poor, than to live poor and die rich.

In other words, treat yourself don't cheat yourself.  To a point of course.
 
This kind of information is so common on the Internet now but when I started work there wasn't the Internet yet as we know it.  :p 

My supervisor on my first civilian job told me on the way back from lunch on my first day on the job to start putting in at least the minimum in our company 401K plan to get the full company match.  That was getting guaranteed 100% return on your money at least for the match part.  It also put me in a good habit from the start to constantly fund my 401K and increase the contribution little by little each time I got a raise until I got to the maximum allowed.  Almost 30 years later, still working for the same company, I'm glad I listened to him.
 
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