Have a friend that is a teacher preparing to teach introductory finance/business class at the high school level and he asked me a similar question, except for an 18 year old self, as I have been out of high school 10 years now.
For those Mustachians older than me, curious what you would tell your 28 year old self (AKA me today!)? This could be both financial or not. Curious to see your responses.
Also, feel free to chime in on the 18 year old self if you want. I sent my friend the jlcollins stock series and told him, of all the books I have read over the year, this was hands down the best... stock picking is a waste of time and I wish I would have just put aside excess capital at a young age and invested directly into low cost index funds. KISS method for the win!
One other piece of advice I was given when I first got out of college from a colleague was to always evaluate a situation and consider what is the other person's incentive? Why are they doing what they are doing? A few examples of situations I have seen in the last few years with people ... 1) wealth advisors are not your "friends", they are salesman ... 2) acquaintances that work at car dealerships are not your "buddy", they are a salesman.
A few other things I would tell my 18 year old self which I am glad to say I did not do this, but don't buy an expensive car ... spend your $ on fun experiences, you'll never regret taking fun small trips with your friends, but you will regret having a large car payment every month.
This seemed obvious to me at 18, but became even more apparent post college. Don't major in some random degree that has no career trajectory or earnings potential. I see people I went to high school with that took out substantial debt for a worthless degree and that debt is now holding them down and they can't get a job that will allow them to dig out of the financial mess.
Don't have kids or get married earlier than ... to avoid some backlash here, I'll just say, before you are ready, but not at a young age ... I've seen 4 marriages start at 21 and 22 years old, ALL 4 are now divorced (all but one only lasted <3 years) ... nobody knows what the hell they are doing at 22, the last thing you should be doing is making major life decisions.
Ok, back on topic to 28 and on, looking forward to hearing from the members of the forum.