Many people in their 50s tell me “I wish I had met you 25 years earlier”. Well, I now know many things which I wish I had known when I was young. I also know that there are people in their 50s who will have children and people in their 30s who will have younger siblings who are in their 20s. It would be nice if you got them to read this stuff….

1. Start saving and investing as soon as you can. I have written a lot about this, so not elaborating.
2. When you change jobs roll over your provident fund and accumulate it in one place. The laws keep changing and suddenly you might find that there is no interest being paid on your accumulated balance in places where you quit long ago.
3. Create a passive income – even if not an income your accumulation of assets should allow you to create a corpus so that by the time you are 40 you have a PASSIVE income ENOUGH to meet all your goals including retirement.
4. Dedication, sincerity, hard-work – will NEVER go out of fashion.
5. You cannot keep saying “I do not know what to do in life” till age 34 and hope to retire at 39.
6. Keep learning. You have no choice.
7. It takes 20 years of active work to create passive income!!
8. Rental property comes with a LOT of headache
9. Over the long term GOOD EQUITY portfolio should outperform rents and other investments – i mean passive investments.
10. Investing is not that scary, even if your parents have not done it.
11. Unless your parents have managed their portfolio well, don’t ask them about money.
12. Learn about investing – remove the junk about money from your head.
13. Think big. Thinking small does not help.
14. Ignore the naysayers. They are are here to stop you?
15. Debt will slow down your financial freedom
16. Spend as per your needs, not as per your ego. Don’t show off.
17. Till you do not learn about investing, invest in an index fund
18. Take term insurance. Simple term insurance, buy it ONLINE.
19. Work your butt off. At 40 you will be on your own. Business or Retired.
20. Compounding works. Compounding works. Compounding works.
21. Its all about NOW. Do not procrastinate.
22. Investing is far beyond ppf, lic, bank fixed deposits….these are savings
23. Saving is difficult. Once you save, you have to invest. Asap.