Financial advice for most people is incredibly straightforward and it can be summed up as: cut expenses and invest conservatively.

Cutting expenses is the absolutely best thing you can do because it gives you more money to save AND reduces how much money you need to survive in retirement. Drive a 2007 Camry instead of buying a new F150 every 2 years. Live in a small as space as possible. Don't buy designer whatever.

Own your home (if you can). Invest in a diversified passively-invested portfolio. Don't gamble (including crypto). A Vanguard total market fund is fine.

Unfortunately many people make life-changing bad financial decisions when they're the least capable of understanding the implications and that is by taking on massive amounts of student loan debt. You go to your dream school because, well, it's your dream, but your potential career has no way of conceivably paying back that $250k+ for an out-of-state private school. Favor in-state tuition at a state school or whoever will give you a scholarship. You can go further and do 2 years at a community college before transferring to a 4 year program.

Somewhat controversially, I'm also not opposed to people finding the right job in the military for 4 years to pay for tuition. Not something that'll destroy your body or put you in harm's way. Ride a desk for 4 years. Lots of people don't have this option because of common conditions like asthma or ADHD however. In certain branches you might be able to do 2+ years of that college concurrently.

Now society has cooked the housing market and that's a massive problem that's only going to get worse. It wasn't that long ago that you could buy a relatively cheap starter home. You need a fairly serious income for that now.

Oh and if you have children you absolutely need life insurance on yourself and your partner and disability insurance as well.

Subscribe to my newsletter for the low low prices of $500/month.