Money moves for a 20-year-old
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Money. Money. MONEY.
It’s the transfer of wealth that makes the world go round. Allows you to buy the roof over your head, the car you drive, the food that keeps you alive. Before 21, money was frivolous to me. I knew that if I worked, earning, spending and saving were mostly a given. What I didn’t realise was how hard it is to save and earn without working. To say that the cogs hadn’t fallen into place would be true. Finishing university with 60 grand in debt is not the best place to be in, so this is for every 20-year-old that has a bit of change in their bank accounts and wants not to chase money or status.
Several individuals will say that your 20s are the best years of your life. However, at the start of your 20s, you’re probably finishing university and assuming you’re not making much money coming off a part-time job, you’re stuck in limbo until you can get a more secure position. Life looks a bit dire. The best option you’ve got is to save and invest in yourself.
Save
Saving isn’t easy; having to make hard, unemotional decisions about what is necessary for your life never is. The new tech that you want to buy, but not necessarily need, will have to be put on hold. The nights out in the city will have to be reduced.
You will even have to restructure your finances and look at your account! The purpose is to reduce the outflow of money to the bare minimum. The concept of “pay yourself first”, to put away 10% of your income, is an excellent place to start, the idea being to increase that amount as you feel comfortable if you have a job. To squirrel away a small amount each month, your jar of savings will eventually cushion you in a financial crisis or enable you to make life-changing decisions.
Invest in yourself
While investing in yourself is not so much making the money that you’ve got work for you in the present, it’s about acquiring knowledge and understanding in the areas you think you have an opportunity to create wealth. Whether it be real estate, the stock market, an online/ digital product, or even your career. Take the time to learn about the domain you have an interest in.
An example of this could be ‘Alexa Skills’, how to do it, how to research within the area. Looking at the different strategies that others have taken to succeed will enable the consideration of which could be most beneficial for you in the future while avoiding the “dummy tax” others have paid. A world of information is available through articles, podcasts, YouTube, books, and Tweetstorms. It’s just a matter of diving into the research.
Blogging
To blog is to express your point of view on a topic, whether it be through informing or entertaining, each provides value to a reader, and that’s it. Document your experiences, your passions, your failures. Each will give value to someone in their own way. Write consistently for an extended period. Rome wasn’t built in a day. Neither will your blog, but there is always the chance that it goes viral.
To write on platforms such as Medium.com or Vocal.com, there is no upfront cost, but each platform has a way of building wealth. i.e. you can start bringing in traffic whether or not you put in any additional time. By taking the alternate path of creating your blog page using Blogger, Google sites or WordPress may require a minimal upfront cost. However, over time gives you the power to leverage your audience similarly to writing on the other platforms.
Through blogging and refining your writing capability, the natural progression is to write a book or E-book which you can then sell to your audience. Personally, having not written creatively since high school, I’m now perfecting my craft to produce bite-sized value providing articles by documenting my life-journey, writing articles that first and foremost resonate with me.
Social Media
Audience building on social media is the best pathway to creating long-term wealth; at least that’s what I’ve concluded. Whether it be on Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, TikTok, Spotify, etc, the audience holds power to consume or not to consume the digital content that you create. This means day trading for attention, against the trillion other pieces of content out there. Similarly to blogging, you create pieces of content that your audience will consume; the beauty is that you can create wealth without putting in the extra effort.
Someone can watch your video or click on an affiliate link without you having to be present physically. The hardest part is what to upload. I’ve realized there’s no right answer. Starting with your hobbies, interests, or documenting your experiences are the easiest ways to get the ball rolling. Even creating a channel/account of entertaining, hilarious video clips is a viable option!
Photography
If you’re reading this article, chances are you’ve got access to a phone with a camera. Or if you’re like me, an amateur photographer that likes to showcase his work through Instagram, a DSLR. The ability to take photos is literally in our hands, through the evolution of technology, and it’s a skill that we can leverage to create wealth.
The easiest way to make your images available for sale is as stock images on a third-party site diversifying where you upload your work on sites such as Adobe Stock, Shutterstock, Alamy, etc. It’s a great starting point to see if photography can be explored further, with the potential to turn it into a business.
Flipping
Gary Vee is in the eyes of many ‘the King-Flipper’; there are plenty of videos on his website that go through how and what to flip.
The concept is simple:
Search for ‘Free’ listed products on Facebook Marketplace or if you’re in the USA, Craiglist.
Undertake due diligence on the items in question. i.e — market research
Collect the item.
Re-list on eBay or Facebook Marketplace for a price that nets a profit.
Wait for a sale!
While this endeavours output is directly proportional to your input, it will expose you to the resale market and help you build some cash on the side which you can use to further your bigger wealth creation projects.
Dropshipping
Selling physical products without stocking any inventory is a method of wealth creation. From my research, this could be books, posters, coffee mugs. One interesting concept that I’ve come across from Gathering Dreams is self-publishing blank books, made up of mostly blank pages. Like a diary or notebook! Once you create a layout, you can store it as a file on your computer, use Amazon’s print-on-demand service, hold no physical inventory, and collect royalty payments whenever a sale is made.
Creating wealth is difficult, it will take some initial work, requiring a longer-term view of life and the actions you take. To start wealth building in your 20s will probably mean the fruits of your labor will appear over some time. i.e. don’t expect it to be an overnight success. The idea is to constantly strive to build a process that allows yourself to earn with no extra input. Even if you’re that person looking at life thinking, “How the hell am I going to navigate this?” Take it one step at a time and prime yourself with the knowledge and experience to pull the trigger when opportunities arise.