Best Financial Advice For Each Decade of Your Life

Life in your 20s is very different from life in your 50s. You aren't in the same place each decade of your life and your financial needs change. There are constant good decisions like don't spend more than you can afford, save up for a bad day, and so on but what about the advice that changes? Here are some of the best pieces of advice for each decade of your life.

00s-10s

Welcome To the World of Finance

Get yourself a piggy bank to start and make sure you're saving up! Collect your allowance and gifts in there. Once you're a little older get yourself your first job. If you have the ability to have your own spending money that's great but don't spend it all. You'll start college and want to have some of your own money that won't go just towards groceries. If you start saving when you're young you won't regret it.

20s

Learn How To Budget

Learn the difference between your wants and your needs with a good budget. Find your daily and monthly expenses to see how much room you have to work with. The easiest way to do that is to download a budget app that will keep track of everything you spend, even the things you forgot about. Find out where your money is going, and see if it's being allocated properly. You might think that you have some spare cash and can buy yourself something nice, but are you saving anything for the future?

Make a Debt Plan

Student debt is a crushing reality for most young people, do you have a plan to pay it back?

You can't let it linger or grow to ruin your financial future. Work the payments into your budget and find some strategies that will help lift the burden. Check out these strategies for repaying student loans and try your hardest to keep up with the payments. Automatic payments can work wonders for taking some pressure off on remembering the bills.

Build Up Credit

Get a credit card, get a credit score, and pay back everything you buy on time. It's as simple as that if you want to have a stable financial future. Don't buy something you can't afford, and if you need to make sure you are paying it off responsibly each month. Your credit score will control your future with loans, banks, landlords, and more. Whatever you do, don't forget to pay the bills and have it destroy your credit score before you even start. Once again, automatic payments are the way to go.

30s

Rethink The Budget

Your life is different than your 20s. You have more belongings, you might be making more money, and it's time to rebudget. Increase the money going towards your emergency fund savings. Adjust your insurance to make sure you have adequate coverage and are getting the best deal. Make sure you're staying on top of your debt repayment plan. You have kids, or are they on the horizon? Make sure there's room for them in the budget, and not just the immediate needs but their future college funds.

Start Saving For Your 401(k)

Nearly half of families don't have any retirement savings. Hopefully you've started saving in your 401(k) by matching your employer's percentage, but it's time to bump that up. Experts recommend saving 15% or more of your income for retirement. If you contribute now every dollar you withdraw in retirement will be taxed at your ordinary income- tax rate, aka its some tax-free income in retirement.

Diversify Investments

Once you have your budget covering immediate needs and a percentage saved for emergencies you can invest for the future. Do your research and find the best options for you, your investment portfolio, and your family. Don't stretch yourself too thin and make sure you aren't taking risks that you can't recover from. Here are some great tips, and potential investments.

40s

Keep Up The Good Work

Make sure you're adjusting your budget for your needs without indulging in lifestyle inflation. Paying your bills on time is just as important as it was in your 20s and 30s to make sure you still have a great credit score. If you've been saving up for your kids college funds and weddings remember to not stretch yourself over to the retirement funds.

Get Estate Planning Help

It's time to set up your will. Sure you may feel young and healthy now, but you want to be ready for whatever might be coming your way. Think about your retirement goals, the future allocation of your assets, and your power of attorney and health care proxy. Organize the chaos before it becomes any sort of problem.

50s

Consider the Kids

You want to make sure everyone has a financial future, and if you are making sacrifices for them that you can't get out of nobody benefits. You can't borrow the money back for retirement or medical needs once its gone. If everyone is moved out, consider downsizing to a smaller place. The upkeep will be cheaper and you can look at places in a lower tax bracket. If your situation has changed, consider taking another look at your will.

Keep an Eye on the Finish Line

Retirement might feel like it's close enough to touch or miles away depending on your financial situation. Hopefully you've been saving and can just keep investing in your 401(k). The government wants to help you save for retirement and once you're 50 you can save more tax-free in IRAs, Roth IRAs, and health savings accounts.

60s

Reevaluate Your Situation

Return to the diversification of your portfolio and adjust your assets. When you near retirement it's a good idea to make more conservative investments while staying aware of inflation. If you've been saving, investing, and budgeting then you should be in a good place. Obviously accidents and illnesses happen and that can throw everything into chaos, but if it takes you a little longer to get to retirement don't judge yourself. Everyone gets there in their own time.

No matter what decade you're in there is a lot to learn about how you can make your financial situation better. It never hurts to think ahead and compile a long term plan. Take your time, do your research, and when you can try to consult an expert to ensure your future success.

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A Guide to Quiet Quitting: How the Gen Z TikTok Trend Is Actually About Setting Boundaries At Work

Quiet Quitting is the latest trend among Gen-Z TikTok that encourages setting boundaries at work

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Toni Morrison has an anecdote about her first ever job, which was cleaning some neighborhood woman’s house. The young Toni arrived home after work one day and expressed her troubles to her father. But he didn’t provide the sympathy she expected. Instead, he gave her something better — his advice:

“Listen. You don’t live there. You live here. With your people. Go to work. Get your money. And come on home.”

Years later, she wrote about this remarkable experience for the New Yorker and said, in hindsight, this is what she learned:

1. Whatever the work is, do it well—not for the boss but for yourself

2. You make the job; it doesn’t make you

3. Your real life is with us, your family

4. You are not the work you do; you are the person you are

What Morrison so eloquently articulated was setting boundaries. I revisited this piece during the pandemic when working from home ramped up in earnest. Back when work was one of the few things that anchored my day.

Without a physical office, the pandemic shattered the work/life balance for many people. There was no more of that physical separation that Morrison talked about. There is no coming home from work physically. There is no real life to come back to — just a manufactured commute to your laptop in your makeshift home office.

But, par for the course, Gen Z are navigating this boundaryless era using TikTok. While internet gurus promote hustle culture and constant online availability since you’re not getting face time with your managers, there’s a trend in town — “quiet quitting.”


@zaidleppelin On quiet quitting #workreform ♬ original sound - ruby


The trend arose from the depths of the pandemic. Layoffs, salary cuts, and furloughs proved that their employers did not care about their hard-working employees.

The Washington Post dubs quiet quitting as a fresh trem for an old phenomenon: employee disengagement. In many cases, it’s a response to burnout. For much of Gen Z, it’s a way of establishing healthy boundaries in the office and resisting the pressure of the rat race. After all, why work yourself to the bone for a company that just proved it’s ready and willing to let you go?

Despite the term’s negative connotations, Quiet Quitting can provide an empowering shift in thinking for employees.

For far too long, employees have been indoctrinated with a slew of toxic workplace advice. Faced with these old misconceptions and lacking job security or clear paths for advancement, Gen Z is untethering their identities from work.

Quiet quitting — therefore — might be a bit of a misnomer. These employers aren’t completely disengaged. They’re certainly not launching Flight Club-esque sabotage attempts on their employers. NO. Contrary to media panic, Gen Z understands the value of a job — the fickle market they entered ensured that. But they also understand the value of life.

They’re doing what they’re being paid for. Nothing more, nothing less.

According to Chief, a private membership network focused on connecting and supporting women executive leaders, older generations should learn from this approach.

“Gen Z has already endured the largest seismic shifts to the career landscape than any previous generation, having started their careers in the middle of a pandemic that changed office culture forever and a gig economy that makes piecing together work more viable. They’re taking both those realities and therefore demanding more autonomy and flexibility than any other generation.”

Gen Z are less attached to job titles and statuses. They’re more concerned about their lives. Sure, this can lead to problematic outlooks on money and experiences — see the “I can earn my money back” TikTok trend. But it’s better than hustling for no reward. Besides, as some Gen Z-ers put it on TikTok, the office isn’t even a vibe.

“With the ability to work from anywhere and for more than just one place, Gen Z-ers are forging their own paths that don’t rely on old patterns set by previous generations and are redefining what “career success” looks like. Gen Z can take note, as more and more leaders are similarly pursuing multiple income streams of their own through the form of a portfolio career. The way in which work looks like and where it happens is evolving.”

With less single-minded focus on one job, some TikTok business gurus advocate shutting your laptops precisely at 5 pm. And then jump onto your side hustle. Do nails or lashes on the weekend. Become social media managers for your phone. Sell soap on Etsy (again … perhaps not in the Fight Club way).

But this valorization of side hustles is not about hustle culture, either. They say job security isn’t guaranteed. Learning new skills and develop an alternate income stream/s to keep you afloat. Just make sure you’re not left in the lurch. BTW inflation is here. So every little bit helps.

But where do you start? Watching TikToks can only get you so far. Try a course on LinkedIn Learning to sharpen up your skills and learn new ones that you can turn into a verifiable side hustle — or leverage in your job search if quiet quitting leads to … real quitting.

Learn on your own time with bite-sized videos or in-depth courses. Watch them after work, before you clock in, or on your lunch break. Then, after your courses are complete, you’ll have certificates prominently displayed on your profile that prove your skills.

quiet quitting

The Future of Coffee is Melted

Why You Need Cometeer Coffee: Coffee You Can Take on the Go

Cometeer Coffee

There’s an internet trend that says that everyone has three drinks: one for energy, one for hydration, and one for fun.


Hydration drinks are usually seltzer, a sports drink, or good old-fashioned water. Fun drinks can be anything from boba to kombucha to a refreshing fountain sprite. But the drink you choose for energy says the most about you. Are you a chill tea drinker? An alternative yerba mate devotee? A matcha-obsessed TikTok That Girl wannabe? A chaotic Red Bull chugger? Or are you a lover of the classics, a person after my own heart, who just loves a good cuppa joe?

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Can We Afford To Return To The Office?

Over two years into the most momentous event in our lives the world has changed forever … Some of us have PTSD from being locked up at home, some are living like everything’s going to end tomorrow, and the rest of us are merely trying to get by. When the pandemic hit we entered a perpetual state of vulnerability, but now we’re supposed to return to normal and just get on with our lives.

What does that mean? Packed bars, concerts, and grocery shopping without a mask feel totally strange. We got used to having more rules over our everyday life, considering if we really had to go out or keeping Zooming from our living rooms in threadbare pajama bottoms.

The work-from-home culture changed it all. Initially, companies were skeptical about letting employees work remotely, automatically assuming work output would fall and so would the quality. To the contrary, since March of 2020 productivity has risen by 47%, which says it all. Employees can work from home and still deliver results.

There are a number of reasons why everyone loves the work from home culture. We gained hours weekly that were wasted on public transport, people saved a ton of money, and could work from anywhere in the world. Then there were the obvious reasons like wearing sweats or loungewear all week long and having your pets close by. Come on, whose cat hasn’t done a tap dance on your keyboard in the middle of that All Hands Call!

Working from home grants the freedom to decorate your ‘office’ any way you want. But then people needed a change of environment. Companies began requesting their employees' RTO, thus generating the Hybrid Work Model — a blend of in-person and virtual work arrangements. Prior to 2020, about 20% of employees worked from home, but in the midst of the pandemic, it exploded to around 70%.

Although the number of people working from home increased and people enjoyed their flexibility, politicians started calling for a harder RTW policy. President Joe Biden urges us with, “It’s time for Americans to get back to work and fill our great downtowns again.”

While Boris Johnson said, “Mother Nature does not like working from home.'' It wasn’t surprising that politicians wanted people back at their desks due to the financial impact of working from the office. According to a report in the BBC, US workers spent between $2,000 - $5,000 each year on transport to work before the pandemic.

That’s where the problem lies. The majority of us stopped planning for public transport, takeaway coffee, and fresh work-appropriate outfits. We must reconsider these things now, and our wallets are paying

the price. Gas costs are at an all-time high, making public transport increase their fees; food and clothes are all on a steep incline. A simple iced latte from Dunkin’ went from $3.70 to $3.99 (which doesn’t seem like much but 2-3 coffees a day with the extra flavors and shots add up to a lot), while sandwiches soared by 14% and salads by 11%.

This contributes to the pressure employees feel about heading into the office. Remote work may have begun as a safety measure, but it’s now a savings measure for employees around the world.

Bloomberg are offering its US staff a $75 daily commuting stipend that they can spend however they want. And other companies are doing the best they can. This still lends credence to ‘the great resignation.’ Initially starting with the retail, food service, and hospitality sectors which were hard hit during the pandemic, it has since spread to other industries. By September 2021, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics reported 4.4 million resignations.

That’s where the most critical question lies…work from home, work from the office or stick to this new hybrid world culture?

Borris Johnson thinks, “We need to get back into the habit of getting into the office.” Because his experience of working from home “is you spend an awful lot of time making another cup of coffee and then, you know, getting up, walking very slowly to the fridge, hacking off a small piece of cheese, then walking very slowly back to your laptop and then forgetting what it was you’re doing.”

While New York City Mayor Eric Adams says you “can't stay home in your pajamas all day."

In the end, does it really matter where we work if efficiency and productivity are great? We’ve proven that companies can trust us to achieve the same results — or better! — and on time with this hybrid model. Employees can be more flexible, which boosts satisfaction, improves both productivity and retention, and improves diversity in the workplace because corporations can hire through the US and indeed all over the world.

We’ve seen companies make this work in many ways, through virtual lunches, breakout rooms, paint and prosecco parties, and — the most popular — trivia nights.

As much as we strive for normalcy, the last two years cannot simply be erased. So instead of wiping out this era, it's time to embrace the change and find the right world culture for you.

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