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While this goes into the 30's and beyond, most of us here on NT who are interested in investing are still in our early 20's... so i suggest you pay EXTRA close attention to tips 1, 2, and 4... but 4 especially... anyone who saves can tell you how easy it is if you just save a little here, a little there... i can't stress enough how simple it is for everyone, if you save a hour of your pay per day and put that into a nice ING savings account..

If you guys have any tips, PLEASE, feel free to post them..

Your Early 20s: Drink Less, Save More

Step 1
Timing is everything

Expert: Suze Orman, author of The Road to Wealth, host of The Suze Orman Show
Time is the most important ingredient in any financial-freedom recipe. If you put $100 a month into a Roth IRA or a no-load mutual fund from the age of 25 to 65, with the average rate of return, youll have roughly one million bucks when you retire. If you wait until 35 to start making those $100 payments, youll have only $300,000. Those 10 years of waiting just cost you $700K. If you put money away in your Roth IRA from the age of 18 to 28 and never saved another penny, you would have more at the age of 65 than if you started at 28 and put the same amount of cash away every single year until you were 65.

Step 2
Slaughter your debt

Expert: Maria Bartiromo, anchor of CNBCs Closing Bell
You cant under any circumstance maintain an outstanding credit card balance every month. You have to get out of debt, that is priority one. As a general rule, look at what you owe and pay it down as opposed to signing contracts to consolidate. Why bring new lenders into your life? If you have to get a credit card, get an AmEx, because you have to pay it off every month.

Step 3
Beer-goggle your first house

Expert: Michael Corbett, author of Find It, Fix It, Flip It!
Buy a house thats completely perfect and youre buying at the top of the market. Bad idea. Look for a place that is downright ugly. As long as the home has good bones and a decent layout, you can build value into it. That way you control the market versus the market controlling you. Start small and stay away from interest-only loans, because the markets going down.

Step 4
Make your money work

Expert: David Bach, author of The Automatic Millionaire
Whether you work at a coffee shop or an investment bank, you need to save at least one hour of your income per day, which works out to 12.5 percent of your annual income. And thats for a middle-class guy. If you want to get rich, youve got to put away at least two hours a day of salary. Dont let your cash languish in a checking account. Take it a step further and open a savings account with an online bank, like emigrantdirect.com or ingdirect.com. They offer up to five times the interest rates of traditional bank accounts. There are two ways to get rich. Its really simple. Keep some of what you make, make more, and keep some of what you make.

2530: Start Raking It In

Step 5
Get the right gig

Expert: David Bach, author of The Automatic Millionaire
Dont get stuck in a career where youre underpaid. You need to be extremely aggressive through your 20s about your income and quite candid about asking for raises. If the average raise is about four percent, then youre just going to stay even with inflation, which means youre going to be broke. Shoot for a 20 percent raise each year. At that rate you more than double your income every five years. But first make sure youre on the right boat. I have a lot of friends who have been working for 15 years in the wrong place, and they are poor. The sector that people make the most money in is money. Financial services are a guaranteed growth industry.

Step 6
Upgrade every two years

Expert: Michael Corbett, author of Find It, Fix It, Flip It!
If you buy a home for $700K and you have a $600K mortgage, by the end of the 30- year term of your loan you have paid out $1.2 million. Instead, take advantage of the primary resident tax break, which allows you to take up to $250K in profit, capital-gains-tax-free, on the sale of your home as long as you live in it for at least two years. Then roll the profits into the next one.

Step 7
Build your bankroll

Expert: Dylan Ratigan, anchor of CNBCs On the Money
You have to get into the market. Open an online brokerage account and set up an automatic monthly deposit from your paycheck. During your early 20s you need to put away at least as much as youre spending at the bar on Fridays. For each year after you hit 25, multiply it. So by the time youre 30, you should be depositing five times your happy hour tab.

Step 8
Stop paying for the ladies

Expert: Suze Orman, author of The Road to Wealth, host of The Suze Orman Show
One of the worst habits men suffer from is this perception that they always have to pay for everything. Its not like 50 years ago when only men worked. Men also think theyve got to impress people with a gift. Theyre all junk. Women dont care. If youre only paying the minimum credit card payments or failing to pay into your 401(k) at least up to your employer match, write the lady a letter and tell her how much you love her and screw the gift. I ran a survey of 1,400 people on what matters most to men and women. Men care about how a woman kisses. Women care about what men do with their money.

Your 30s: Earn It, Dont Burn It

Step 9
Know why you buy

Expert: Dylan Ratigan, anchor of CNBCs On the Money
Know why you believe what you believe. If someone asks you why you like a stock and you cant answer, dont buy it. You generally shouldnt buy individual stocks. Only buy individual stock if you actually know something about the company, which is almost never. Instead, buy ETFs, exchange traded funds, which are basically baskets of stocks or mutual funds that trade just like stocks. If you like oil, the ETF ticker for oil is USO. You want to buy Chinese companies because you think China is the future, its FXI. Want to buy the Dow? Its DIA. If you randomly buy stocks based on the ticker or because somebody told you it was hot, you will lose your money.

Step 10
Hedge your biggest bet

Expert: David Bach, author of The Automatic Millionaire
Divorce is probably the single biggest thing that hurts guys in their 30s and 40s. If youre wealthy or make a significantly greater amount of money than the woman you are dating, do not get married without a prenup, and do not get talked into a prenup that expires in five to 10 years. Sign an ironclad agreement with no expiration date. And dont marry strippers.

Step 11
Use the Starbucks effect

Expert: Michael Corbett, author of Find It, Fix It, Flip It!
If youre looking to pick up investment properties, buy in a transitional neighborhood. To tell the difference between a truly bad area and a neighborhood on the upswing, look for a new Starbucks. They spend enormous amounts of money researching developing areas. If they think they can sell $5 lattes, I can promise you that neighborhood is on its way up.

Step 12
Never, ever buy a bar

Expert: Larry Bennett, professor of entrepreneurial practice, Syracuse Universitys Whitman School of Management
If you want to buy or start your own business, pick up any trade magazine or look for opportunities on sites like startupjournal.com and inc.com. For anyone with romantic aspirations, buying a bar is one of the worst investments you can make. Their 70 percent failure rate made the restaurant equipment channel one of eBays first dedicated subdivisions. Im not a big fan of franchises, either. You can clear $50,000 to $60,000, but thats not real wealth creation. Instead, focus on servicing other small- and medium-size businesses. You can make a lot more money that way.

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