5 Money Lessons Everyone Must Know By 30

At 30, there are three things you absolutely must know. The first is that despite what your Mom told you, Santa isn’t real. Second, all that calculus your high school teachers told you would be super handy as an adult is a skill you will never use again. Finally, by 30 you need to understand the cold, hard truth about money and while you may have already come to your own conclusions on the first two realizations, you may not have on the third so let me share with you 5 money lessons everyone must know by 30!

Lesson #1: A job stands for “Just Over Broke”

Most of us are aware of common short forms like OMG and LOL and while we use them all the time, you probably never realized that the term job should be included in this mix of acronyms. You see, I have to admit that when I was growing up, I was surrounded by people who didn’t exactly have the best perspective of the 9–5 life. Every Monday, my family members would say we’re going back to the grind and would complain that their salaries were not enough to allow for any noticeable amount of financial progression. This is when I learned that the term job was aptly referred to as being “just over broke”.

At the time, I had no idea why there was such a negative sentiment around jobs. I mean, if you were making $60,000 a year, weren’t you basically rich? Well, this is what my younger self thought but keep in mind that when I was young and my parents were paying for everything I needed, I really had no concept of the costs of day to day life. However, let me tell you that once I started working myself, the term “just over broke” hit me like a truck.

I still remember starting my first job out of my Master’s program and despite working 60 hours a week I was barely scraping by. Fortunately, I used the frustration from this time of my life to build multiple online businesses that have allowed me to sidestep the perils of a static salary but for many they will live within tight financial constraints for the entirety of their lives.

Now, chances are if you’ve already been working in your career for a while you too have had the stark realization of how hard it can be to get ahead on a salary. However, you may not have actually mentally processed why that is so let me break down the root…