Your 20s are an interesting time financially.
For many people, it’s the first time you’re earning your own money. Suddenly you have choices. You can buy things without asking your parents. You may be paying rent, buying your first car, building a career or trying to figure out what on earth you’re supposed to be doing with your life.
And somewhere amongst all of that, you’re apparently supposed to know how to manage money in your 20s too.
The problem is that most of us were never really taught how.
I certainly didn’t have everything figured out when I was younger. Much of what I understand about money today came through experience — making mistakes, learning from them, watching what worked and gradually developing better habits.
That’s really what If Only I Knew This When I Was Your Age is about.
Not getting everything right.
Just understanding a few important principles before you learn them the expensive way.
Here are seven I believe can make an enormous difference.
1. Know Where Your Money Is Going
You cannot manage money you aren’t paying attention to.
That doesn’t mean you need a complicated spreadsheet tracking every cent you spend. It simply means understanding what comes in, what goes out and where it goes.
Start with three numbers:
What do I earn?
What are my fixed expenses?
What is actually left?
Then look at what happens to what’s left.
Takeaways, subscriptions, entertainment, clothing and those little impulse purchases don’t necessarily feel significant individually. Added together over a month, they can tell a very different story.
A budget isn’t there to punish you or stop you enjoying your money.
It’s there to help you decide where your money should go instead of wondering where it went.
That’s why one of the first resources I created for this website was a simple Budget Planner. You don’t need anything fancy. You just need to start.
2. Learn to Live Below Your Means
This is one of the simplest financial principles you’ll ever hear.
It’s also one of the hardest to consistently practise.
Spend less than you earn.
The gap between those two numbers is incredibly important.
That’s where saving happens.
That’s where debt gets paid off.
That’s where future opportunities come from.
And eventually, that’s where wealth begins.
The danger is that as our income grows, our lifestyle often grows just as quickly. This is known as lifestyle creep, and it can quietly absorb every salary increase before you have a chance to become financially stronger.
You get an increase, so you upgrade the car.
You earn a little more, so you spend a little more.
Eventually you can be earning considerably more money without actually becoming financially stronger.
Enjoy your progress. Enjoy some of the rewards of working hard.
Just don’t spend every increase before you’ve had a chance to put some of it to work for your future.
3. Be Very Careful With Debt
Debt can make things feel affordable that really aren’t.
A monthly payment of R800 sounds very different from a purchase price of R28,000.
And that’s exactly why it’s so easy to accumulate debt one payment at a time.
A clothing account here. A credit card there. A personal loan. A financed purchase.
Eventually a large part of your salary can be committed before the month has even started.
Not all debt is necessarily the same, and there are situations where borrowing can serve a useful purpose.
But borrowing money to maintain a lifestyle you cannot currently afford can become a very expensive habit.
Before taking on debt, ask yourself:
Do I genuinely need this?
What will this really cost me?
And am I borrowing for something valuable — or simply borrowing from my future income to enjoy something today?
If you’re already carrying several debts, don’t panic and don’t ignore them.
Make a list. Understand what you owe. Create a plan and start working through it systematically.
That’s exactly what our free Debt Snowball Tracker is designed to help you do.
4. Build an Emergency Fund
Life happens.
Cars break.
Phones die.
Medical expenses appear.
Income changes.
Something at home suddenly needs repairing.
Without savings, an unexpected R5,000 expense can quickly become R5,000 of new debt.
That’s why an emergency fund matters.
You don’t have to wake up tomorrow morning with three or six months of expenses sitting in a bank account.
Start with what you can.
R100.
R500.
R1,000.
Then keep building.
The amount matters less at the beginning than developing the habit.
Over time, that emergency fund becomes something incredibly valuable:
breathing room.
Instead of every unexpected expense becoming a financial crisis, you’ve created a buffer between yourself and the problem.
5. Understand Compound Growth — Especially While You’re Young
This is one lesson I wish every young person understood.
When it comes to building wealth, money matters.
But time matters enormously too.
When money earns a return and those returns begin earning returns of their own, growth can accelerate over long periods.
That’s compounding.
And somebody in their 20s has something incredibly valuable on their side:
decades.
You don’t need to become an investment expert overnight.
In fact, I’d argue the opposite.
Learn first.
Understand basic concepts such as risk, diversification, fees, inflation and the difference between saving and investing.
Then, if you decide to invest, make informed decisions appropriate to your own circumstances and seek professional advice where necessary.
The important lesson isn’t what should I buy?
It’s understanding that starting earlier can be incredibly powerful because time is something you can never buy back later.
Try putting some numbers into our free Compounding Calculator. Change the amount, the return and particularly the number of years.
That last number might surprise you.
6. Don’t Confuse Looking Wealthy With Being Wealthy
This one can be difficult in your 20s.
We live in a world where success is constantly on display.
Cars.
Clothes.
Restaurants.
Holidays.
Phones.
Social media gives us a front-row seat to everybody else’s highlight reel.
The temptation to keep up can be enormous.
But appearances tell you almost nothing about someone’s actual financial position.
The person driving an ordinary paid-off car may be in a considerably stronger financial position than somebody driving a luxury vehicle with a massive monthly repayment.
Building wealth is often surprisingly boring.
It’s saying no sometimes.
It’s saving when nobody is watching.
It’s keeping something for five years instead of replacing it after two.
It’s making sensible decisions repeatedly.
You don’t have to look wealthy to be building wealth.
7. Build Good Habits Before You Need Big Money
One of the biggest misconceptions about money is:
“I’ll start managing it properly when I earn more.”
Unfortunately, earning more doesn’t automatically make you better at managing money.
If you cannot manage R10,000, earning R20,000 doesn’t guarantee the problem disappears.
Sometimes it just gives you R20,000 worth of opportunities to spend.
The habits matter.
Learn to budget.
Save consistently.
Think before borrowing.
Understand what you’re investing in.
Live within your means.
Review your finances regularly.
You don’t need to do everything perfectly.
You just need to make good decisions more often than bad ones.
You Don’t Need to Have It All Figured Out
If you’re in your 20s and reading this, you’re already doing something valuable.
You’re learning.
You will make financial mistakes. We all do.
The goal isn’t perfection.
The goal is to avoid making the same mistakes repeatedly — and, where possible, learn from people who made some of them before you.
Small decisions made consistently over long periods can have enormous consequences.
A little saved every month.
Debt avoided.
A habit developed.
An investment understood before it’s made.
An unnecessary purchase you decided not to make.
None of these decisions will make you wealthy tomorrow.
But give them enough time and they can change the direction of your financial life.
And perhaps one day you’ll look back and instead of saying…
“If only I knew this when I was your age.”
You’ll be very glad that you did.
Want to Take the Next Step?
I’ve created several free financial tools to help you put these principles into practice, including a Budget Planner, Debt Snowball Tracker, Emergency Fund Tracker and Compounding Calculator.
They’re free to use because financial knowledge becomes far more valuable when you actually apply it.
And if you’d like to go deeper, If Only I Knew This When I Was Your Age explores these principles and many more through practical lessons about money, debt, saving, investing and building wealth.
Knowledge is power. But application is key.
This article is for general educational purposes and does not constitute financial or investment advice. Everyone’s financial circumstances are different. Consider obtaining advice from an appropriately qualified financial professional before making significant financial or investment decisions.