Over the next few days, I will rehash a series that was featured a while ago from MoneySense.ca. The series was called Rich At Any Age - A LifeCycle Guide To Personal Finance. It was basically a synopsis of what most people could expect at a given stage of their life, with links to related MoneySense.ca articles.

I explained on Canadian Capitalist that MoneySense merged and reappeared as a sub-section of Canadian Business Online. As a result, that particular feature had links to articles that were no longer functional. I thought I might as well do a favour to MoneySense and direct readers to the stories that I found manually for each section. American readers may not understand the minor differences in the Canadian system but I’m sure you can follow along quite nicely!

Starting Out
Your 20s are all about new opportunities. Maybe you’ve been working for a couple of years and you’re starting to think about investing for the first time. Or perhaps you’ve just finished school and are looking for your first job that doesn’t involve flipping burgers or planting trees. Either way, this is the ideal time to be laying the groundwork for your financial future. “If you do your 20s right, you’re set for life,” says Paul W. Lermitte, a certified financial planner in Vancouver.

Why? Because the miracle of compound interest means that every dollar you save now is worth far, far more than the dollars you save in a decade or two. Of course, most people don’t want to spend their 20s hunched over the financial pages. The good news is that you don’t have to. Being smart about money at this stage of life is simple. All you have to do is start saving early, use your credit card sparingly, and do your homework before buying that first house or first car. Then sit back and let time do the rest.

Related MoneySense Articles

• Starting To Save - Mary Teresa Bitti
• Wheels Of Fortune - Gabrielle Bauer
• Your Move - Allan Britnell
• Plastic Measures - Mary Teresa Bitti

Stay tuned for when we come back to discuss what people are doing in their 30s!