conversation: User (orangegurg): "I don't want this to be just for me, but answers about not racking up truly unnecessary debt (credit cards, unaffordable car/home/student financing) or investing earlier are assumed to be known. My question for this sub:\n\nIf you could be 25 again - let's say no debt and income fairly beyond your immediate needs, what would you do that will pay off long term? Besides maxing out a 401(k), Roth IRA, converting a rolled over 401(k) to an IRA. What long term strategies do you really wish you did? Bonds, annuities, real estate, travel?"
  Self: "At 25 (AKA 8 years ago), I would have:\n\n- Purchased a used car not a new\n\n- Read more financial books (TMND, Your Money or Your Life, Random Walk Down Wall Steet, etc.)\n\n- Set my Roth on "auto fund", taken more advantage of my uncle who is a financial advisor\n\n- Lived more frugally than I did (though I did pretty well), could probably shave 1-2 years off debt payback\n\n- Not blindly chosen the higher offer for my job because I like money and thought a burgeoning relationship with a girl would turn into something... wasted 1 year of my life\n\n- Lobbied more aggressively to work in refining directly vs. for an engineering contractor\n\n- Moved to a new city new to me vs. stay where I went to school and move back to the town I grew up in (though admittedly had a good job)\n\n- Played less WoW\n\n- Worked out more\n\n- Taken up fishing again... I used to fish so much, not so much any more... :(\n\n- Beefed up my programming skills, becoming cursory familiar with C#, Python (did Python even exist then??), C, C++\n\n- Started buying tools to build a collection (wrenches, basic woodworking stuff, etc.)\n\n- Further honed my cooking skills"
  sonfer (sonfer): "&gt; Played less WoW\n\nThis is key."
  Sleepy_One (Sleepy_One): "Why is this key?"
  farmerfranc (farmerfranc): "Because with less time wasted there, he could have done things that mattered to him eight years later."
  Schnort (Schnort): "When I looked at my total time played across all my characters, I was a bit disgusted with myself.\n\nGranted, a lot of it was 'i got nothing else going on, i'll putz around and level a new character instead of surf tv', but still, I think a literal year was logged on my account before I stopped playing."
  Iusedtobeonimgur (Iusedtobeonimgur): "If you enjoy it, what's the harm. Having fun in your life is pretty much the only thing that matters, no ?"
  vagrantheather (vagrantheather): "It's junk food fun. It's something you can put your mind on autopilot for and enjoy for a few hours, but it leaves no lasting impression of "fun" or "worthwhile." Like redditing. I love reddit, but I spend a ton of time here, and I could be doing things that will matter to me in two weeks/two years instead."
  FelicitousName (FelicitousName): "I don't know, I have some pretty good memories from playing WoW with friends."
  Self: "So do I!\n\nSeveral transitioned into RL... one is marrying my friend one day!\n\nLOTS of good memories late at night doing stuff."
  