For context: 27 and also a software engineer.<p>If you do invest (and it's a good idea), make sure to account for liquidity requirements.<p>For example, most people don't realize that if a substantial portion of their wealth has equity exposure and the market experiences a correction, their money is effectively illiquid (because selling at or near the trough would be foolish). You don't want to be caught in this situation while simultaneously having to pay for a wedding/car/home downpayment/initialization capital for a business.<p>So, think ahead about your anticipated liquidity requirements when you decide how you're going to invest. And always assume you have no idea what the market is going to do.<p>By the way, the correlation between most asset classes and the broader market skyrockets during corrections. In other words, most asset classes you might have exposure to will also dip during a downturn. Keep this in mind when deciding how to structure your allocations.<p>Personally, my purchases fall into a handful of categories:<p>- Inexpensive, non-recurring (or infrequent): books, classes/meetups, clothes, one-off trips, etc<p>- Inexpensive, recurring: subscriptions (Netflix, Spotify, HBOGo, Amazon Prime), coffee, the marginal cost of higher quality food and usually pre-prepared, vitamins, cleaning service, and some other things that improve wellbeing or buy back my time<p>- Expensive, recurring: rent<p>- Expensive, non-recurring: trips/vacations<p>I generally don't worry too much about the 'Inexpensive' categories because they're typically not worth adjusting. If you ever do a comprehensive financial self-assessment, you'll see that being pennywise is a losing game just based on the numbers and therefore not even worth the stress/extra effort. Just don't be unreasonably penny foolish and you're fine. In my case, I don't drink and I don't really like expensive meals, so I save a lot of money right there.<p>I try to keep my rent as low as possible. That's the easiest thing to optimize. Having a smaller space is actually useful as it forces you to be outside more often.<p>I almost never balk at spending on experiences or trips; in fact, I consider those the best expenditures by far.<p>I do not (and probably will not for the foreseeable future) have a car, a mortgage, or a wedding (not planning to get married any time soon; have decided it's worth delaying in my case).<p>Two things in the next 3-5 years I might need money for: initialization capital for a business (if a side hustle matures) and backpacking/traveling expenses. I'm hoping to go off for at least 3-6 months at some point in the next 2-3 years.<p>Savings and investment rate is above $50K per year. I usually go 40% in the market and 60% high yield savings + bonds. That's on the low side because I anticipate needing cash on hand in the next 3-5 years.