431-How a 22-Year-Old College Grad Should Prioritize Their Steps Towards Financial Independence

Today I answer this listener question:

Hi Joshua, I am a 22 year old recent college graduate. I have since landed a job and have been working for about 4 months now. Prior to graduating college, I was much less educated on money matters and hardly mindful about my personal finances. Upon graduating, I realized that I knew next to nothing about budgeting, saving, investing, and growing wealth. Additionally, many technical terms and aspects of finance confused me. Since I was going to be getting a "real job" soon and making more money than I ever have before, I decided to self-educate and rid myself of financial ignorance. I began reading books, blogs, watching YouTube videos, and listening to podcasts. I now find myself in a much better position to make sound monetary decisions. Here is my current situation: I live at home with my parents rent free. I am extremely fortunate to have no debt from college. I have no debt. I work a full time job and save virtually all of that money. I work a part time job and use that money as my "spending money." Essentially, I am blessed to have a blank slate coming out of college. The downside of my equation is that my full time job does not pay particularly well ~$31,000 a year and I live in an area with a high cost of living (northern VA). Do you have any advice for someone like me who is just getting started in the real world and wants to begin a path to financial independence? I do realize that a huge step would be to find a better paying job – I am working on that. However what would you suggest that I do in the meantime to add additional income and begin my journey to FI? My goal is not to make this all about making more money, but rather to position myself in such a way that I can live life the way that I want. ALSO I want to be in a position where I can easily provide advice and assistance to those who are less well off than I am. Thank you in advance for any advice that you can provide!

Enjoy!

Joshua

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