@capcon.co: I am 22. I do not have it all figured out. But there are three things about money I genuinely wish someone had told me at 20, because they would have changed the most. Starting small beats waiting to start big. At 20 I thought I needed a real salary before saving or investing was worth bothering with. That waiting was the mistake. The amount never mattered, the habit did. €50 a month at 20 builds the routine and the compounding head start that a lump sum at 30 cannot catch up to. Start with what you have. A pension is not an old person problem. At 20 a pension feels decades away and completely irrelevant. It is the opposite. The years between 20 and 30 are the single most valuable a pension will ever have. Thanks to compounding and the employer match, contributing in your 20s is worth more than almost any pay rise you will get later. The earliest euros do the heaviest lifting. Being good with money is a learned skill. I used to think some people were just naturally good with money and I was not one of them. That belief keeps people stuck. Nobody is born good with money. It is a skill you learn. Tax, credits, investing, budgeting. The earlier you learn the rules, the more time you have to use them. Knowing what to do matters more than how much you earn. None of this requires a big salary. None of it requires being a finance person. It just requires starting before you feel ready. The best time to learn this was at 20. The next best time is today. Save this and send it to someone in their early 20s who needs to hear it. Educational content only. Not financial advice. #irishfinance #moneymindset #PersonalFinance

Tom Hodgkinson | Irish Money

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Saturday 23 May 2026 18:29:23 GMT