Your 20s are one of the most interesting time periods of your life. It is the time in which you officially enter adulthood. Anyone who says this transition happens at 18 is a lunatic. I remember what I was like at 18, and there is no chance that immature, adolescent, insecure mess of a human being resembled anything close to an adult. But the reason your 20s are so interesting is not because you enter the world of adulthood. It is because even though you’re entering the world of adulthood, your 20s are the last time in your life you can still use the “I’m young” excuse to justify your irresponsible behavior, and it’s still somewhat valid. I’m a believer that the ability to live irresponsibly is a privilege, and too many people my age seem to reject that privilege in order to rush to some “next stage” in life. I’m 23 and I am never more baffled in life than when I see someone my age post their engagement photos on Instagram. I don’t know what to say to those people except: I hope the wedding is fun, and I hope the divorce in four years is both amicable and as painless as possible. I want be clear though, I am not advocating that you should live your entire 20s the exact same way you did while you were in college. I’m not one to judge, but if you’re 29 and getting shitfaced off a 12-pack of Natty Light on a Tuesday night, you should probably make a change. What am I advocating for though, is for people to embrace the freedom of living in your 20s. More importantly, what I’m saying is your 20s are not a time to rush to the next stage of adulthood, instead, they are a time to blend the advantages of adulthood, a job and a salary, with the acceptable level of irresponsibleness(actually a real word, I looked that shit up) that comes with being young. That brings me to my main point: money.
Money is great. We all want it, very few of us have it, and that’s fucked. I’m not positive, but I think that might be Bernie’s campaign slogan. But money really is great though, which is why it may seem strange to some that this is essentially a blog advocating for getting rid of more of it. That’s not exactly my main point though, this is really a blog about experiencing life as much as possible while you’re in your 20s. To do that, you’re going to have to spend some money. As I’m typing this I can hear the voices of every dad in America, with a firmly tucked-in shirt and a cell phone holster, disagreeing with me. So I’ll add this next bit just for them. Yes, of course you should be saving some money in your 20s, and planning for your future and retirement and all that boring shit. I also want to say that I am completely aware that many of us in our 20s are broke. Furthermore, many people in their 20s have more expenses than I do because I’m still a child who lives at home. I am not recommending that anyone live beyond their means. I understand that some people have apartments they can barely afford and this leaves them with very little money to spend. I’m not necessarily talking to those people. I’m talking to the people who do have a little bit of money, but are so focused on the future that they neglect the present.
Young people who are overly-cautious about spending any amount of money at any point in their life bother me for the same reason that 24-year-olds who say, “Oh my god, I’m so old” bother me. Think about it like this, if you spend the entirety of your 20s saying “I’m so old,” what the fuck are you going to say when you’re in your 40s or 50s? At some point you’re going to actually get older, and you’re going to look back on your younger days and realize you spent all of them complaining about how old you were even back then. My question for you is do you hate life so much, you absolutely joyless human being. Similarly though, when I see people in their early-20s constantly stressing and refusing to spend money on anything, I can’t help but think about when they reach their 30s, get married, buy a house, have kids, and realize the things they were stressing about in their 20s are now ridiculous in comparison to their life at 34. One could argue that the person I’m describing would actually be better off though because they saved throughout their 20s, which helped financially prepare them for the challenges of their 30s. I would counter that by saying that sure, they might be a little ahead of the average person, but nobody can really prepare for that stuff. Also, they might be slightly ahead financially speaking, but they completely missed out on experiencing life in their 20s, and now they’re going to have to wait 18 years in order to make up for that in any way because they just brought home little Bobby and Brenda from the hospital. Bad names by the way.
I honestly believe that it is important to experience life while you’re young and don’t have a ton of responsibilities. And yes, sometimes experiencing life costs money. But fuck it, go out on that Saturday night, take that road trip, go to that concert, just try to have some fucking fun. That brings me to my next point which I have been avoiding saying directly because it will make me sound like the most annoying human on the planet. But if you prepare yourself, I think we can get through this together so here we go; you should spend your money on experiences, not things. Ugh, I know, it’s gross and I sound like a wannabe Instagram influence, but it’s true. I needed to say that to make it clear that I’m not arguing for recklessly spending your money in your 20s, or simply buying something every time you want it. But do I think you should find the things worth spending your money on and not be afraid to do so? Absolutely.
Here’s the other great thing about spending money while you’re young, when having little to no savings fucks you up in five years thats not really your problem, it’s future-you’s problem. I say fuck that guy, let’s party. In all seriousness though, don’t be the guy that misses out on life in your 20s because you were too scared to even spend a little bit of money. Also, don’t be the guy that rushes past the fun, free, and responsibility-less life of your 20s in order to be a grown-up for some strange reason. There may be people out there who completely disagree with what I said in this blog. I totally understand that, and if they want to tell me that in person, they can come to the office I’m working at when I’m 92 years old because I still haven’t saved enough money to retire.
Not A Real Person Yet 