Significant Lessons from the Sapere Aude Consortium on Financial Wisdom for Twentysomethings
By Nahshon Yisrael ’25
It might seem difficult to manage your finances in your twenties, but the opinion snapshot created by Roseline Tavarez Cepeda ’26, Peter Bitalvo ’26, and other interns at the Sapere Aude Consortium provides feasible strategies for accumulating wealth early. Their “Twentysomething’s Finance Checklist” strikes a balance between short-term financial decisions and long-term wealth-building tactics in order to make financial growth achievable.
Sapere Aude is a charitable organization that offers research and asset management internships to first-generation college students as well as the children of public servants and those employed by nonprofit organizations. Sapere is quickly emerging as the best internship preparation program in the Northeast, helping first-generation students enter the financial services sector. Every student receives a personal mentor from an industry executive.
Their team came up with recommendations by reading financial books that were provided, including The Algebra of Wealth by Scott Galloway, The Psychology of Money by Morgan Housel, and The Best Financial Life by Anne Lester. They also consulted a variety of professionals within the investment and wealth management industry.
1. Develop Your Marketable Skills: Start by developing highly sought-after abilities. The manual places a strong emphasis on matching skills with high-employment sectors so that young professionals can establish stable, upward-moving careers.
2. Establish Your Financial Objectives: A solid foundation can be established by creating a five-year life plan with specific financial objectives, establishing financial goals according to lifestyle requirements. This, coupled with a strategy to make and save money consistently, is essential.
3. Wise Expenditure – Needs vs. Wants: It is recommended that young individuals examine their spending patterns and give priority to needs above temporary desires. To make sure that every dollar spent results in long-term happiness, tools such as cost-per-use can be used to assess the long-term value of purchases.
4. Making Strategic Investments and Savings: A key component of financial resilience is setting up an emergency fund and dividing savings into short-, mid-, and long-term objectives. To invest, the advice suggests creating retirement accounts, like a Roth IRA or 401(k), and using dollar-cost averaging to easily handle market swings.
5. Make Use of Compounding and Time Power: For young investors, time is the most valuable resource. Young folks can build significant wealth through compounding by regularly saving and investing modest sums of money. Even small savings, such as $10 each week, can grow impressively over time.
In the end, this snapshot serves as a reminder that consistent, gradual work is essential to long-term financial stability. For more in-depth explanations, please review the full snapshot here.
