Rachel Turns 22....Any Advice?

It was Rachel’s 22nd birthday yesterday.

She has been home from the holidays which means she has had to stare at me mostly on the couch recovering or had to visit me at the hospital.

As she always does, Rachel makes the best of things. She’s been really busy catching up with her cousins and friends and yesterday she had a bunch of them over to celebrate and watch the first episode of the new season of the ‘Bachelor’ while I hid out in the bedroom watching hockey and the first season of Dracula on Netflix (Ellen ran out to do errands).

Rachel is heading into her last semester in college and has so many opportunities ahead. I remember being 22 and not having any idea what I was going to do. I had an undergraduate degree and the stock market had just crashed (1987) so my first job at the stock brokerage was over.

If I were to give any advice to Rachel (and I do) it would be to spend less time on things that make her worry and more time figuring out ‘how to be successful at her career’.

According to crowdsourced shopping platform ‘Slickdeals.net’…even though most consumers (74%) say they have a budget, 79% of them fail to follow it.

First of all, there is NO way 74% of consumers have a budget or even know how to make a budget. Second of all, personal budgeting is most likely a plot by the drug companies to sell more anxiety medicine.

In my personal opinion, everyone should know how to create a basic budget so they have a basis of reality, but from what I remember of being hooked on Quicken and personal budgets in the 90’s was a major waste of time spent worrying and tracking.

I still think it is my job as a parent to take some of the stress out of Rachel’s budgeting to keep her focused on ‘how to be successful at her career’.

As for ‘how to be successful at her career’ there is advice she can get all over the social web, because it is 2020 and people with skills do share great stuff.

Just yesterday, Sam Altman of Y Combinator riffed on Twitter on the exact subject.

I will share it with her today so we can chat about it.

Happy Birthday Rachel.