This 25 year old is keeping his day job (server admin/help desk) with a friendly boss who doesn't mind him working after work. I'm doing business/computer consulting after 5pm and on the weekends and am currently involved in a few projects for websites and small business server infrastructure. I've got very little credit card debt (under 2k - mostly operating expenses) and even though I never finished college I still have about 8k in student loans but should have them paid off in a few years. I save about 30% and have recently had to apply some of that to take on some extra family related expenses as my folks have been hit a lot harder then I have.
I can't say I'm enjoying the economic climate and watching all layoffs (At my day job and with my friends and family) but Its motivated me to take some hobbies and work that normally took a lot of energy and figure out how to do more with them. I can now go from sales/brainstorming to invoicing a lot faster and easier then I could even just a few months ago. I think that will pay off in the long run.
Also, saving now, and putting into my 401k and roth/IRA's should help a lot when I'm older. I'm glad I can put money in markets now when they're low! (and I'm lucky I got confused and pulled out about 2 months before markets crashed! They weren't making any sense to me.)
I can't say I'm enjoying the economic climate and watching all layoffs (At my day job and with my friends and family) but Its motivated me to take some hobbies and work that normally took a lot of energy and figure out how to do more with them. I can now go from sales/brainstorming to invoicing a lot faster and easier then I could even just a few months ago. I think that will pay off in the long run.
Also, saving now, and putting into my 401k and roth/IRA's should help a lot when I'm older. I'm glad I can put money in markets now when they're low! (and I'm lucky I got confused and pulled out about 2 months before markets crashed! They weren't making any sense to me.)