Lessons

Buy a Toyota if you want a gasoline car.

Never buy an American automobile, they are still not built as well as Japanese cars.

If you're buying an electric car, only buy a Tesla or a Hyundai/Kia, the rest are not up to speed and won't be until at least the fall of next year. Tesla wins on software, which traditional car manufacturers cannot compete on. Think of your electric car as an appliance, a computer, not an automobile. How it looks is secondary.

If you want a luxury car, buy a Lexus. It will last the longest and be relatively trouble-free.

German cars drive great, but their repair records are not so great.

Never buy an Italian car, only lease it.

Never lease a car unless you're rich or the manufacturer is subsidizing the lease. You're burning money. The key is to own a car as long as possible, because if you purchase a brand that's relatively trouble-free you'll have years of driving with no payments at all. Only lease a car if you're rich or it's tax advantageous. As for needing to impress others...they're impressed for a moment, and then they go back to thinking about themselves.

Image is intrinsic, not external. No one cares about you. Stop spending money to keep up with the Joneses.

Say no to yourself for financial security. Everybody can't own and do whatever they want, just like they can't eat whatever they want.

Go to college unless you learn a trade. Forget all the blowback, a degree is the entry fee, you need one to play. The institution is irrelevant, as is what you study, just graduate. No one cares what your grades are, just graduate.

If you're going to the Ivy League go to Harvard or Yale, the others don't pay the same dividends. And the dividend is not based on what you learn in class, it's about who you meet and ultimately network with.

Buy Amazon Prime. No matter what you think about the company. You'll be saving yourself time and money and the planet in the process. You can take time and drive to the store, but too often you'll find the retail store doesn't stock what you need, whereas Amazon's inventory is nearly endless and delivery is nearly instant. Don't protest politically if it's like pissing in the wind. Amazon is too convenient and too good for most people to give up, it's not going anywhere. If you take a stand against Amazon, you make Amazon users roll their eyes, it illustrates you're not living in the real, practical world.

Don't watch cable news and believe it's changing anybody's mind. They're there for the already converted, Fox for the right, MSNBC for the left.

Read the newspaper, whether it be in print or online or both. A half hour news show covers only a fraction of one page of the newspaper.

Don't be cheap, you have to spend money to make money. As soon as you're cutting back, denying yourself, you're losing money and taking yourself out of the game. As for those who are truly poor...I feel for you. Take advantage of every government program to take care of your basic needs.

Buy health insurance, you'll need it, and you don't know when.

Eat fast food all you want, but you'll ultimately pay a price. And it's not usually in dollars. Schools should teach everybody to cook, but they assume you know how, which many people do not. In order to eat healthy you have to know how to cook or be rich enough for a private chef, your pick.

Buy the best ticket for the concert, if you're bothering to lay down, why save a fraction of the money for a bad seat?

When something is cheap, buy the best, it's much more satisfying. You can buy packaged cookies, or you can buy gourmet cookies from a shop and be elated.

Buy super-premium ice cream, i.e. Ben & Jerry's, Häagen-Dazs, McConnell's... Once again, you can live large for very little money.

Don't keep your cash in a traditional commercial bank. Interest rates are far too low. And keep cash, it's a hedge against the market and you never know when you'll need it.

If you get paid in cash, never put it in your bank account if your goal is to avoid taxes. You can only avoid taxes on cash if it's untraceable.

A house doesn't always go up in price quickly. If you're not planning to stay, beware of buying at the top of the market. However, if you're willing to stay for a while, years, then odds are it's a good investment. But you might get a better return on your money elsewhere.

Reading and writing are the building blocks of a great career. You must be like a shark, you must keep learning or you calcify and die.

No one is like you. Don't read books by successful people thinking they apply to you. You have to find out what you do best.

Just because you love it, that doesn't mean you'll make any money doing it.

Making money is a skill. Learn it, or work for the man.

Who you marry is the most important decision in your life, choose wisely. Someone with the same values and ambitions. Looks are not everything. Nor are riches. You want someone compassionate. Divorce is not painless, despite what the celebrities tell you, it will sit with you your entire life. Plan to get married once, or don't get married at all.

Pay off your credit cards every month, or don't use them. If you need a credit card to buy something, paying interest, don't, forgo the purchase, very little is necessary if you really think about it.

Buy an expensive phone. And buy the phone that is popular in your area. Over 50% of Americans smartphone owners use the iPhone. Even more if you're a teenager. You want to use what the masses use, this is how VHS beat Betamax.

It's not wrong to be an early adopter in tech. Sure, the price may go down in the future, features may be added, but you'll be without the item and its benefits while you wait on the sidelines. Most tech products tend to work fine right out of the box, or they don't. If you need it, buy it, don't wait.

Go to the doctor. Ignorance is no match for cancer.

Every operation has side effects, none delivers a 100% result. If it's elective surgery, know this and decide accordingly. Even if you're getting corrective eye surgery, no one gets a 100% result.

Just because someone else says they're happy with something doesn't mean you will be.

People who buy things usually say they're great, they're invested in them, take their opinion on the product or procedure with a grain of salt.

Learn how to get along, but those with an identity, who can say no, who can risk turning people off, win in the end.

Vote, it does matter who is in office. You can't complain if you do not vote.

Subscribe to Apple News+. Period. Don't be a cheapskate, for ten bucks a month you get so much.

Ritzy hotel rooms are unnecessary unless you're rich or you're going to spend a ton of time in them. This is somewhere where you can save money. But that does not mean you can stay in a cheap hotel. The people who run cheap hotels know what they're selling, if you want more you have to go elsewhere.

It's easy to blow all your money on luxury travel, this is the number one way celebrities lose their money.

Research the TV show before you watch it, it's an investment of hours. RottenTomatoes is your friend, and oftentimes your friends are not. Furthermore, even a lowbrow will enjoy a highbrow show more. Quality counts. Don't trust the algorithm. Beware of people and outlets that want to make it easy for you when it's not very hard to find the truth.

Check Amazon, the Wirecutter and "ConsumerReports" before a major purchase. Take all reviews with a grain of salt, you have to make your own decision, you must weigh the reviews and analyze, but don't buy blind.

Ignore one star reviews, they are usually cranks complaining about shipping or something that was flawed on arrival or they're just nuts.

Beware if there are not a lot of reviews, especially if they're overwhelmingly positive. Creators have their friends post positive reviews to sway customers, beware.

Complain about traffic, but don't let it inhibit you from going somewhere and doing something. Sure, if you can, drive when traffic is low, but if you consider all the impediments of life, you'll never leave the house.

Don't buy a gun for personal safety, odds are you'll shoot a family member, yourself or someone innocent. If you're a hunter, if you live in the wilderness, that's one thing. But if you're buying a gun to keep yourself safe in your house... Odds are you're going to regret it if you ever use it. And odds are if you need it, you won't have it handy and use it. And odds are you will never need it.

Make sure your computer and smartphone are still supported with software updates by the manufacturer, otherwise you're opening yourself to a security breach.

Don't be afraid of public Wi-Fi, transgression is a myth.

Don't jump off the bridge just because your friends did.


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