I'm an American in my mid 20's. Is there something I should be doing to secure myself financially?
First of all, make sure you have an emergency fund.  Ideally this should be at least 6 months of living expenses in an easily accessible place. Do you have any credit card debt, school debt, or other debt?  Work towards becoming debt free, especially of higher interest debt and debt on things that are only depreciating (cars, for example).  If you have extra income, consider putting it towards debt. If you currently have access to a 403b, you should begin investing immediately.  If not, look into a Roth IRA.  The community has provided suggestions for good places to get one.  With a Roth IRA you take post-tax income money and invest it into this retirement account and when you reach retirement age you get it and all the interest as tax-free income.  You can't withdraw the principal until retirement age.  You should put up to the legal limit into a retirement account - if you can't do this at first work towards this goal. After an emergency fund, becoming debt free, and fully funding your retirement, save for goals such as a house or other things you are working towards. The exact order of doing these things might vary, but in general you need the emergency fund first. On average, you should be saving at least 10-15% of your income in order to be financially secure when you retire.  Different people will tell you different things, but really this can be split between short term savings (cash), long term savings (401ks, IRAs, stocks & bonds), and paying down debt. That $5k is a good start on an emergency fund, but you probably want a little more.  As justkt said, 6 months' worth is what you want to aim for.  Put this in a Money Market account, where you'll earn a little more interest but won't be penalized from withdrawing it when its needed (you may have to live off it, after all). Beyond that, I would split things up; if possible, have payroll deductions going to a broker (sharebuilder is a good one to start with if you can't spare much change), as well as an IRA at a bank. Set up a separate checking account just for rent and utilities, put a month's worth of cash in there, and have another payroll deduction that covers your living expenses + maybe 5% put in there automatically.  Then, set up automatic bill payments, so you don't even have to think about it.  Check it once a month to make sure there aren't any surprises. Pay off your credit cards every month.  These are, by far, the most expensive forms of credit that most people have.  You shouldn't be financing large purchases with them (you'll get better rates by taking a personal loan from a bank). Set specific goals for savings, and set up automatic payroll deductions to work towards them.  Especially for buying a house; most responsible lenders will ask for 20% down.  In today's market, that means you need to write a check for $40k or $50k.  While it's tempting to finance up to 100% of the property value, it's also risky considering how volatile markets can be.  You don't want to end up owing more on the property than it's worth two years down the road. If you find yourself at the end of the month with an extra $50 or so, consider your savings goals or your current debt instead of blowing it on a toy.  Especially if you have long term debt (high balance credit cards, vehicle or property loans), applying that money directly to principal can save you months (or years) paying it back, and hundreds or thousands of dollars of interest (all depending on the details of the loan, of course). Above all, have fun with it :)  Think of your personal net worth as you do your Gamer score on the XBox, and look for ways to maximize it with a minimum of effort or investment on your part!  Investing in yourself and your future can be incredibly rewarding emotionally :) "I may be walking on thin ice but that's never stopped me from answering before. ;) I have a PhD in physics.  I knew that I wasn't a die-hard publisher so I didn't pursue academia. A postdoc will likely pay about what a person with a BS in math could make in industry, but you're now a few years past that age.  You'll be playing catch-up.  The magic of compounding was working on a small amount of money while you were studying, if it was anything like my experience. When I think ""postdoc"" I think ""you're looking for tenure track"" so if that's incorrect forgive me.  Competition will be fierce for those positions, meaning you'll be looking at not one but several postdoc positions, all at low salaries.  Postdocs are a way of absorbing the glut of PhDs. Tenure track is a long road, and by the time you get there -- if you get there -- who knows if there will be such a thing as tenure? Long way of putting this:  I'd take a good, hard, careful look outside of academia for your employment if you're concerned about your financial outlook." "Buy this book.  It is a short, simple crash course on personal finance, geared at someone in their 20s just starting out their career.  You can easily finish it in a weekend.  The book is a little dated at this point (pre housing bubble), but it is still valid.  I personally feel it is the best intro to personal finance out there. 99% of the financial advice you read online will be a variation of what is already in this book.  If you do what the book says, you should be in a solid position financially.  You won't be an investment guru or anything, but you will at least have the fundamentals. There are various ""protips"" for personal finance that go beyond the book, but I would advise against paying too much attention to them until you have the basics down."
The first thing you need to do is to set yourself a budget. Total all your money coming in (from jobs, allowances, etc.) and all your money going out (including rent, utilities, loan repayments, food, other essential and the luxuries).  If your money coming in is more than your money going out, then you are onto a positive start. If on the other hand your money going out is more than the money coming in, then you are at the beginning of big trouble. You will have to do at least one of 2 things, either increase your income or reduce your expenses or both. You will have to go through all your expenses (money going out) and cut back on the luxuries, try to get cheaper alternatives for some of your essential, and get a second job or increase your hours at your current job. The aim is to always have more money coming in than the money you spend. The second thing to do is to pay off any outstanding debts by paying more than the minimum amounts and then have some savings goals. You said you wanted to save for a car - that is one saving goal. Another saving goal could be to set up a 6 month emergency fund (enough money in a separate account to be able to survive at least 6 months in case something happened, such as you lost your job or you suddenly got sick). Next you could look at getting a higher education so you can go out and get higher paying jobs. When you do get a higher paying job, the secret is not to spend all your extra money coming in on luxuries, you should treat yourself but do not go overboard. Increase the amounts you save and learn how to invest so you can get your savings to work harder for you. Building a sound financial future for yourself takes a lot of hard work and discipline, but once you do get started and change the way you do things you will find that it doesn't take long for things to start getting easier. The one thing you do have going for you is time; you are starting early and have time on your side. Is my financial status OK? If not, how can I improve it? I'm going to concentrate on this question, particularly the first half.   Net income $4500 per month (I'm taking this to be after taxes; correct me if wrong).  Rent is $1600 and other expenses are up to $800.  So let's call that $2500.  That leaves you $2000 a month, which is $24,000 a year.   You can contribute up to $18,000 a year to a 401k and if you want to maintain your income in retirement, you probably should.  The average social security payment now is under $1200.  You have an above average income but not a maximum income.  So let's set that at $1500.  You need an additional income stream of $900 a month in retirement plus enough to cover taxes.  Another $5500 for an IRA (probably a Roth).  That's $23,500.  That leaves you $500 a year of reliable savings for other purposes.  Another $5500 for an IRA (probably a Roth).  That's $23,500.  That leaves you $500 a year of reliable savings for other purposes.   You are basically even.  Your income is just about what you need to cover expenses and retirement.  You could cover a monthly mortgage payment of $1600 and have a $100,000 down payment.  That probably gets you around a $350,000 house, although check property taxes.  They have to come out of the $1600 a month.  That doesn't seem like a lot for a Bay area house even if it would buy a mansion in rural Mississippi.  Perhaps think condo instead.   Try to keep at least $15,000 to $27,000 as emergency savings.  If you lose your job or get stuck with a required expense (e.g. a major house repair), you'll need that money.   You don't have enough income to support a car unless it saves you money somewhere.  $500 a year is probably not going to cover insurance, parking, gas, and maintenance.   It's possible that you could tighten up your expenses, but in my experience, people are more likely to underestimate their expenses than overestimate.  That's why I'm saying $2500 (a little above the high end) rather than $2000 (your low end estimate).  If things are stable, wait a year and evaluate.  Track your actual spending.  Ask yourself if you made any large purchases.  Your budget should include an appliance (TV, refrigerator, washer/dryer, etc.) a year.  If you're not paying for that now (included in rent?), then you need to allow for it in your ownership budget.   I do not consider an ESPP to be a reliable investment vehicle.  Consider the Enron possibility.  You wake up one day and find out that there is no actual money.  Your stock is now worthless.  A diversified portfolio can survive this.  If you lose your job and your investment, you'll be stuck with just your savings.  Hopefully you didn't just tie them up in a house that you might have to sell to take your next job in a different location.  An ESPP might work as savings for the house.  If something goes wrong, don't buy the house.  But it's not retirement or emergency savings.   I would say that you are OK but could be better.  Get your retirement savings started.  That does two things.  One, it gives you money for retirement.  Two, it keeps you from having extra money now when it is easy to develop expensive habits.  An abrupt drop from $4500 in spending to $1200 will hurt.  A smooth transition from $2500 to $2500 is what you would like to see.  You are behind now, but you have the opportunity to catch up for a few years.   Work out how much you'll get from Social Security and how much you need to cover your typical expenses with the occasional emergency.  Expect high health care costs in retirement.  Medicare covers a lot but not everything, and health care is only getting more expensive.  Don't forget to assume higher taxes in the future to help cover that expense and the existing debt.  After a few years of catch up contributions, work out your long term plan assuming a reasonable real (after inflation) rate of return.  If you can reduce the $23,500 in retirement contributions then, that's OK.  But be pessimistic.  Most people overestimate good things and underestimate bad things.  It's much better to have extra than not enough.   A 401k comes with an administrator and your choice of mutual funds.  Try for diversification.  Some money in bonds (25% to 30%).  The remainder in stocks.  Look for index funds.  Try for a mix of value and growth, as they'll do better at different times.  As you approach retirement, you can convert some of that into shorter term, lower yield investments.  The rough rule of thumb is to have two to five years of withdrawals in short term investments like money market funds.  But that's more than twenty years off.   You have more choices with an IRA.  In particular, you can choose your own administrator.  But I'd keep the same stock/bond mix and stick to index funds if you're not interested in researching the more complex options.  You may want to invest your IRA in a growth fund and your 401k in value funds and bonds.  Then balance the stock/bond mix across both.   When you invest each year, look at the underrepresented funds and add the most to them.  So if bonds had a bad year and didn't keep pace, invest in bonds.  They're probably cheap.  You don't want to rebalance frequently, but once a year might be a good pace.  That's about how often you should invest in an IRA, so that can be a good time.   I'll let the others answer on the financial advisor part. There are, of course, many possible financial emergencies. They range from large medical expenses to losing your job to being sued to major home or car repairs to who-knows-what. I suppose some people are in a position where the chances that they will face any sort of financial emergency are remote. If you live in a country with national health insurance and there is near-zero chance that you will have any need to go outside this system, you are living with your parents and they are equipped to handle any home repairs, you ride the bus or subway and don't own a car so that's not an issue, etc etc, maybe there just isn't any likely scenario where you'd suddenly need cash. I can think of all sorts of scenarios that might affect me. I'm trying to put my kids through college, so if I lost my job, even if unemployment benefits were adequate to live on, they wouldn't pay for college. I have terrible health insurance so big medical bills could cost me a lot. I have an old car so it could break down any time and need expensive repairs, or even have to be replaced. I might suddenly be charged with a crime that I didn't commit and need a lawyer to defend me. Etc. So in a very real sense, everyone's situation is different. On the other hand, no matter how carefully you think it out, it's always possible that you will get bitten by something that you didn't think of. By definition, you can't make a list of unforeseen problems that might affect you! So no matter how safe you think you are, it's always good to have some emergency fund, just in case. How much is very hard to say. Congratulations on getting started in life! John Malloy's (American) research suggests that you should take some time to get used to living on your own, make some friends, and settle into your community.  During this time, you can build up an emergency fund.  If/when the stock markets do not seem to be in a bear market, you can follow user3771352's advice to buy stock ETFs. Do you hope to get married and have children in the next few years?  If so, you should budget time and money for activities where you make new friends (both men and women).  Malloy points out that many Americans meet their spouses through women's networks of friends. Frankly, things that would have seemed crazy to me as little as 5 years ago:  Moving most of my assets into precious metals, and since I can't afford (and don't think I have time to properly stock) a farm where I can be self-sufficient, looking at moving out of country to a place with a healthy economy that isn't too dependent on the US.  The other reason I'm looking at moving out of country is that the Federal Government seems to be preparing to transition into a police state - which makes some sense given probable large-scale riots when the economy collapses.  I don't think that who wins the Presidential election will make any difference to what the government will do. "It's hard to know what to tell you without knowing income, age, marital status, etc., so I'll give some general comments. ETFs come in all varieties.  Some have more volatility than others.  It all depends on what types of assets are in the fund. Right now it's tough to outpace inflation in an investment that's ""safe"" (CDs for example).  Online savings accounts pay 1% or less now. Invest only in what you understand, and only after everything else is taken care of (debt, living expenses, college costs, etc.)  A bank account is just fine.  You're investing in US Dollars.  Accumulating cash isn't a bad thing to do." "Since your question was first posted, I happened to watch PBS FRONTLINE's The Retirement Gamble, about ""America's Retirement Crisis"" and the retirement industry.  You can watch the entire episode online at the previous link, and it's also available on DVD. Here's a link to the episode transcript. Here's a partial blurb from a post at PBS that announced the episode: If you’ve been watching any commercial television lately, you are well   aware that the financial services industry is very busy running   expensive ads imploring us to worry about our retirement futures. Open   a new account today, they say. They are not wrong that we should be doing something: America is   facing a retirement crisis. One in three Americans has no retirement   savings at all. One in two reports that they can’t save enough. On top   of that, we are living longer, and health care costs, as we all know,   are increasing. But, as I found when investigating the retirement planning and mutual   funds industries in The Retirement Gamble, which airs tonight on   FRONTLINE, those advertisements are imploring us to start saving for   one simple reason. Retirement is big business — and very profitable. (... more... ) There's another related PBS FRONTLINE documentary from back in 2006, Can You Afford To Retire? You'll find a link on that page to watch the program online. Finally, I'm also aware of but haven't yet seen a new documentary called Broken Eggs: The Looming Retirement Crisis in America. Looks like it isn't available for online streaming or on DVD yet, but I expect it would be, eventually." "My recommendation is to pay off your student loans as quickly as possible. It sounds like you're already doing this but don't incur any other large debts until you have this taken care of.  I'd also recommend not buying a car, especially an expensive one, on credit or lease either. Back during the dotcom boom I and many friends bought or leased expensive cars only to lose them or struggle paying for them when the bottom dropped out. A car instantly depreciates and it's quite rare for them to ever gain value again. Stick with reliable, older, used cars that you can purchase for cash. If you do borrow for a car, shop around for the best deal and avoid 3+ year terms if at all possible. Don't lease unless you have a business structure where this might create a clear financial advantage. Avoid credit cards as much as possible although if you do plan to buy a house with a mortgage you'll need to maintain some credit history. If you have the discipline to keep your balance small and paid down you can use a credit card to build credit history. However, these things can quickly get out of hand and you'll wonder why you suddenly owe $10K, $20K or even more on them so be very careful with them. As for the house (speaking of US markets here), save up for at least a 20% down payment if you can. Based on what you said, this would be about $20-25K. This will give you a lot more flexibility to take advantage of deals that might come your way, even if you don't put it all into the house. ""Stretching"" to buy a house that's too expensive can quickly lead to financial ruin. As for house size, I recommend purchasing a 4 bedroom house even if you aren't planning on kids right away. It will resell better and you'll appreciate having the extra space for storage, home office, hobbies, etc. Also, life has a way of changing your plans for having kids and such." "The statement ""Finance is something all adults need to deal with but almost nobody learns in school."" hurts me. However I have to disagree, as a finance student, I feel like everyone around me is sound in finance and competition in the finance market is so stiff that I have a hard time even finding a paid internship right now. I think its all about perspective from your circumstances, but back to the question. Personally, I feel that there is no one-size-fits-all financial planning rules. It is very subjective and is absolutely up to an individual regarding his financial goals.  The number 1 rule I have of my own is - Do not ever spend what I do not have. Your reflected point is ""Always pay off your credit card at the end of each month."", to which I ask, why not spend out of your savings? plan your grocery monies, necessary monthly expenditures, before spending on your ""wants"" should you have any leftovers. That way, you would not even have to pay credit every month because you don't owe any. Secondly, when you can get the above in check, then you start thinking about saving for the rainy days (i.e. Emergency fund). This is absolutely according to each individual's circumstance and could be regarded as say - 6 months * monthly income. Start saving a portion of your monthly income until you have set up a strong emergency fund you think you will require. After you have done than, and only after, should you start thinking about investments. Personally, health > wealth any time you ask. I always advise my friends/family to secure a minimum health insurance before venturing into investments for returns. You can choose not to and start investing straight away, but should any adverse health conditions hit you, all your returns would be wiped out into paying for treatments unless you are earning disgusting amounts in investment returns. This risk increases when you are handling the bills of your family. When you stick your money into an index ETF, the most powerful tool as a retail investor would be dollar-cost-averaging and I strongly recommend you read up on it. Also, because I am not from the western part of the world, I do not have the cultural mindset that I have to move out and get into a world of debt to live on my own when I reached 18. I have to say I could not be more glad that the culture does not exist in Asian countries. I find that there is absolutely nothing wrong with living with your parents and I still am at age 24. The pressure that culture puts on teenagers is uncalled for and there are no obvious benefits to it, only unmanageable mortgage/rent payments arise from it with the entry level pay that a normal 18 year old could get." "First check: Do you have all the insurances you need? The two insurances everyone should have are: Another insurance you might want to get is a contents insurance (""Hausratsversicherung""). But if you don't own any super-expensive furniture or artworks, you might also opt to self-insure and cover it with: Priority 2: Emergency fund. Due to the excellent healthcare and welfare system in Germany, this is not as important as in many other countries. But knowing that you have a few thousand € laying around in liquid assets in case something expensive breaks down can really help you sleep at night. If you decide not to pay for contents insurance, calculate what it would cost you if there is a fire in your apartment and you would have to replace everything. That's how large your emergency fund needs to be. You also need a larger emergency fund if you are a homeowner, because as a homeowner there might always be an emergency repair you have to pay for. Priority 3: Retirement. Unless there will be some serious retirement reforms in the next 40 years (and I would not bet on that!), the government-provided pension will not be enough to cover your lifestyle cost. If you don't want to suffer from poverty as a senior citizen you will have to build up a retirement plan now. Check which options your company provides (""Betriebliche Altersvorsorge"") and what retirement options you have which give you free money from the government (""Riester-Rente""). Getting professional advise to compare all the options with each other can be really beneficial. Priority 4: Save for a home. In the long-run, owning a home is much cheaper than renting one. Paying of a mortgage is just like paying rent - but with the difference that the money you pay every month isn't spent. Most of it (minus interest and building maintenance costs) stays your capital! At one point you will have paid it off and then you never have to pay rent in your life. It even secures the financial future of your children and grandchildren, who will inherit your home. But few banks will give you a good interest rate if you have no own capital at all. So you should start saving money now. Invest a few hundred € every month in a long-term portfolio. You might also get some additional free money for this purpose from your employer (""Vermögenswirksame Leistungen"")." I wouldn't want to have a house no matter where I live. So I am more than OK with always living in an apartment. We live in a really nice place right now.  My husband is pretty up-to-date on how the country is running and he would be telling me if he were at all concerned about the state of things. Which he isn't... at least not anymore than when I first met him.  So, while I am sure that I will always be middle class... I am OK with that. And perhaps Americans do earn 20% more than Germans but they also pay a lot more for things that Germans do not pay as much for.  Edit: Also, my husband's grandfather was one of the leading historians in germany until he died in 2009. His grandparents were very well off. His parents were poor while he grew up. My husband is on his way to being a partner in an expanding business (he does programming) and his brother is a Pharmacist.  By this time in a year or so from now the amount of money my husband earns will double. "Debt cripples you, it weighs you down and keeps you from living your life the way you want.  Debt prevents you from accomplishing your goals, limits your ability to ""Do"" what you want, ""Have"" what you want, and ""Be"" who you want to be, it constricts your opportunities, and constrains your charity. As you said,  Graduated in May from school.  Student loans are coming due here in January.  Bought a new car recently. The added monthly expenses have me concerned that I am budgeting my money correctly. Awesome! Congratulations.  You need to develop a plan to repay the student loans.  Buying a (new) car before you have planned you budget may have been premature. I currently am spending around 45-50% of my monthly (net)income to cover all   my expenses and living. The left over is pretty discretionary, but things   like eating dinner outside the house and expenses that are abnormal would   come out of this.  My question is what percentage is a safe amount to be   committing to expenses on a monthly basis? Great!  Plan 40-50% for essentials, and decide to spend under 20-30% for lifestyle.  Be frugal here and you could allocate 30-40% for financial priorities. Budget - create a budget divided into three broad categories, control your spending and your life. Goals - a Goal is a dream with a plan. Organize your goals into specific items with timelines, and steps to progress to your goals. You should have three classes of goals, what you want to ""Have"", what you want to ""Do"", and who you want to ""Be""; Ask yourself, what is important to you. Then establish a timeline to achieve each goal.  You should place specific goals or steps into three time blocks, Near (under 3-6 months), medium (under 12 months), and Long (under 24 months).  It is ok to have longer term plans, but establish steps to get to those goals, and place those steps under one of these three timeframes. Example, Good advice I have heard includes keeping housing costs under 25%, keeping vehicle costs under 10%, and paying off debt quickly.  Some advise 10-20% for financial priorities, but I prefer 30-40%.  If you put 10% toward retirement (for now), save 10-20%, and pay 10-20% toward debt, you should make good progress on your student loans." "I was going to ask, ""Do you feel lucky, punk?"" but then it occurred to me that the film this quote came from, Dirty Harry, starring Clint Eastwood, is 43 years old.  And yet, the question remains. The stock market, as measured by the S&P has returned 9.67%  compounded over the last 100 years. But with a standard deviation just under 20%, there are years when you'll do better and years you'll lose. And I'd not ignore the last decade which was pretty bad, a loss for the decade.  There are clearly two schools of thought. One says that no one ever lost sleep over not having a mortgage payment. The other school states that at the very beginning, you have a long investing horizon, and the chances are very good that the 30 years to come will bring a return north of 6%. The two decades prior to the last were so good that these past 30 years were still pretty good, 11.39% compounded.  There is no right or wrong here. My gut says fund your retirement accounts to the maximum. Build your emergency fund. You see, if you pay down your mortgage, but lose your job, you'll still need to make those payments. Once you build your security, think of the mortgage as the cash side of your investing, i.e. focus less on the relatively low rate of return (4.3%) and more on the eventual result, once paid, your cash flow goes up nicely.   Edit - in light of the extra information you provided, your profile reads that you have a high risk tolerance. Low overhead, no dependents, and secure employment combine to lead me to this conclusion. At 23, I'd not be investing at 4.3%. I'd learn how to invest in a way I was comfortable with, and take it from there.  Disclosure (Updated) - I am older, and am semi-retired. I still have some time left on the mortgage, but it doesn't bother me, not at 3.5%. I also have a 16 year old to put through college but her college account i fully funded." Similarly, too much long term investment seems unproductive, but what would be too much? In 1900, the life expectancy of someone in the United States was less than 50.  It is now in the 70s.  My grandparents were born around that time and all lived into their 80s and 90s.  Life expectancy in India is currently about 66.  You should expect that to increase into the 70s if not the 80s in the next fifty years.   You should plan on living until 120.  Why?  If you die earlier than that, you may have wasted some money that you could have used for a better living standard.  However, if you do live that long and you spent all your savings by the time that you were 66, you'll have a hard retirement.  You've already said that you won't have descendants to take care of you.  You'll need your investments to do so.  You need long term investments more than someone with a family, not less.   You need to able to afford a house for retirement.  You need to be able to maintain it, buy food, etc. on your savings.  In order to be sure it lasts, you need to build your long term investments until they produce a steady income that comes close to matching your preretirement income.   There are some costs that you won't have in retirement.  You won't need to save for retirement.  You won't need to commute to work.  So your retirement income doesn't need to support that.   If I were you, I'd save like everyone else until income from investments matched my current expenses minus commuting.  At that time, you can readjust.   Overall, you are far more likely not to save enough than too much.  I wouldn't worry about oversaving in your twenties.  No one actually does so. "As someone who has a very similar debt amount and environment (new grad, nice new paying job, want a car, etc), I'd like to share something with you. Life has unexpected costs. Luckily I didn't buy that new car the first few months out of college like I had planned to; I'm glad that I didn't because, as a fledgling ""adult"", despite having lived on my own while in college while working part-to-full time there are some things you just don't realize until it either happens or it happens to someone else. Here are some of those things: I could go on but I won't. $95K is good money and I would definitely recommend spending it a bit to enjoy yourself. But I would honestly tell you that taking your monthly expenses, adding a few hundred on top of that and then multiplying  that sum by 3 would be a smart savings amount before picking up a car loan. Maybe that's an excessive savings but I've seen way too many people burn out over their cost-of-living and their failure to adjust appropriately when shit hits the fan. So instead of having to deal with the stab at your pride when having to lower the cost/quality of living that you'll probably grow accustomed to at a $95K salary, just prepare for the worst.  Oh, and did I mention... A NEW JOB IS NOT A SECURE JOB Consider yourself to likely be the first asset dropped from the company if even the tiniest thing goes wrong. I know way too many people who were fresh hires at Intel, Boeing, and a few other big tech companies that pay around what you make and, despite being bad asses in college, they were dropped like a bad habit when their employers hit rough patches. To those even more experienced than me, please feel free to add to the list. I'd personally love to know them myself."