The best money advice that I ever got was boring - and life-changing

MW The best money advice that I ever got was boring - and life-changing

By Mark DeCambre

How the quiet money decisions can matter more than the loud advice - and why we're launching a newsletter to help you focus on what actually matters

Don't Short Yourself - MarketWatch's new weekly newsletter that offers smart tips to help you earn, stack and grow your money.

The first piece of bona fide financial advice that I recall receiving after I graduated high school wasn't a rip-roaring stock pick or a clever way to beat the S&P 500 SPX year after year. It was incredibly simple. In fact, its sheer simplicity made it impossible to forget.

So, when I landed my first legit job out of college, I set up my company-sponsored retirement account, funded it, automated my annual increases and promptly forgot about it - to the tune, assuming markets roughly cooperate, of a seven-figure IRA by the time I'm of retirement vintage.

That's not a flex. That's math. That's the quiet beauty of compounding and time - and of my being blissfully ignorant to the fact that I could borrow from the account during a tough period in 2008.

But this is also the part that gets lost in most money conversations: People don't usually get into trouble because they don't care about their finances. In fact, younger investors are entering the market earlier than ever. One out of three 25-year-olds had already started investing in 2024, six times the proportion among that age cohort that had done so in the 2010s, according to JPMorgan Chase data. That same research shows that overall investing activity - beginning with the act of shifting money from checking accounts to brokerage accounts - is around the highest level since the pandemic, when idle hands and stimulus checks (plus message-board hype) fueled parabolic surges in stocks such as videogame retailer GameStop $(GME)$ and movie chain AMC Entertainment $(AMC)$.

Those new investors are often guided by social media, where bravado spreads faster than accurate information, according to surveys from the Financial Industry Regulatory Authority, Wall Street's self-regulatory body.

People end up in trouble because they're surrounded by noise; advice that sounds convincing right up to the point where it starts to cost you real dollars; and, yes, lies. The boring and soft-spoken, but effective, tenets of earning money, stacking it and growing it fall to the wayside.

And that advice that I received to get my 401(k) up and running on Day 1 of my first job is one of those gems that looks ... meh ... but turns out to be a whole lot smarter in hindsight.

That's precisely why we're launching Don't Short Yourself, a weekly newsletter built to meet people in that moment, not with hype, jargon or lectures, but with facts, empathy and institutional knowledge.

Subscribe to Don't Short Yourself for free here to receive it weekly - beginning on Jan. 27. And here's a sneak peek at what the new newsletter will look like.

For nearly three decades, MarketWatch has been fixated on helping people understand how markets affect their money.

Each week in Don't Short Yourself we'll zero in on a few big money ideas that actually matter, cut through the myths and hype swirling around on social media, and offer clear and actionable guidance about what to do, what to avoid and what's not worth stressing out over.

This isn't about turning you into the next Warren Buffett. It's about helping you make fewer dumb, expensive money mistakes. It's about building habits that quietly compound while you're busy ... sleeping, doing yoga, hustling.

Because the biggest financial edge most folks will ever have isn't the financial savvy of Morgan Housel or the access and influence of Jimmy Donaldson, aka MrBeast.

It's starting early, staying committed and then having the discipline to get out of your own way.

So, you bring the questions, curiosity and energy and every week, and we'll try to make sure that you don't short yourself.

-Mark DeCambre

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January 08, 2026 09:25 ET (14:25 GMT)

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