After School Choirs Are Not Chores

When your teacher sends you home with a permission slip for after school choir, don't freak out about already having too many chores to do as my nine year old did. Just relax and spell it out.

Dress Like an Adult

Don't start your life with a wardrobe of t-shirts, baggy jeans, mini-skirts, and tank-tops. The best clothes you can buy are ones that stick to classic standards. For men, that might mean dockers and golf-style polo shirts. For women, don't wear anything skin tight or that shows too much flesh.

Get a Good Career

Don't shoot for the same career everyone else is. Computer jobs are super competitive. Every nerdy gamer in the country wants one. Firefighter jobs are nearly impossible to get. You'd have to start taking fire science classes in middle school and volunteer firefighting from your teens on.

Good jobs that pay decent money and are easy to get are Real Estate Brokers, Police Officers, Semi-Truck drivers, and Health Care workers.

Don't ever work a job in retail, manufacturing, or food service. It's a death sentence.

Buy a House

The most important thing you can do for yourself is to buy a house. Buy a house as early in your life as you can. If the banks would let you buy a house as a child, I'd recommend that.

It's easy enough to buy a house. Don't get an agent. Find a house on government or bank repo sites. Realtybid.com and tenmanagement.com are great sources. Buy a house that doesn't require very much work but is undervalued because of bad paint jobs, floors, or landscaping. The most work will come if you have to replace the walls. The most money if you have to replace the roof or foundation.

Get pre-approved at the bank before you start looking for a house. Use a huge bank like Chase or Bank of America.

Get a Dog

Dogs are expensive, make a mess in your house, require constant attention, and tie you down so you can't go on vacations or roadtrips. But, the flipside is, they will force you to buy your own house cause it's hard and expensive to rent a house when you have a dog. They will help you maintain quality relationships with your friends. And they will teach you responsibility. People with dogs achieve their goals faster.

Don't Just Go to College - Finish It

College is easy enough to get into, but, really hard to finish. Not finishing college is like dropping a bomb on your life. As if life wasn't hard enough, try getting through it owing student loans you can't pay off cause you don't have a degree.

Stay Out of Jail

The worst part of going to jail is getting out. Every time you try to get a job you want, your criminal record will put a stop on it. And decent jobs are hard enough to find as it is.