3 Money Rules Every Young Person Should Know

I Was a Millionaire by 26: 3 Money Rules Every Young Person Should Know

Laura Bogart  Sat, October 11, 2025  GOBankingRates

 It isn’t easy being in your 20s. Apart from all the challenges of emerging into adulthood, like figuring out your values and creating meaningful relationships, you’ve also got to build the scaffolding for your future — especially when it comes to your finances. You want to build real wealth, but you don’t have much experience managing money. What do you do?

As part of GOBankingRates’ Top 100 Money Experts series, we asked Ryan Scribner, a personal finance expert and YouTube personality who became a millionaire by age 26, to share his insights on how people can start building wealth in their 20s. His answer isn’t about flashy stock picks — it’s about building a foundation of financial knowledge that pays off over time.

He distilled that guidance into three simple rules to help 20-somethings get started.

1. Use Your Free Time To Learn About Finance

When Scribner was in his early 20s, he says he was “obsessed with learning about building wealth.” Emphasis on learning. Even if you don’t have much money to start investing, you have one resource in abundance: time. So use it wisely.

He invested in himself, spending hours studying real estate and private equity — knowledge that would serve him well later in life. He suggests other twentysomethings take advantage of free resources such as their local library to study topics like investing and retirement savings.

“As a young person, you probably have a lot of time on your hands but maybe not a lot of money,” he said. “However, a lot of young people make the mistake of focusing too much on trying to invest the small amount they might have right now. The way I think about it is, you can invest your time or your money — sometimes both.”

Building knowledge now helps you make better decisions with your money once your income grows.

2. Understand That Big Risks Don’t Always Equal Big Rewards

One common misconception Scribner sees among other young people is the idea that taking huge risks is the only way to get huge returns.

TO READ MORE:   https://www.yahoo.com/finance/news/millionaire-26-3-money-rules-133638119.html