EDITOR’S NOTE: This post is adapted from the Forbes eBook, The Millennial Game Plan: Career And Money Secrets To Succeed In Today’s World, by Laura Shin. If you’d like to learn more about how exactly to budget, invest and negotiate your salary and raises, the title is available now for download at Apple and Amazon.  A year and a week ago, I began contributing to the Forbes personal finance channel. Today, my first book, an eBook published by Forbes, comes out. The topic is career and money secrets for success, which may seem like typical Forbes fodder, but for me writing a book on this topic signifies a personal redemption.  While I’m in a happy place today professionally and financially, I spent a long time from my mid-20s to my mid-30s in professional purgatory and had one disastrous affair with debt. That didn’t stop me from falling into debt a second time, but then, I became so panicked, I changed my money habits for good.  It sounds like I should be the last person to relay personal finance advice to the public, but my experience with the risks of not paying attention to one’s money makes it easy for me to explain how to get on track to others. And that’s part of what motivates me—helping people who are in that same dark place I used to be in, and keeping others from ending up there.  One of the most touching moments I’ve experienced as a journalist happened when a woman recognized me from an essay I wrote about paying down debt. She thanked me profusely and told me that it had changed her life and inspired her to get out of debt. In order to do so, she began meticulously tracking every dollar spent.  Hearing stories like this keeps me motivated to teach others simple ways to manage their money. For my book, I boiled down personal finance into the three most important guidelines you need to know.  Whether your money problem relates to debt, credit, retirement, saving, not making enough money or something else entirely, these principles should help you resolve your issues and start making headway toward your goals and building a stronger financial future.  Financial fitness, like physical fitness, is mostly about good habits. “You’re establishing habits and getting into a routine at an early age,” says Mary Beth Storjohann, certified financial planner and CEO and founder of Workable Wealth. “So as your income grows and your life gets more complicated as you get older, you’re already in the routine of setting money aside, tracking your spending, saving for retirement and you know how to shape and plan for goals.”  Here are three habits to adopt now for financial health:  1. Spend less than you earn.  This principle is at the core of all good financial management. It’s how rich people get rich. It’s how people who aren’t wealthy can achieve their life goals anyway, without scads of money to throw around. When you spend less than you earn, you save. And what you save becomes wealth.  “[This principle] is what makes people not worry about money, because they know they can pay their bills every month, and if an emergency comes up, they know they have enough in savings. People who spend more than they earn are going further and further into credit card debt or going into their overdraft, and that creates a ton of stress,” says Sophia Bera, certified financial planner and founder of Gen Y Planning.  This was key for me to climb out of debt, stay out of debt, build up my savings and achieve life goals like quitting my job to freelance, living in Italy for four months, moving to a new city and more.  No matter how wealthy or poor you start out as an adult, this is the secret to maintaining a life of freedom to pursue your goals. The wealthy, if they live beyond their means, lose their riches, and the poor, if they do the same, will never escape poverty. While the other two primary financial principles will make your life a lot easier, this one makes or breaks your life, period.  2. Invest as early as you can.
Drowning in financial advice? It doesn't have to be so complicated. Stick to these three simple guidelines, and you'll be set for life.