I’m not saying that you should try to follow their path, as they’d certainly be considered outliers in the financial world. Instead, we can learn about their way of thinking, and apply it on a smaller scale in our own lives.

Here is what Forbes found out about the 657 self-made billionaires they studied:

• Many had parents with a high aptitude for math
• The most common professions are engineers, accountants, and small-business owners
• Nearly 2% worked at Goldman Sachs early in their career.
• 20% never completed college
• Those who made their money in finance are the most educated – 55% have graduate degrees, and 90% of MBAs got their masters from Harvard, Columbia, of University of Penn’s Wharton School of Business
• Several suffered “bitter professional setbacks” early in their careers, but consider them valuable learning experiences

There were a few other commonalities, but they’re too specific to really be applicable (unless you’re considering working at Goldman Sachs or joining a secret society like Skull and Bones).

Here’s what I’ll try to apply in my own life:

Education is key

Even though 20% didn’t finish college, they all know the value of a good education. Getting a degree is still the best ticket we have towards a lifetime of higher income – and job mobility. The skills we learn in college and on the job can be applied towards finance and entrepreneurship, and vice-versa.

Another takeaway is that a strong understanding of finance and economics is critical for success, regardless of what your career is.

It’s important to do your own thing

Many of these people left a successful career (or dropped out of college) to go into business for themselves. Even if you don’t start a business full time, there are always things you can do to supplement your income as well as broaden your horizons.

You learn more from your failures than your successes

The lessons you learn from mistakes and failures will stick with you more than any success. That’s why billionaires consider early failures something that helped them in the long run.

Failure early on is necessary condition for success, though not a sufficient one.

- Pharmaceutical tycoon R.J. Kirk

If you’re a Twenty-something consider yourself very lucky.

You’re probably healthy, super educated (only about 26 percent of Americans have a bachelor’s degree), full of energy, have a full set of teeth, and have very few, real-world commitments.

You’ve probably just started to think about how to go about “living” in the world, but have continued with the same day-to-day / task oriented existence that you’ve operated under since kindergarten, as opposed to an existence  focused on goal setting and planning.

If, however, you are that rare twenty-something who can plan ahead and set specific goals, you may have already started to figure out how you can truly enjoy a high quality of life over the long term.

What I’m advocating is that twenty-somethings begin setting life goals as quickly as possible so they can optimize living life, and avoid the nasty parts associated with being an average American consumer (namely, materialism, debt, living in the moment, etc…).

The three primary goals to focus on are simple and they include money, happiness, and family, but the associated questions that come with setting the goals are hard to answer.

However, the quicker you arrive at goal setting via answering the questions below the better equipped you’ll be at figuring out how to start running your life!

I’m not going to answer the questions for you, but instead pose the right questions so you can begin figuring out how to answer, and in turn, begin setting the right direction in your life!  Good luck!

Money Goals

What do you want money to do for you?

Do you want to earn money so you can purchase stuff (such as a car, flat screen TV, clothes, etc…), or do you want to earn money so you can make money work for you (in the form of an investment such as the purchase of stock or a CD)?

Would you feel better about saving 10 percent of your salary or 70 percent?  Do you see money as a means of security or as a vehicle to help you acquire things? Do you want to earn more to secure debt?

How do you want to earn your money; that is, by working for someone else or by starting your own company?  Do you get excited when you think or talk about money or does money make you feel uneasy?

Happiness Goals

What makes you happy each and every day?

Do you like to make things, sell things, talk about things, research things, teach other people about things, etc…? Can you see yourself doing the same type of job every day or do you require new challenges?

Do you crave being around people so you can get things done or are you most happy as an introvert? Can you point to a few, consistent, things in your life that have made you happy?

Is your personality consistent or does it change with the weather?  Do your family members all feel happy about the same sort of things?

Family Goals

How important are your father and mother to you?  How important are your brothers and sisters to you?  Do you enjoy spending time with your family or did your family life end when you moved away from home at the age of 18?

Do you desire to start a family and produce children?  Do you require constant companionship?  Do you crave isolation so you can work, read, play video games, play music, etc.?

About the author: When Vince isn’t asking questions, he is the author of Scordo.com, a blog focusing on practical life tips, saving money, how-to’s, and the occasional recipe. He created the site to share his life experiences with managing money, a home, and a life. To read more of his posts, click here to subscribe to his blog.

I saw an article on Get Rich Slowly titled The Best $20 You’ll Ever Spend. It was a guest post from Ramit Sethi, extolling the value of talking to people you admire.

He suggested reaching out to people you look up to – especially entrepreneurs – and offering to take them to lunch. The insight you’d gain from a conversation would more than make up for the $20 you’d spend on lunch.

I took it to heart.

At the time, I was just starting this site, and was in need of a break. Get Rich Slowly was my favorite site, so I sent J.D. an email and offered him a $20 gift card in exchange for answering 20 questions.

The result? J.D. said no to the gift card, but was kind enough to answer any 20 questions that I wanted.

The interview helped me make an impression in the personal finance blogosphere, and was the first thing I did that really stood out. More importantly though, the lessons I learned were priceless, and have already had an impact on my life and finances.

Encouraged by how the first interview went, I reached out to another one of my favorite writers: Ramit Sethi of I Will Teach You To Be Rich. To tell the truth, I didn’t expect a response.

Sure enough, Ramit replied, and offered to do a telephone interview with me. Of course, he politely declined my gift card.

As a result of a simple email, I got 20 minutes to ask Ramit anything I wanted.

I know that Ramit is a polarizing figure in the personal finance world. Some people are offended by his tone, style, or approach to personal finance. But even if you don’t like him, I still think you should read this interview.

Like him or hate him, you have to admit that he’s very good at what he does. As of today, he is Amazon’s #1 selling author. He kicked Twilight off the top spot - an amazing feat in itself.

Here is the complete transcript of my interview with Ramit. We talked about entrepreneurship, goals, marketing, lessons learned, and starting a business (among other topics).

Make sure you read through to the end! It’s long, but I promise it will be worth it (that’s what she said… sorry, I couldn’t help myself).

PYF: First, I just wanted to say thank you very much for taking the time to talk with me. I sincerely appreciate it.

Ramit: Sure

PYF: To start off, what would you say you do for a living?

Ramit: I run a business teaching people about personal finance and entrepreneurship.

PYF: Would you say that helping people is one of your biggest passions?

Ramit: Yeah, I think for me the pattern has been learning something, trying to learn it really well, and then trying to take what I’ve learned and distill it down so that other people can understand it, and trying to basically motivate people to change attitudes on “I Will Teach You To Be Rich”.

PYF: What are some of the other sites you run?

Ramit: I’ve got another blog that’s a comedy blog that I started in college. I haven’t updated that in a while. Primarily it’s iwillteachyoutoberich.com, and there are couple other sites that I run like for example, ScroogeStrategy.com. That’s a premium savings program that I run, and it all falls under the umbrella of I Will Teach You To Be Rich.

PYF: With owning multiple websites, do you feel its important to diversify your businesses just like you would your investment portfolio?

Ramit: I do. That’s a great question. Yes. I think if your livelihood is dependent on a single website – it really depends if you’re talking about a website with multiple people in the company – then you probably want to invest all your time into making that product as great as it can be.

At the same time there’s another type of approach which is having a portfolio of different websites, and I think that what’s important is a couple things. One, the first and most important thing is figuring out what people want.

For example, I launched something in November called the “Save $1000 in thirty days challenge”, and basically it was about a tip a day. It sounds like maybe you read some of those tips. What I found was that people really liked those kind of tactical tips.

So ok, number one – do people like that kind of stuff? Number two, do I want to create something premium, to drive some revenue and help more people? Ok, do I put that on I Will Teach You To Be Rich or do I make that a completely separate site?

And I decided to make that a separate site because by making a separate site it allows you to do two different things. The brand can be a little different. You can optimize the actual web page itself a little differently.

And third, you know, it’s nice to have a portfolio of sites just in case something ever happens to one. You want to make sure you’re diversified a little bit. At least for me.

So I think the approach there is #1 – the customer validation page. #2 – creating an infrastructure that let’s you quickly create other sites. And then #3 – really optimize each of those sites.

PYF: To build on that question a bit, I know you were talking about your Scrooge Strategy Tips. I’m a fan of those already – just with the first tip I saved enough to pay for a few months of the subscription – so to me, that’s a good investment. But I noticed that some people had a pretty negative response to that. Why do you think that is, and did it surprise you?

Ramit: It does and does not. I think that if you look at personal finance blogs, there are a lot of different types. There are personal finance blogs that are focused on frugality. Mine tends to focused more entrepreneurship and earning more.

What you find is that on my site, you look at the comments when I announced it, it’s actually very positive. I was surprised. I was actually pleasantly surprised by how positive the response was.

And part of the reason for that is that I have been urging my readers to understand that you have to pay for value. It doesn’t make sense to try to out-frugal your way to being rich. And it’s possible to save and scrimp and pinch every penny, but for my readers, that’s not what they want to do.

My readers are a very different audience than other blogs, and on some other sites, you find people that really were offended by the idea that I would charge for content. And some of the comments were “you can get that anywhere, or “who does Ramit think he is to charge people?”.

And that’s fine, it doesn’t offend me at all. It just means it’s a different type of audience, and that person probably isn’t a good fit for the Scrooge Strategy.

As you said, you paid for Scrooge Strategy with one tip, and you paid for months of it. That’s the kind of person I’m exactly looking for. Someone who understands that sometimes, to make money, you have to spend money.

PYF: To me, that’s a good return on investment.

Ramit: Exactly. ROI. Which is very different than basically trying to constantly cut things out of your life by being frugal.

I think frugality can be good, but as you saw with the thirty day challenge, when I define saving, I define it with the CEO model, which is cut cost, earn more, or optimize spending.

I think a lot of times people think being frugal is just about cutting costs, and to me, that’s kind of like cutting down on your eating. It lasts for about five days, and then the vast majority of people will go back to what they’re doing. I’d rather add in earning more and optimizing your spending.

PYF: Yeah it makes sense, I like that. It helps you keep your lifestyle.

Ramit: There you go. It’s about lifestyle and it’s about sustainability.

PYF: What was your goal when you first started I Will Teach You To Be Rich?

Ramit: When I started it, I had actually created a one-hour curriculum called “I Will Teach You To Be Rich”, and I was trying to teach my friends in college, and I thought “Stanford students – very smart, they’ll be very interested”.

And in fact, everyone said “wow that sounds really good”, and then they would never show up for my talks, which were free by the way. I just wanted to see if I could help people understand what I had learned over the past few years.

So I got very frustrated and it took me about a year and a half to realize that it wasn’t working. No one was coming to the talks, and there had to be a better way.

So at that time I had been doing some comedy writing, and I decided to start a blog and make it something cheap, and really make it like you and I are sitting here talking across the coffee table, just real casual and real. Stuff that you and I would say to each other, but we may not necessarily say in public.

So I did that, and I wrote it, and for the first six months if you look at it, there’s virtually no comments on those posts. Nobody really read it. But I spent a few hours a day spreading the word about it.

My goal was basically just to get people to read it and understand that money is not this really complicated thing. In fact, there’s really a lot of BS, and just a few simple principles in getting started.

And it turned out, surprisingly, that the blog actually performed a lot better than speaking in public. Here’s why. I finally figured out two or three years later.

When it comes to money, people don’t like to go to events. Because if they go to an event, whether you’re in college, or when you’re forty and it’s put on by your employer, that is admitting that you don’t know about money. Which in our culture, everyone should know about money.

How? That’s kind of unclear, because no one ever really teaches us about it. But it’s embarrassing to admit that you don’t know what a 401K is.

So people don’t actually go to those events. It’s very difficult. This is well documented in the personal finance literature. So instead, if you start a blog, or something else, people are much more comfortable going to that when they can do it from the comfort of their home.

PYF: When you were just starting I Will Teach You To Be Rich, what did you to do attract visitors and establish credibility with your readers?

Ramit: The first thing I did was I wrote what I thought was really good content. I spent a lot of time writing each of those tips. In fact, if you go back and look at the first tips, they’re really detailed, and that eventually attracted a lot of attention.

The second thing I did was, they say if you want to do something, “build it and they will come”. But that’s not really true. Build it, make sure it’s really good, and tell the right people about it.

So there were about 12 really big personal finance blogs back then, and I made friends with them. I tried to help and add value to them, I commented on their blogs, I pointed them at pieces of research they may not have seen, and I showed them some stuff I had written that I thought would be interesting to their readers.

That helped a lot, because just a few links from those blogs really drove some traffic, and got some targeted people who really cared about the stuff.

A few other strategies I used were reaching out to journalists, as well as reaching out to my own friends in college. And eventually – there was no magic secret – eventually people starting coming and they started telling other people about it.

PYF: What is the best thing that you did to help it grow – could to point to any one thing and say “this really really helped”?

Ramit: It’s not a silver bullet, unfortunately, as people wish. It’s just spending a lot of time writing. Everyone says it, and it sounds simple, but actually doing it is very difficult.

PYF: What was the hardest thing you had to overcome when you were starting out?

Ramit: I think just getting in the rhythm of writing regularly. You know, again, I think there’s a blog post I wrote called “I hate it when bloggers look at their stats” or, and there’s a tendency to want to do all kinds of fancy SEO techniques, and Word Press plugins, and optimization and adsense. Those are nice packets, but really people don’t understand the strategy on that as much.

For example, my blog looked like a piece of crap for two years. It was one page, there were no archives because I didn’t know how to do that. It was like one megabyte each time you opened it up, and I had just used some free template. But it was driving thousands of readers per day. Why? Because you can always fix stuff with the design of the blog later.

I have some friends who write some very influential blogs in Silicon Valley, and their blogs are like most of our blogs. But yet they have some of the best readers that you could imagine for silicon valley, because their content is really good. So my biggest challenge there was getting in the regularity of writing good stuff on a daily basis.

PYF: Okay, so I’m going to switch topics a little bit, and kind of talk about goals and motivation. What’s your ultimate goal? What drives you in life? What do you want out of self employment, out of personal finance, and out of money?

Ramit: I think that’s a good question. I set up some goals on my site about two years ago, and I said “what does rich mean to you?” And for me, it was being able to work with smart people, being able to help people reach their own goals, being able to help my parents out financially, being able to travel whenever I wanted, things like that.

And to me, rich really means being able to be flexible enough to work on what I want to work on, and that pretty much encompasses a lot, which explains why for example, the Scrooge Strategy is a great way to help me reach those goals.

I write these tips once a week, and whether there’s 5 members, or a 1000 members, I’m going to write the tip. It’s a great way to help people in a measurable way to reach their goals and also help me reach my goals. So it’s a win-win for everybody.

And for me, to tell you the truth, the most motivational thing I get out of it is not adding a new revenue source, or something like that. It’s doing a survey where I ask my readers hey how much did you save last month by following the Scrooge, or what money attitude behaviors have you changed since I Will Teach You to Be Rich?

And I will get back 600 survey responses, saying “two years ago I was in $25,000 of debt, now I have $6000 in debt” or “I helped my parents set up their retirement account and I had never done it before.”

Just hundreds of those comments. That’s the kind of stuff where you say “Wow, this stuff is actually working, it’s not just me writing into the abyss. People are actually taking it seriously.” That’s very motivational.

PYF: So it all kind of comes back wanting to help people?

Ramit: Yeah, exactly. You look at personal finance, and it’s like you telling me “hey fix your car, the carburetor’s broken”, or something like that. How would I even get started? It is so inscrutable and complicated to me. And for a lot of people, that’s how personal finance is.

You say “Hey, you got to manage your money”, and instantly, these words are floating around like a constellation of things we should do: 401K, Roth IRA, asset allocation, savings account, interest rate.

You don’t even know where to get started. And for me, it was intellectually exciting to be able to create a framework that says “Hey, it’s not actually that complicated, and actually you don’t need to pay someone to do this for you. You can actually do it yourself.”

And that’s why I wanted to do that. And that’s why I started writing the bookas well, the “I Will Teach You To Be Rich” book.

PYF: That comes out in March or April, is it?

Ramit: That’s right. It comes out in April, and I’m really excited about that. With the blog, it’s fun, because I can write about anything when I wake up.

Like yesterday, I wrote about finalists that I announced for my scholarship. Today I may write about asset allocation. That’s good for blog readers who have been with me for the long term. They can understand who I am, and what my attitudes are. But if you come on a random day, you may just want to get started.

So the book took me two years to write, because I wanted to make it really good. My goal is that you pick up this book, anyone at any level, and someone in their twenties or thirties, and they will basically say “Wow. After reading this book, and after doing the stuff he tells me for six weeks, my finances are virtually on autopilot, and now I know exactly what I need to do to get to my goals.”

Rather than having like a billion choices, this pretty much makes it very simple. Like optimize your savings account. Set up your credit card. And you make it all automated and work together to set up your budget. Very simple.

PYF: So simplifying things to keep people from getting overwhelmed?

Ramit: That’s exactly right.

PYF: Sorry, I’m running a little long, I just have two last questions if you don’t mind. So they say you learn more from your mistakes than your successes. What mistake have you learned the most from?

Ramit: That’s a good question. I think that there’s a constant mistake of assuming rationality. Assuming that because this is so important, people will care. Right?

Money touches us every day of our lives. So you would think, people should care about it. But should is the “S” word. Just because you should care about something doesn’t mean you do it.

I think it’s been a constant learning process for me to have to figure out just because this is important, it doesn’t mean people will automatically do it. In fact, you have to set up ways for money saving and money earning to be more automatic, rather than consciously forcing people to do it all the time.

So I think again, the mistake that I’ve made has been rationality sometimes, thinking “Guys it’s so obvious! You’re making 8% in the market, your loan is 2%.” Well, you should just pay off the loan.

Well that’s not how some people work. They just feel really uncomfortable with debt. And they want to pay it off no matter what the financial numbers say. So I think it’s important to understand both the rational side, the logical side, but also the psychology of money.

PYF: Okay. Last question. If you could go back fiveyears in time and give yourself any piece of advice, what would you do differently?

Ramit: That’s a great question. I would start an email list much earlier. Much much much earlier I wish I had done that.

PYF: What do you mean an email list?

Ramit: Well I’ve done an email list of people who subscribe to my newsletter and I wish that I had done that earlier, and I wish that I had been more engaged with that email list earlier.

PYF: That’s a good idea. Keeps the following going, and builds it more quickly. Makes them more loyal.

Ramit: That’s right.

PYF: All right, that’s all the questions I have. I just want to say thanks again, I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this.

Ramit: My pleasure.

• I’m thankful to have married the woman I love
• I’m thankful to be employed at all right now, let alone in a job I like that helps me grow
• I’m thankful for my health, and the health of my family and friends.
• I’m thankful that even though I got in a car wreck, no one was hurt (except my dignity), and the damage wasn’t too bad
• I’m thankful for the second chances I’ve been given.  I won’t waste them.
• I’m thankful to have four great dogs, and two awesome cats.  My animals bring me so much joy.

I know it may sound a bit cheesy, but it helps me focus on what’s really important in life.  It’s too easy to get wrapped up in material things that don’t matter.

My wife and I took a different approach to Christmas this year.  In years past, we set a limit on gifts for each other, and then we would inevitably exhaust the entire amount.  Instead of trying to find the perfect gift (regardless of cost), we spent it all out of fear that the other would spend more.

This year, instead of setting even a small limit, we made a donation to charity – something neither of us had done before.

We’re animal enthusiasts (now 4 dogs, 2 cats), so we decided to make a donation to the local branch of the Humane Society.  On Christmas eve, we walked in and surprised the receptionist by asking to make a donation.  She was caught off guard, but very appreciative.

They gave us a receipt to use on our taxes (which will help us get back between 25%-33% of the donation), but that’s not the reason we did it.

We knew they were in need, and wanted to help.  They’re so stretched that they may have to start putting down healthy animals just because they’re overcrowded.

This was hard for us to stomach.  All our dogs came from the Humane Society, and they have been wonderful additions to our home.  The amount of happiness, joy, and entertainment they bring to our lives is unbelievable.  We couldn’t stand the thought that other dogs may not get a chance simply because the shelter is out of room.

So after we made a donation, we took a look at the dogs.  They showed us puppies first, but we asked to see the older dogs.  Its easy for puppies to get adopted, but much harder for the older ones.

They walked us past a row of dogs, all clamoring for attention.  One stuck out in particular.  It was a beautiful Akita that was trying to use its nose to open its cage.  I was struck by his intelligence, and within a few minutes, we were filling out the adoption papers.

We took him home a week later, and he immediately fit in with our other animals.

I’m not writing this because I want a pat on the back.  Instead, I’m trying to motivate others to make a difference.

For too long, my wife and I said “we’ll help animals someday”.  We never bothered to make a plan, or define when the mysterious “someday” was.  We kept putting up barriers.  We said we’d do it after our finances calm down.  Once we have more time to volunteer.  After our debt is paid off.

After a while, I got tired of excuses.  I realized that if I have enough money to eat out and buy booze every week, then I have enough money to help a good cause.

Even our small contribution was enough to have an immediate impact.  Due to their lack of funding, the Humane Society can’t spay/neuter every dog that comes in.  The money we donated will pay for another dog to be fixed, which will allow it to be taken to “adoption days” held at area malls and stores (greatly increasing its chances of adoption).

And by adopting a dog, we actually help out two animals.  First, the dog we took home will be spoiled beyond belief.  Also, we freed up room for another dog at the shelter.  It means one more dog will have a chance at finding a loving home.

So please, make an effort to help out a cause you care about.  Charities need more help when times are tough, and we all have an obligation to help those that are less fortunate than us, especially if they can’t help themselves.

1. Take out more loans than you need

If people are willing to give you money, you should take it!  You’ve got your whole life to pay off loans, so it only makes sense to borrow now.  Don’t worry about how you’re going to make payments after you’ve graduated and are looking for a job.

If you can get loans, you should borrow as much money as you can.  After all, you’re going to college to have fun!  If you’re not eligible for loans, you can always… 

2. Sign up for credit cards without reading the fine print, and use them to party

Colleges wouldn’t allow credit card marketers on campus unless they were a good idea.  If you see one, sign up!  Don’t worry about the fine print – just make sure you get a cool prize for it.  Just like loans, you should sign up for as many as you can!  Sure, opening too many in a short time could hurt your credit, but you’ve got your whole life ahead of you to build it back up.

Once you have credit cards, make sure to use them to finance your partying.  Just because you’re short on cash doesn’t mean you should have to cut back on your lifestyle.

3. Don’t worry about building job experience

Potential employers will only look at the school you attended, your major, and the grades you got.  They don’t care about real-life experience you’ve built through jobs or projects.  After all, no one has experience when they graduate, so it’ll be a level playing field.  The entry level job market is not competitive.

4. Don’t engage in any extra-curricular or unpaid activities

If employers don’t care about the paid work you’ve done, they certainly won’t care about the non-paid experience you have.  It won’t show a sense or purpose or dedication – it will just show that you’re a sucker.  Why else would you work for free?

5. Don’t waste your money in a Roth IRA

You don’t have a real job, and you may not even be old enough to drink yet.  Why do you need to worry about retirement?  There’s no advantage to starting early.  The money is better spent on alcohol or CDs or movies.

6. Don’t attend job fairs and recruiting events

Let’s face it – job fairs and recruiting events are boring, especially if you’re not about to graduate.  Don’t waste your time with these.  Learning about employers and their needs won’t help you, and neither will the networking.

7. Do insist on staying on campus or in dorms, regardless of the cost

Don’t even consider staying at home while in college!  There is plenty of cheap, high quality housing available on campuses.  Sure, you may save a lot by living at home, but you’ll miss out on some great parties.

8. Make sure you don’t attend public or state universities

Private and prestigious schools are the only way to go.  If you don’t attend the best schools, employers won’t even look at your resume.  Expensive colleges always offer a better deal for the money.

9. Don’t bother doing research before choosing a major

When choosing a major, you should only consider what sounds the most appealing to you.  Don’t do any research about what kind of jobs you can expect in that field.  Just make sure your classes are fun!

10. Don’t get involved in any entrepreneurial projects

Most college start ups fail, and there’s nothing to learn from failures.  You’re better off not wasting the time.  It won’t help you network, build business skills, or impress future employers.

11. Don’t worry about your online reputation

Employers will respect your privacy, and won’t do any research about you online during the interview process.  So don’t worry about those embarrassing pics on Facebook…they won’t find them, and even if they do, I bet they’ll appreciate a sense of humor in applicants.

12. Don’t worry about a career until you’re getting ready to graduate

There is no need to start building a career until after you graduate.  After all, that’s when the job search begins.  Don’t worry about a co-op or an internship.  No one does them, and they’ll cut into your summers or the college experience.

These are the warnings I wish I could go back and give myself on the first day of college.  Unfortunately, I made most of these mistakes.  I racked up credit card debt and wasted loan money by staying on campus and partying.  I didn’t have enough job experience when I graduated because I never bothered to look for an internship or co-op.  The fact that I have a well paying job is due more to luck than anything.

I’m happy with my job now, but I wasted my college years financially.  I didn’t start a Roth IRA, which would have allowed me to take advantage of compound interest.  I racked up credit card debt, which forced me to spend two years paying it off when I could have been saving or investing.

With money, time is your biggest ally.  Don’t waste your precious early years for the sake of having fun.

Most people reading this have heard of his site, but in case you haven’t, Get Rich Slowly is a blog that preaches sensible personal finance.  Its message is that given enough time, anyone can get rich by living within their means.  It’s one of the most popular finance sites, and was even been named “most inspirational money blog” by Money Magazine.

He has had a huge influence on me, both financially and personally.  Not only has he helped shaped my outlook on money, but he’s also been a personal inspiration.  By working hard at something he enjoys, he is able to make a living from writing – a passion of mine as well.

I’ve been a reader for a while, and wrote him after reading a guest post on the site.  The idea of the post is that you can learn a lot from successful entrepreneurs.  The author suggested taking one out to lunch so you can gain invaluable insight from them.  J.D. ended the post by saying:

If you have the guts to ask, the rewards can be enormous

I took it to heart.  I wrote him an email and offered him a gift card in exchange for answering 20 questions (we live in different states, so lunch is not an option).  Sure enough, J.D. practices what he preaches.  Within a day, he had gladly offered to help, and even declined the gift card.

I took a long time to think about it, and came up with 20 questions that focus on starting a website/business, entrepreneurship, achieving goals, the economy, and lessons that he’s learned over the years.  Without further ado, here are 20 questions with one of the most influential bloggers on the net.

Starting a website/business

1. Why did you start Get Rich Slowly?

I started Get Rich Slowly because I was learning about personal finance, digging my way out of debt, and thought it might be interesting to share the things I was learning with other people.  When I wrote about these things on my personal blog, they generated a big response, so I decided to do a spin-off blog.