* Forego apartments and scour craigslist for cheap rooms in shared housing. This will cut rent by 2/3. Look in less desirable (not dangerous, just not primo)

* Forego apartments and scour craigslist for cheap rooms in shared housing. This will cut rent by 2/3. Look in less desirable (not dangerous, just not primo) neighborhoods, though sometimes deals can be found in primo locales too. Don't buy a house until you need one; some claim it's an investment, but really they're just money pits. * Don't spend more than about 8K on a car. Drive it till it dies. (I drove a $2140 15 year old Saturn without AC or working windows for 7 years). * Learn how to save money while still in college. * Read "The Idiot's Guide to Getting Rich". Ridiculous title, but plenty of sound advice throughout the book. * Use Excel or C to figure out what your savings will be by age N if you save X/mo with whatever inflation/investment rate. You're a programmer so this should be straightforward. * Take those results and save X/mo. Stick it into an index fund with automatic reinvestment. Set it up to withdraw X/mo from your bank account every month. This last part is probably the most important part! It forces you to live like your salary is $Salary-X, and eventually you just come to accept that. * Monitor those numbers and watch it go up. Discover you prefer doing that to buying things. Increase X. * Travel! Okay this is odd advice. But when you take time off work to travel a bit you really learn how to stretch every penny. I spent three years overseas sometimes working odd jobs and it was worth every second. * Don't incur "bad" debt (duh), and pay high interest rates off ASAP. Low interest rates 3% or so you don't have to worry about so much. * Don't play the lottery. Don't expect that there's a "trick" to building wealth. It's just a long arduous boring process of living below your means. * Read "The Idiot's Guide to Getting Rich". Ridiculous title, but plenty of sound advice throughout the book. Yes I said it twice.