I agree. Financial advice for someone in their twenties should probably start with getting them to think about the above questions in some detail. Once you have answers to the above, your financial choices become significantly more obvious.
These are a few things someone could think through in an afternoon. Perhaps too much of the self help and motivational encouragement people receive is to blindly press forward without thinking.
No one thinks twice about checking the map/GPS to make sure that the road they are driving on actually goes where they intend to end up. Yet, many will work hard and pay loans for years without minutes or a couple of hours of upfront critical thinking and very basic grade school math.
